Leadership Wisdom of the Week #8

“I want to run, I want to hide, I wanna tear down the walls that hold me inside.”

– Bono
U2, Where the Streets Have No Name

This week’s quote comes from a song with a profound message. Bono writes about the desire to be somewhere where no one evaluates you, your background or your wealth based on the street where you live. And yet, it is one of our human traits to evaluate people based on the groups they belong to, rather than focusing on them as individuals.

For us as leaders, the quote challenges us to see the walls and boundaries that are built within our organisations. They may be functional silos that prevent people in sales from being in active contact with the development team. They may be generational silos that stop younger employees from making suggestions to more experienced colleagues. Or they may be geographical silos that limit contact between people in different locations.

In today’s fast-changing world, collaboration across these types of silos is one of the most important ways to ensure that an organisation remains effective and competitive. It is up to us, as leaders at all levels, to tear down the walls that prevent people from being proactive in their ways of working: voicing their opinions, collaborating across teams, and sharing ideas. It is up to us to see the benefits for the organisation as a whole and to make those benefits visible to employees.

Organisational boundaries can be very concrete — for example, people not knowing whom to contact — but they can also be cultural, such as believing one’s own unit holds better expertise and is more important than a neighbouring team. Leaders should aim to address both.

It is equally important to recognise the boundaries we may be building in our own minds. Which walls in your organisation are you prepared to start tearing down? And which ones might you be reinforcing without realising it?