“No man is an island,” I nodded.

Myra stared back, returning my nod. “I agree. I’ve got one hot-shot technician and one rainmaker on my executive team. Between the two of them, they are driving me crazy.”

“How does it show up?” I asked.

“It seems like they are in it for themselves. All they ever do is talk about me-me and my-my. My budget, my team, my resources. And the salesperson thinks nothing happens until a sale is made. He struts around like a rooster. I have to remind the both of them that we are a team. If the sale isn’t made, we don’t have budget. And if the product isn’t engineered, we have nothing to sell.”

“It’s a trouble in most growing companies,” I replied. You have a couple of core systems that hum along, high pace, high quality, but the other systems tip-toe around, get pushed around, underperform, pretty soon the wheels of the entire organization get wobbly.”

“What do I do with these two characters?” Myra wanted to know.

“That’s the hat trick for every manager working in a company that has grown multiple systems. The silo effect takes hold.”

“So, I need to get rid of my silos?” Myra stated in the form of a question.

“Nope,” I smiled. “You put those silos there for a reason. You needed them to be efficient, internally profitable, no waste, no idle, charging pace. But, now you have multiple systems who don’t care about each other. You have to convince them that the company is larger than their individual system. Each system is interdependent on all the other systems.”

Myra was quiet. Shook her head. “So, how do I do that?”