Organizations are not stuck because people don't cooperate.
They are stuck because they are designed to compensate for cohesion through extra coordination rather than through design.
In “From Silos to Ecosystem,” this book shows why silos (islands) are not a cultural problem, but a logical consequence of how we have structured management. Why managers have become primarily coordinators in practice. And why new frameworks, techniques, and tools tend to reinforce fragmentation rather than resolve it.
This book does not advocate for better cooperation. It advocates for better design that allows you to realize collaboration.
Why this book is relevant for managers
Many organizations experience structural problems in their service delivery: silos, escalations, sluggishness, dependency on individuals and suppliers, and growing administrative pressure. The usual explanations focus on people and behavior: cooperation, leadership, culture. This book shows that this diagnosis is incorrect.
The core proposition:
If an organization consistently fails to provide what it promises, it is almost always the result of a design flaw in the management system — not of people failing.
This book is written for managers, directors, and professionals in complex organizations (government, healthcare, education, major service providers) who feel that things need to change—and are willing to think differently before they start acting differently.
The Red Thread case study in this book is dedicated to municipal secretaries and their directors of Operations.
What goes wrong structurally
Most organizations lack an explicit management architecture.
This creates a pattern in which:
- services span departments but are managed locally
- coherence is not designed but compensated for by people
- managers primarily coordinate rather than manage
- escalations and exceptions effectively control the system.
From this perspective, silos are not an incident, but a logical and predictable result.
Why existing resolutions fall short
Frameworks and best practices (ITIL, agile, lean, etc.) describe local practices. They do not describe how the whole can be managed. When these practices are applied without a shared architecture, they actually create more fragmentation, coordination, and dependency.
The USM approach at a glance
USM introduces not only a new way of thinking, but above all a control architecture. Three core choices:
- Services as chain performance - Services, not departments or systems, form the unit of control.
- One service management architecture (SMA) - One shared steering wheel for all services, domains, and providers.
- The 1–5–8 logic:
- 1 service-definitie
- 5 universele managementprocessen die alle activiteiten van de organisatie omvatten
- 8 workflowpatronen voor alle ketensturing
This is not a preference, but a minimum requirement for governability.
What this requires from the board and management
USM does not demand a major transformation program, but rather a fundamental reorientation:
- from coordinating to managing
- from improvising to designing
- from heroism to reliability.
The primary administrative responsibility is shifting to monitoring consistency and architecture.
What this delivers
Organizations that operate according to these principles do not become spectacular — but reliable:
- fewer escalations
- predictable performance
- less dependency on individuals and suppliers
- peace of mind without losing focus.
That is not an ideological end goal.
That is professional hygiene.
The key administrative question
Will we continue to deploy people to compensate for system errors, or will we take responsibility for the design of the organization?
