Future of Work = No More Silos!

In the future of work the only way forward is no more silos.

The biggest hindrance to creating the future of work today is silos!

Let’s face it that having departments and specific focus within departments has served the workplaces in the past. When work was highly specific and compartmentalized it served the industrial post farming work phase.

As we head into the future of work and create the future of work today silos are hindering the very outcome that businesses need and want which is innovation.

“The biggest opportunity for business right now is to increase cross department collaboration”

Silos are everywhere….

Everywhere we look what we are seeing is silos and those silos operate with a ‘protectionist’ culture. We see silos within organizations with departments and we can see silos in our systems such as healthcare, government, and education.

It’s time to ask better questions…

It’s time to be asking some very important questions about where we are now in regards to progress that serves people.

For example in education a question might be:

Are our current systems and policies in alignment with the shifting trends in how Gen Z’s want to learn?

A great question for healthcare leaders to ask could be:

Are we connecting with ALL stakeholders within the healthcare system to know ‘who is doing what’ and ‘how we can work together better’?

In government a question about government funded programs could be:

How do we measure the success of a government funded program that translates into real and sustainable change for the people the program is serving?

The future of work is going to be far more collaborative. Major stakeholders in diverse industries will be connecting in order to better serve people.

For example education and corporations need to build partner strategies with corporations. Together they need to identify the skills that workers need and then education helps to provide real time skills development solutions.

In many ways education is a silo where it has its own mandates and structures that have been protected. The risk for any industry or business in remaining siloed is irrelevance.

60% of Gen Z’s are foregoing college and university and choosing to explore options, work first, and to learn while trying. This is a massive trend impacting the future of post secondary schools.

In the K to 12 system many Gen Z kids struggle with the traditional classroom environment and are seeking new ways of learning.

Recently a keynote audience member told me that his daughter completed high school online because she could not cope with classroom style learning.

Within an organization we are still seeing IT department siloed, HR department siloed and even the executive leadership team is a silo.

In the future of work IT, HR and senior leadership strategy inform workers and are all integrated. The results of cross department collaboration is that ALL workers are working towards common goal.

The big shift that is requiring every person to adapt quickly is how technology is allowing more information exchange. As fast as technology is speeding things up we as humans need to be upgrading mindset from a ‘me’ focus to a ‘me and we’ focus.

Silos no longer support the future – first we must shift mindset and then we shift structures, systems, processes to help create the impending collaborative reality of the future of work.