Walk through walls #

One skill I always try to practice on the job is to walk through walls.

Walls, in the metaphorical sense, could be explicit prohibitions, such as “thou shalt not do that”. They could be organizational walls, like “that team or committee is responsible, so they will take care of it.” Or technical walls, such as “we don’t know how to do that” or “we don’t have access to that system”. Or economic ones, like “that would be cost-prohibitive to do” or “we couldn’t possibly monetize that”. 

Especially at large organizations, walls are everywhere. Walls tell you what you cannot do. The wall is an obstacle, an injunction, a justification for inaction. The wall says no.

But why? Why are walls so prevalent?

On the nature of walls #

Walls originate from the separation of responsibilities. As a firm grows, the complexity and scale of work-to-be-done becomes too much for one person, or a handful of people, to handle. The firm must federate responsibilities to different departments - sales, marketing, finance, product, etc. - in order to master the complexity of any one domain. Specialization is inevitable.

But specialization also creates boundaries - distinctions between “my work” and “your work”, or alternatively “my territory” and “your territory”. Often, we are advised to uncritically defer to the expertise of other teams, to not waste their time, to not ask questions. Rather than approaching their territory and getting our hands dirty, we keep a safe distance and sit on them instead.

While the separation of responsibility is designed to enable efficiency, it often produces an unintended side effect: the abdication of responsibility. When another department is responsible for the work, it is all too easy to say: “We are waiting on them.” Even if they are slow, busy, overworked, unresponsive, or incompetent. 

The most convenient solution to not solving your problems is to instead throw them over the wall and say “we are waiting on them.” When everybody participates in this game of hot potato, institutional paralysis ensues. Everyone waits, and nobody does the work.

I see this mentality often in large organizations. It’s as if, upon seeing a wall, people suddenly turn around and walk the opposite direction. The wall serves as a convenient excuse to look no further, to do no more. It becomes a sort of demilitarized zone, an area devoid of people and also, of progress. It is here then, at this junction, that the wall becomes one of the most interesting parts of the firm.

Wall inquiry as a state of mind #

When you believe in walls, you default to asking: “In what ways can we not do it?”. When you don’t believe in them, you instead ask: “In what ways can we do it?” A convenient fiction then is to believe that the walls are not there. 

Once you stop believing in walls, when you see one it can be a little surprising. “What is this thing?” you ask. It is like walking up to a mirror and seeing your reflection. “Why is this here?” “Does it follow me if I move like this?” “Why is its right hand matched to my left?” You will inquire about this wall. You will not smash it, ignore it, change it - but you will certainly be curious about it.

Sometimes, a wall has a very clear KEEP OUT sign on it. That seems important; like Chesteron’s fence, it is probably there for good reason. But other times a wall is less forthcoming. It is there because so-and-so (who now switched teams) said we couldn’t 3 years ago, and no, we cannot find any documentation about this anywhere. Should we simply nod our heads and say: “Well so-and-so 3 years ago said we couldn’t?” Should we do nothing? Should we abdicate?

This wall, old and dilapidated, has few people come by anymore. The footpaths leading up to it have long since disappeared, evidence of those politely steered away earlier in their journey. 

If you walk up to the wall, you may find little details others long ago had overlooked. Did you see, for example, that the wall has fallen apart on the left side over there, and you can peer through it? Did you notice the friendly old lady who passes by each Sunday and invites you over for tea? Did you observe, far away near the end of the wall, others too are inspecting the wall, wondering why it is there?

Carefully, you creep through a narrow slit in a part that crumbled years ago. You walk forward a few paces, and already things feel different. The verdure seems vibrant and untrampled, there are birds you’ve never seen before, and in the distance there appear to be vehicles both smaller and older than those you’re used to. As you continue, you eventually come across people - welcoming people who willingly show you around - though they speak a different language, move slowly, and have an unusual gait. Things are certainly different over here.

You see some strange things too, like the crossing guard in the intersection who is manually directing traffic. Don’t they have technology here? You also see people going to work in overalls and boots. Don’t they value professionalism? It is concerning, but for the moment, you reserve judgment.

You had initially planned to stay only a few days, but days become weeks, and weeks become months. You make a few friends (including the tea lady from Sunday), and make a hardy attempt to learn the language. To really immerse yourself, you dress the same way, you speak the same way, you throw yourself into the things they seem to enjoy doing. You do not agree with everything they do over here, but darn it, they do have a handful of good ideas. In due time, they accept you, not as a foreigner passing through faraway lands, but as “one of us.”

Months later you return back to your side of the wall. Upon passing the wall you wonder again just what exactly its purpose is. Why obstruct us from what is on the other side? Is it for our own good, or for theirs? Who put it up here to begin with? Perhaps only its creator knew what was on the other side, and using the wall, they could play gatekeeper, controlling who could pass through and who could not.

Back on your side of the wall, you feel enlivened. There are a few neat tricks you discovered on the other side, and you share these learnings with your comrades. Sometimes, when your team has questions, you now answer, “I know who can help you with that” or “I know someone who knows”. 

You realize that sometimes when you did not have access to things before, it is not because you were not allowed to, but simply because you had never asked. You see that sometimes certain problems that were particularly thorny before were not truly intractable, but whose solution lay just on the other side of the wall. You see that sometimes the only reason a wall is still there is because no one ever bothered to take it down.

The parable concludes #

On the other side of a wall, there is almost always useful information. Information is the lifeblood of any organization, and access to it is its currency. Information must flow quickly and liberally, otherwise the arteries atrophy and activity ceases. While walls enable specialization, they too can invite ossification.

Just as Google unlocked the world’s information with the search index, it is equally important to unlock an organization’s information trapped behind departmental walls. Information allows us to know who to go to for help, know what is permitted and not permitted, and know what is a priority versus what isn’t.

Walking through walls does not take technical skill or leadership skill. Most often it simply requires being open and inquisitive. Some things I try to practice are empathizing with people’s problems and needs, immersing oneself in the way they do things, being non-judgmental of their work, being useful, and being curious.

In the past, I used to speak to business teams using engineering terms because “that’s how things actually work”, I thought (and perhaps less admirably, because I wanted to show how smart I was). A few confused meetings later, I learned my lesson. I would use business speak when talking about my work, I would try to learn why the business stuff was just as important as the engineering stuff, and I would attempt to genuinely be interested during their meetings. 

The more I approached the wall, the more they did too, and the more productive we as a group became. Had I never crossed over to the other side, I’m sure they would have deflected me away, not because they are spiteful, but because it is simply more convenient to find someone else who makes an effort “to get it”.

Most departments do not have iron walls. Most people are not intentionally trying to shield you from their work. Often, they are simply too busy to roll out the red carpet for you, so you must find your own path in. There are even people who will gladly share information and tell you all about their work, though frequently they are not senior enough to formalize the entrypoint. They are your guides. They, the ones closest to the details and mechanics of how things actually work, hold the keys to the organization. When you find a wall, look for the shepherd.

Once you can walk through walls, it will look like a superpower. You can see things that others cannot and avert otherwise paralyzing obstacles. Of course there is no real trick here, no superpower to disclose. You come with keys. And once you collect enough of them, you can lead others to places they haven’t been before - even if they’re just a hallway away.