Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Silo buster

Former BBC HR boss Lucy Adams blogs about how she brought tv and online together....

In my role as HRD at the BBC I faced the challenge of creating more cross-departmental working and one collaboration in particular caused a certain amount of grief. The BBC had a history of operating in “tribes”; TV, Radio, News, etc – and even in sub-tribes of TV channels or News programmes. But the advent of digital and the revolution in how we consume media meant that our audiences didn’t care where it originated from – they just wanted the best listening or viewing experience. This meant that the BBC TV and BBC Online teams had to work much more collaboratively to create this experience. 

There were so many historical, cultural and operational barriers to this relationship being easy. BBC TV had always been seen as the cool older brother with its large budgets and influence, its network of TV celebs and expensed lunches at The Ivy. BBC Online was kind of the younger, nerdier sibling – perceived as bearded guys, historically producing websites for the latest season of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ or BBC Recipes. They operated to different time-frames, with a TV series taking years from commission to transmission, whereas Online guys came from places like Apple and Google where ‘shipping products’ quickly was prized. For TV executives, landing a job at the BBC was often seen as the ultimate, whereas the Online recruits were likely to aspire to tech companies in their career planning. The need to work together as TV consumption became increasingly inter-twined with digital posed a real problem as the relationship often suffered from a lack of trust, respect for each other’s talents and common goals.....

....... Whilst the changes we made at the BBC to help build a better relationship between TV and Online did lead to some small improvements, things only improved dramatically when both teams had a change of leader. Both of the new appointments were fantastic role models of collaboration and mutual respect. The way they spoke about each other’s teams, the way they were open to hiring from and losing talent to each other, the way they were prepared to share information and resources – all set the tone for their respective team members. If we’re not helping our business to choose leaders who inherently see the benefits of collaboration, and who value individual achievement over collective impact, then those silos stand firm.

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