For The Want of a Nail

The silo mentality - leading to behaviours where otherwise excellent management can fail to act for the wider good of a department or organisation - is recognised as one of the key problems with the British-style operation.

When more than an entire year's net operating profit was wiped out for this company, the notes in the end of year accounts reported a quality problem as the cause. The operations director, however, knew that the real issue was a hiring problem; entirely brought about by mistakenly treating this key area as a commoditised purchase.......