I have a fantasy of going to a public health conference and seeing every attendee wearing multiple badges . Each badge represents another organization or group to which the individual belongs. We human beings are complex and we love to join and belong to many different groups and organizations. With the advances in Internet access, the number of badges we have has grown exponentially. Each badge represents a silo. In SILOS, POLITICS AND TURF WARS, Lencioni(2006) describes silos as ideologically based places that create walls between us and them. Thus, barriers are created that make us work against those that represent other groups within our organization or barriers to groups and organizations external to a specified silo. Each of us also create barriers between the groups and organization to which we give our allegiances. We compartmentalize ourselves and create disconnects for ourselves. For example, we often create silos for our church, synagogue, or mosque and our workplace. As leaders, we need to create balance in our lives and also find ways to work across our personal silos as well as our groups and organizational silos(see Meta-Leadership 2.0 article for April 2009).
Each silo has a paradigm that defines the values and dimensions of the silo. In FUTURE EDGE( renamed PARADIGMS in the paperback edition), Barker (1992) defines the paradigm as a model with a given set of rules, regulations, and protocols that create the boundaries for our actions and a set of behaviors that guide our personal actions. The paradigm boundaries can expand or contract depending upon the ability of the model to maintain its integrity. Change puts pressure on the paradigm. If the changes no longer fit the model, then the paradigm needs to be revised or changed. Leaders test the boundaries of paradigms and become paradigm shifters or paradigm busters.
Silos have governing paradigms that guide the activities of members of the silo. Leaders within the silo or in another silo within the organization, or in other organizations outside the silo test the paradigms that define that silo. Change can come from many different sources that daily test the paradigms of our lives. Since silos can limit our ability to grow and create change, models are needed to help us address the impact of these silo identities on action. Lencioni presents one four component model for preventing the negative effects of these silos and paradigms within a perspective of shared leadership on a team. First, goal alignment becomes possible with a single and time-limited thematic goal. Second, a series of defining objectives are determined. Third a set of up to a half dozen standard operating procedures and objectives are defined. Measurements of success are then set up by the leadership team. As the goals are reached, the process begins again. If these steps are followed systematically, then silos become difficult to form and sustain. Paradigms are ever changing and are useful for guiding action, but they become ossified when they get tied to silos.
At the personal level, silos and paradigms need to be integrated into a comprehensive whole that helps guide the individual in all his or her life activities. This attempt to blend our paradigms creates a more unified approach to living our lives and to remove the walls between our personal silos. Whereas the metaleader recognizes the reality of silos and the need to work across these silos, the synergistic leader recognizes that silos and their governing paradigms create barriers to change that must be overcome if new approaches to collaboration and connectivity are to bring new comprehensive approaches that go beyond the existing paradigms at the organizational and systems levels. Change is a constant in our personal and organizational lives. The synergistic leader is oriented to change and constantly modifies our paradigms as new information enters our world. This leader also finds that the value of connection always delivers more than the initial inputs to the relationship.
Rowitz On Leadership 