Most leaders treat silos as a collaboration problem.

In this episode, Chris and Colin argue they’re something else entirely.

Silos aren’t caused by people failing to work together — they’re the natural output of the systems those people are working in.

Through real-world examples, systems thinking, and practical tools, this episode breaks down:

1. why smart, well-intentioned teams still end up working at cross-purposes
2. how organizational structure quietly overpowers individual intent
3. and what leaders can actually do to diagnose and fix the real causes of siloed behavior.

This is a diagnostic-first conversation focused on fixing systems, not blaming people.

What you’ll learn in this episode

1. Why silos form even when everyone is competent and motivated (Hint: structure beats intent, every time.)
2. The difference between people problems and system problems — and how to tell which one you’re actually dealing with.
3. Why “alignment meetings” rarely create alignment and often make the underlying issues worse.
4. How Conway’s Law shows up in customer experience (your org chart leaks into your product).
5. Why coordination costs rise exponentially as organizations scale — and what that means for growth teams.
6. How to spot systemic friction including misaligned goals, unclear ownership, broken handoffs, and siloed data.
7. Value Stream Mapping, explained simply and why it’s one of the most powerful tools for diagnosing growth friction.
8. A concrete lead management example showing how hours of delay and wasted effort can be eliminated with better system design.
9. The role of shared goals, shared context, and incentives in breaking silos sustainably.
10. Practical advice you can apply this week without mapping your entire organization or launching a transformation program.

think there was a test recording button but I've not pressed it. I've just pressed something over there. But yeah, nevertheless, we are recording.

So yeah, I'm getting that notification, actual recording is higher quality. Let's see what the uploading figures go to. Now last time it was hitting about 54 % and we were ultimately fine. Right now it's kind of, it's weird. Yeah, weirdly mine is shooting up to like maybe about 70 and then dropping back down.

Yep I've got that for you as well.

yeah i've 85 88 70

Too late.

Mine seems to be doing the same thing. Every time we talk, think it obviously creates a more dense file. Mine's going like 95, that down to 83. I wonder if that's just normal behavior.

So what then, Gail?

He did.

What I will say is the bass level is higher than when recorded successfully last week. So maybe we just...

Yeah.

Maybe we just go for it.

It feels okay. mean, to be honest, as long as the audio is okay, at the moment we're not doing anything with the video.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's true as well.

because we have no Eleanor anymore, so we're not doing social excerpts and giving it to an editor right now. I mean, whether we will do, I think just actually for your reference, we are hopefully gonna have a new website first week of September-ish. So I'm actually thinking about holding back the whole next season until first week of September. So we've got August to basically try and get it reported.

Yeah, you're not

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I think, do you know what, I did a really stupid thing. This is like the old contractor schoolboy, I worked too many days this month. So I was kind of keeping track of like days where it actually had activity, which was the right amount. Forgetting of course that at the start of the calendar month, I actually worked three days where they just basically didn't give me the shit to do my job. Not that I didn't do any work, but just like clearly it wasn't.

It wasn't the things that I was recording. And so I just told them that I'd done 15 days and actually had done 18. And now I'm like, well, Nick told me what the budget was. And I've now overshot that by like 20%.

Awesome, meaningful work, yeah.