Aaron De Smet

Processes are extremely important, which is: How does it work? What are the activities that, when you string them together in a particular way, add value? And what are the decisions that are made along that chain of activities? Who makes them? How do they get measured? This is one of the most important things.

When we develop metrics for an organization and set targets and objectives, we find that most organizations—if they think they do it well—the way they do it is they cascade it down the management hierarchy. That’s OK, but if that’s all you do, you will reinforce whatever silos you’ve set up in the structure. The structural silos will get worse because at lower levels everybody’s working on different objectives.

A better way to do it, or at least a way to complement that approach, is to make sure you’ve identified key metrics in a process and to make sure all the different functions or business units or geographies that are touching that decision or activity share the same metrics and targets. That helps immensely with collaboration.

It’s a simple thing to say; it’s not an easy thing to do. Most systems aren’t set up to do it. But if you can identify the key value-adding activities and decisions—end-to-end, all the way to the customer—line up decision processes separate from the management hierarchy, make sure those are measured in the right way and that whoever is participating in those activities and decisions share in the objectives and metrics, the problem of silos, which most companies struggle with, gets a lot easier.

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