Boundless

2The Anti-Silo: The Boundless Alternative

“In the beginner's mind there is no thought, ‘I have attained something.’ All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless.”

—Shunryu Suzuki (2011)

Boundless is a redefinition of success, one that extends way beyond the traditional or siloed definition. Boundless companies, experiences, and mindsets have a compass that points outward toward customers, partners, and communities rather than inward toward their own processes. They aim to spread themselves out into those communities rather than distance and separate themselves from it. To be Boundless is to reorient ourselves, to use technology to reach out, to connect with each other, our customers, our business ecosystems, our communities, and our environment. Boundless is what you get when you bring together the power of networks and flow—an entirely new paradigm for next-level success in this increasingly connected, increasingly smart, and increasingly at-risk world.

In Chapter 1, we argued that organizational silos are not what they seem. They are not anomalies or aberrations or management gone bad. They are not a recent malaise or by-product of the digital era. They are in fact just everyday examples of an approach to resource management that has been successful for millennia ...