Silos kill, no question about it.

They kill innovation, retard product development, and encourage reinvention of the wheel.

Some companies encourage silos; some have no clue on how to break them down; and a very few don’t have them.

Instead, they have collaboration across not only departments, but also divisions.

3M is such a company, with collaboration embedded deep within its DNA.

3M is one of the few companies in private industry that is still active in basic research; it pays off because the results are immediately available to the R&D groups.

What’s the secret to fostering this kind of culture; to getting disparate individuals and organizations working together?

Collaboration doesn’t happen by accident.

• The company maintains a “…database of technical reports written by the more than 7,000 scientists at the company. Those scientists are spread between a corporate lab devoted to basic research, 40 division labs that essentially form a bridge between that basic science and the market, and 35 international labs.”
• It enables “TechForum, an employee-run organization designed to foster communications between scientists in different labs or divisions.”
• “Three years ago, 3M also created the “R&D Workcenter” networking Web site, which Mitra describes as a “LinkedIn for 3M scientists.”

But 3M knows that all the technology, all the meet-ups and all the talk aren’t always enough—the wrong kind of competition will quickly kill collaboration.

“Such sharing of resources is almost impossible when different units of a company feel they are competing against each other to deliver better financial results or the next breakthrough technology. But at 3M, employees are expected to collaborate—and are evaluated on their success.”

3M clearly tells its employees at all levels that they are expected to share across all boundaries, but just telling people doesn’t always work. It’s easy to share information without the added intelligence that makes the information truly valuable.

So they measure the success of the effort, not just the act. That is very different—it puts the money where the mouth is and taps into employees’ vested self-interest.

Image credit: Wesley Fryer on flickr

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 1:30 am and is filed under Business info, Communication, Compensation, Culture, Innovation, Motivation, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: 3M, collaboration efforts, self-interest, silos
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