Monthly Archives: August 2013

#226 Tearing down silos

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In the modern workplace, silos will emerge when you or your co-workers get territorial about your role, your resources, or your department. Silos may provide you a feeling of control or calm your fears of becoming dispensable.

In reality, jobs are defined, departments, and hierarchies are set up for administrative convenience only. It improves coordination when duplication is reduced.

However, for many critical problems, it does not matter who solves the problem. A drop in revenue, or profit, a competitive threat, talent attrition, political turmoil, are examples of problems that are not the domain of a single department. Multiple perspectives are required to even understand the problem. Collaboration and partnerships are required to define and implement the solution.

To tear down the silos, the first step is to educate your co-workers about the nature of the problem that is being solved, and show that cross functional participation is required. If anyone shows initiative or interest to solve the problem, provide them the resources, but insist on a transparent governance model.

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#225 Poetry in the workplace

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In the corporate world, simple communication is better than eloquent communication. Actually, simple is better when you need to be clear, so it is relevant in a variety of communication situations even outside the corporate world.

You want to avoid being poetic in your communications. Poetry has great value in entertainment because it is open to multiple interpretations and is designed stoke emotions. If you are sad or heartbroken, you will feel deep empathy with the poet who has written about sadness. Taken to the extreme, using this style in the workplace results in flowery writing and speech.

Bad habits can creep into your communication if you watch too much crime shows and court room battles on TV. Meaning, drama and suspense is good for entertainment, bad for communication in work situations where you want to get things done.

Your audience will react with mild annoyance, or with outright impatience. If you are guilt, this can be a hard habit to break. Perhaps this is how you think. Perhaps you need writing lessons. Perhaps you need to get a job where you don’t have to deal with business critical situations.

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