Interesting reported story about a major oil company changing their culture — including breaking down silos.
A few years ago they recognised that they needed to change their cultural values and dysfunctional processes of internal communications, so they brought together a small team to first re-evaluate the values and then disseminate and implement the revised ones — including breaking down silos across departments so that there was a common focus on the end result to customers.
After agreeing the new values, they then went into respective organisational divisions and looked for “an Elvis”. That is they looked for champions that had charisma and to whom others listened. They then worked with those champions who acted as a “positive cancer” to spread the word and positive change in values throughout the organisation.
Silos can be defeated — whether via changes in cultural values or via rallying behind “innovation” as a common focus of the whole organisation to meet and exceed customer requirements in new and unexpected ways. Not always easy but it can be successful with management commitment and sound “people change” implementation plans.
The Added Value 