Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors Hardcover – Illustrated, February 17, 2006

In many ways Silos, Politics and Turf Wars reminded me of books like "Gung Ho" and "Monday Morning Leadership" in that it is a story based management book. The reader follows the life and times of Jude Cousins, a once fast rising manager, now turned independent consultant, as he attempts to navigate his way through the gnarly infrastructures of silo-laden clients while earning a living and raising a family.By itself, the story is both entertaining and informative as Author Patrick Lencioni weaves personal and business challenges and complications in and out of the story. This exposes the reader to a series of events that build to a successful conclusion (of course). It is a formula that works well because it is easier, and more realitic, to remember the context of a story than to remember text without a story, because you are thinking along, and learning with, and even morphing into Jude with every turn of the page.This part of the well-written, easy-to-read book would have been worth the price to buy it and the time to read it.However, the best part of the book for me were the final twenty pages which provided the reader with the thought process and the tools to tear down the silos, and eliminate the politics and turf wars, by identifying and implementing overarching organizational thematic goals. This is the "how to do it" part of the book, complete with excellent case study models to help you make it work in your own business.When you can read a book that provides practical assistance that is immediately usuable, you have a winner, which "Silos, Politics and Turf Wars" surely is.

Though this book is for those who are at the top level of an organization, it can help explain what is going on within it and ways to help. The story format shows how steps that can be utilized to bring the organization together. I recommend this book to you, especially to those in leadership positions and those who want to lead in the future.

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars is one of the Patrick Lencioni fables made famous by his Five Dysfunctions of a Team. His fable format is just a business novel with the main character having a common business problem (e.g. bad team, bad job, or meetings) and sharing a story about how the main character solves the problems and the learning he has from it.The story in Silos is about Jude who worked in a company Batch and after the company is in a merger, he decides to leave and start his own consulting firm. He has several clients and does reasonably well, but then notices that all of his clients have basically the same problem, the problem with silos. He sets off to explore this problem and solve it for his clients (I won't give away how he does it, as it is a novel still and you don't want to know the end from an amazon review :P)As with all of the Lencioni books, it is well written and quite engaging. It is also short and you ought to be able to read it in a couple of days or so. He explains a couple of techniques for getting more management alignment and they are useful techniques. Though, due to the format, he doesn't dive very detailed in the techniques, but they are reasonably simple and he gives enough information for you to try it out.I think Silos was ok. I didn't like it as much as e.g. Getting Naked, which was pretty good. However, it was an easy and enjoyable read and the techniques could be useful. I decided to do between 3 and 4 stars and ended up with 4 as, well, it was a nice read. If you read Lencioni books before and liked them, then you'll probably like this one too. If you haven't read a Lencioni book before, this one is not as good as Five Dysfunctions of a Team or Getting Naked, so I'd recommend those over this one.

I appreciate the way Patrick Lencioni teaches business principles by way of an engaging fable. Vastly superior to the dry, text book approach. Easy read, yet very insightful. I look forward to reading his other books!

Has he points out in this book Patrick acknowledges that all organizations have some kind of a silo or political battle in front of them. Wow this is to varying degrees I find it very helpful to refocus an organization's mindset and strategic directions. I work in a church and know these unfortunate circumstances all too well I can't wait to implement some of the ideas he puts forth in this book.

The book is an easy read and the concepts are well presented. Though thoroughly simple to ingest the author doesn’t really deliver anything revolutionary. Sure, the thematic goal is admirable but it’s highly unlikely that most corporate workers will have enough influence in their organizations to get these types of changes through. As a small business owner I’ll certainly be mindful of it in the future.

Working for a company going through breaking down the silos, this was a great read to help understand where senior leadership is coming from. This will help me guide the team I lead as well as my counterparts through some of the roadblocks and resistance to change that will certainly arise.

I am preparing to facilitate a very important conversation among key stakeholders in an enterprise which will be much more effective as a result of my reading of this book. I have read several of Patrick Lencioni's books, and his ideas really captivate me. I love the "business fable" genre. While I am a career educator, I learn so much from Lencioni's stories and commentaries. He is a communicator gifted by God to help organizations reach their full potential, in spite of the shortcomings of all of us in those organizations. Read. This. Book.