Systems thinking and silos

Right problem? Look at how the parts work together.

A system is a set of connected parts whose interactions shape a result. Teams can each meet their targets while the customer’s whole experience gets worse. Systems thinking asks us to follow those connections—not simply improve each part in isolation.

One shared purpose—not competing departmental aims

The organisation needs a clear, sustained purpose centred on the people it serves. Each team should understand how its work contributes to that purpose.

Teams have different responsibilities and measures, but these should support the whole result—not become competing ends in themselves. Leadership must resolve conflicting priorities and provide arrangements that make cooperation possible. A shared purpose on a poster is not enough.

One shared purpose does not mean one numerical target. Nor does it mean ignoring different needs: understand and reconcile those needs and trade-offs, rather than each silo protecting its own result.

One example: the promise and the delivery

Imagine sales promising faster delivery without checking operational capacity. Sales meets its target, but operations faces urgent orders, interruptions and late deliveries.

“Communicate better” may help, but does not address everything shaping the decision. Examine how promises are made, which targets influence them and how capacity information reaches sales. Test an arrangement that supports both a useful offer and reliable delivery.

Ask five practical questions

  1. What is the whole result? Describe what matters to the customer or service user, from request to completion. Has leadership made the shared purpose clear and sustained it through changing pressures?
  2. How does the work connect? Follow work, information, decisions and responsibility across handovers. Include suppliers, partner organisations and the people affected.
  3. Where might a local gain transfer a burden? Look for waiting, rework, cost or risk pushed elsewhere. Ask what priorities, measures or rules make those decisions reasonable locally.
  4. What arrangements should change together? Involve the affected teams. Agree responsibilities, handovers, priorities and how problems will be resolved. Identify what needs authority or cooperation beyond your own team.
  5. How will everyone learn from the result? Use end-to-end outcomes alongside local process and balancing measures. Get timely feedback to people who can act, and check implementation and unintended effects.

Useful boundaries are not the enemy

Specialist teams, clear responsibilities and boundaries that protect focus can be valuable. A silo problem arises when priorities, information or accountability obstruct the shared result.

The answer is not automatically a merger, another meeting or a new dashboard. Change the arrangements producing the friction. Local measures can help diagnose a problem, but should not become a substitute for the whole-system result.

Optional background: Deming on purpose and cooperation

Two of Deming’s 14 Points are especially relevant:

  • Point 1—create constancy of purpose. Sustain the commitment to improving products and services beyond immediate pressures. Shared direction today is not enough if each new crisis reverses it.
  • Point 9—break down barriers between departments. Work together across functions to anticipate problems in delivery and use, rather than pass work—and its consequences—downstream.

Supporting points make that cooperation workable:

  • Point 7—institute leadership. Help people do better work by improving the conditions and connections around them.
  • Point 8—drive out fear. Make it possible to expose handover failures and conflicting priorities without hiding problems or blaming another team.
  • Points 10 and 11—remove exhortations and numerical quotas or goals as substitutes for a method. “Collaborate more” and competing departmental targets do not provide a workable way to achieve the shared purpose. Measurement still supports learning.

These are practical interpretations, not quotations or a substitute for the full points. See the Deming Institute’s published 14 Points, from Out of the Crisis, pp. 23–24.

Deming’s wider System of Profound Knowledge connects appreciation for a system, knowledge of variation, theory of knowledge and psychology. Further reading: The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993). These ideas support learning—not a checklist to complete before acting.

Optional background: work and feedback

Work moves towards the user; learning about its effects needs to reach those supplying, doing and designing it.

This simplified flow-and-feedback illustration is informed by Deming’s systems approach; it is not a reproduction of his original diagram. A chart can inform the learning, but cannot repair responsibilities or relationships on its own.

What’s your next useful question?

Are we improving the whole result—or making our own part look better?

Return to Right problem? →
Find what is limiting the result →
Check variation, demand and capacity →