CM 019: Gillian Tett on Breaking Down Silos

When we operate in silos, we narrow our perspective in ways that can limit, and even destroy, innovation. So where have we seen silos before and what can we learn from them? In this fascinating conversation with Gillian Tett, award-winning journalist and U.S. Managing Editor of the Financial Times, she explains how silos reversed decades of innovation at Sony, limited innovation in a world-class hospital, and played a key role in the 2007 global financial crisis. Drawing on insights from her bestselling book, The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers, she helps us see the patterns that create these tendencies, and the simple steps we can take to avoid or overcome them. In this episode you will learn: what makes smart people do apparently stupid things how rewards and incentives can reinforce a silo mentality why success can lead to silo perspectives steps we can take to overcome mental and organizational silos the value of an insider-outsider perspective Also in this interview, Gillian encourages us to recognize how the silos begin erected in the information technology industry have begun to mirror those that led to the 2007 global financial crisis. She is the other of two other bestselling books, Saving the Sun and Fools Gold. Episode Links @GillianTett Octopus Pots British Press Awards Cleveland Clinic Pierre Bourdieu Mental Maps   Securitizations Sir Paul Tucker Paul McCulley PIMCO Shadow banking Zoltan Poszar Nicolaus Copernicus Cultural anthropology Brett Goldstein Open Table Toby Cosgrove Robin Dunbar It is Complicated by danah boyd Liquidated by Karen Ho If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening!