Silo busting

Silo busting is a very interesting thing.  Everyone knows that systems atrophy when they divide their work into silos.  Silos entrench difference and prevent learning across sectors whether we are talking about departments in an organization, or a social system like health care or child and family services.

Silos have limited usefulness.  They divide work into manageable chunks.  But in general they create reductionist responses to systemic problems and they pose a massive challenge to people working nfor change.  If we first have to bust the silos, and only then can we address the problems, how do we know we’ll have energy left for the real work?

So let’s be real.  Dr. Rob Anda, who I met this week in Seattle, had a great line when talking about reducing the effects of adverse childhood experiences.  “I don’t see silos as disappearing anytime soon, but if we work together in community from common information sources we can make change.”

Great line.  Forget about the silos.  Bring people together in communities of practice to learn about the information they need and that serves their common purpose, and then engage in the conversations that build network and community around learning about change and enacting solutions that make sense at the community level.  Bottom up silo busting.  Forget about the structural reforms first.  Do the work first and then institutionalize the solutions that work across sectors, disciplines and other silos.  Follow the Theory U process: concretize solutions following social prototyping.

And when the silos – the funders, the government agencies, the power brokers and decision makers – come looking for evidence and evaluation, use Developmental Evaluation to tell the story of what is going on across the system.