Sunday, July 1, 2018

17 – Business World Insight

An Insight from the Business World
  
The following is a self-explanatory comment I sent recently (without the footnotes) to the moderator of  a Harvard Business Review webinar.  The purpose of publishing it is to underscore the fact that our problem (the topic of this blog) does not spare any human activity without manifesting itself in it and thus that any effective solution has to cut across all human activities, including businesses.  But as explained in footnote two below, the starting point of an effective solution must be the world basic education system.  (Reaching this inference was helped by the experience I gained by having been engaged in development-related endeavours for the better part of the past 40 years.)  (See footnote one of article #13 for the underlying reason for my reference to a “world” basic education system.)   

There is much talk about the “silo effect,” but I’m not sure if the pundits really understand its nature.**  

In my opinion, much of the factors underlying the formation and endurance of silos are the same as those dealt with on my blog www.rifatafeef.blogspot.com – the silo phenomenon is only an outcome and a subset of the broader problem of barriers to effective communication in the highly specialized and thus complex world in which we live and function today.  

The basic argument is as follows: i) humans make sense of the world based on the information they have in their brains; ii) on average, those knowledgeable of affairs in a given area would not know much about other areas; and as a result, iii) those in any given area would be hesitant to venture into other areas and thus would tend to cocoon themselves – people usually don’t venture into areas they don’t know about; they would also be apprehensive of being ridiculed for their shortcomings.  Naturally, rivalries, perceived self-interests, misperceptions, etc. etc., would also play a role in the silo effect, but their negative impacts would likely be minor compared to those arising from the basic problem of the lack of common ground and the resulting lack of meaningful communication and interaction. 

Given its importance, it would be worthwhile to systematically investigate the phenomenon instead of resorting to clichés to describe it and stop there.  I suggest that you share these thoughts with your editor colleagues and perhaps with HBS faculty – in addition to competent social psychologists who can enlighten on the topic;***  in fact, the essence of the problem is one of social psychology while its outcomes are manifest in the practical realms of human endeavour, like organizational settings. 
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PS:  You might want to refer to the June 13th webinar in which mention was made of the strategy of the Development Bank of Singapore to provide digital backgrounds to all its staff.  The measure was aimed at improving the bank’s functioning.  Although I don’t recall “silos” being mentioned in the webinar, that strategy would contribute to reduce, although not entirely eliminate, the silo effect – since there are other factors as well that contribute to the phenomenon; this is not to mention that a "digital background" is only one part of a common language, although a significant part nevertheless. (Any strategy for improving the functioning of an organization in a complex setting has to take measures to reduce the silo effect.) 

PPS:  Of the 16 pieces on the blog, I suggest you focus initially on articles #13 (World Basic Education System); #15 (in part an email to Professor Jared Diamond); and #16 (comment on NatGeo program Year Million).  [You’ll find more on my background at the end of the blog, under “About Me.”] 
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**  The “silo effect” is the tendency for departments of an organization to work in isolation and not actively cooperate with other departments – other than at a level they perceive to be minimally sufficient.  Growth and advancement will be hard to come by in such an organization, and the resulting cumulative impacts will ultimately lead to its demise, in the same way that any entity that cannot cope with the stresses it faces will cease to exist; see the first footnote of article #16 – corporations go bankrupt; species go extinct; nations disintegrate or are taken over by others stronger than them; and governments are kicked out of office or overthrown by dictatorships: different labels but equivalent outcomes.  And our problem cuts across all levels of human activities – individual, family, local community, national, international. 

***  Social psychologists, however, can only illuminate on the nature of the problem; they can’t solve it.  Although the silo effect arises from human behaviour, it is at the early stages of a child’s life that behaviours of our concern begin to take root (see paragraph two of the second part of article #15) and it is only a program as that outlined in article #13 that can effectively address the problem.  The program also focuses on people and not on settings; this is important, given that people carry around their core traits to multiple settings, and also since the ways in which they manifest can vary from setting to setting – for example, the same trait may give rise to different behaviours at home and at work.  Given these realities, it would be clear that solving our problem is beyond business organizations, although they could try to understand its nature to improve their functioning.  But articles #13 and #15 make it clear that world basic education can effectively address our problem – to the extent to which it is practically possible.  Meanwhile, business organizations can help: i) by raising awareness of the criticality of the problem; ii) by facilitating funding for getting the program implemented (see the second part of article #9 for the tentative process suggested); and, most importantly, iii) by urging those responsible for the formulation of world basic education policy to face their moral responsibility, since it is they who hold the key to the solution to our vexing problem and since the ramifications of the problem are chocking humanity while nothing is being done to rectify it – see the first part of article #15, and the above, for some aspects of this.  (See also footnote two of article #1, or “Introduction,” for the strategy envisioned for implementing the program – after it was published in March 2012, however, the nature of our problem had become clearer and more delineated, but this would not affect the suggested strategy, given that the essential concepts remain the same and it was only some expressions describing them that had changed.)