Break Out of Silos with a ‘Partnership Mentality’

Silo is the name of a new show on Apple TV, and it's very good.

 Silo is also the word I'd use to describe how two offices in the same organization sometimes operate. In a silo. Competing instead of collaborating. They don't know what the other is doing even when what they offer is very similar. Which is bad.

 One place this is very common is on university campuses.

In ‘Death to Silos’, Jaime Hunt writes: ”

We often aren’t a team of teams but rather a sprawling landscape lined with fences (or moats filled with sharks and alligators). These silos make interdisciplinary collaboration difficult and limit opportunities to maximize resources… they also hinder innovation, limit access to alternative perspectives and invite territoriality. Silos must die.”

Not only can breaking out of silos be done, it’s essential if you want to increase your impact, your influence, and market your programs a lot more effectively in a lot less time.

I recently learned a great strategy from Steven, a financial wellness coordinator in the higher education space, about breaking out of silos. I’m excited to share it with you because you can use this immediately. Thank you Steven for allowing me to share this tip!
 

Recently, Steven saw an announcement for a workshop on campus, called Basics of Investing, that was totally unrelated to his financial wellness education office.

This is classic silo behavior. Steven often see things pop up on the college’s events page and thinks, “that's something that I already do.””

At first he was frustrated, but then he got curious.

It turned out the workshop was taught by a business professor, who does it in person and gets 15 or 20 students to attend. Steven reached out to him and the professor was really excited about collaborating on a virtual version of the workshop to get it to a wider audience.

“So that was really good,” Steven says.

“Plus it turns out he's the Associate Chair of that department, so that means he can get me tapped into some other people with access to other groups as well.”

“I think of this as a partnership mentality. It's hard because oftentimes in the university setting things really run in silos. But now I actively scan for events similar to mine. Instead of getting frustrated, I just ask who is doing it, and I reach out. And often they didn't even know we have this financial wellness program.

"I've been doing this for awhile now, and at this point in my program pretty much all of my workshops are co-developed and co-hosted with someone in a different office with a different point of view that makes the workshop better.”

If you want more impact like Steven has had, you don’t have to ONLY create and market your own events. You can also review your institution’s events calendar regularly to see what else is out there, and reach out to those people with a partnership mentality.

 The way I see it, collaboration is actually a win-win-win. Three wins. Because partnering can give you access to: co-funding, co-promotion to each of your audiences, and greater knowledge share by combining different perspective and expertise.