At Cisco, we are moving to collaboration teams, groups coming together that represent sales, engineering, finance, legal, etc. And we're training leaders to think across silos.

In this quote, John T. Chambers, the former CEO of Cisco, discusses the company’s shift toward creating collaboration teams that include representatives from various departments such as sales, engineering, finance, and legal. Chambers emphasizes that Cisco is focusing on building cross-functional teams that work together more effectively, breaking down the traditional silos that often separate departments within large organizations. This approach aims to foster collaboration and improve communication across different functions, enabling the company to operate more cohesively and respond more dynamically to challenges.

The origin of this quote is rooted in Cisco's corporate strategy under Chambers’s leadership. During his tenure, Chambers was known for promoting innovation and adaptive business models to keep Cisco competitive in the tech industry. He recognized the limitations of traditional organizational structures that compartmentalize functions and sought to create a more integrated and agile company culture, where employees across different functions could collaborate more fluidly.

Chambers also highlights the importance of training leaders to think beyond the confines of their own departments and to consider the broader context of the business. By encouraging leaders to think across silos, Cisco aimed to create a more holistic approach to decision-making, where each function would be aligned with the company’s overall goals. This method was intended to break down barriers that hindered innovation and create a more unified company culture.

Ultimately, this quote reflects a broader trend in modern business toward more collaborative and interdisciplinary work environments. Chambers’s vision was to create a company where cross-functional collaboration would drive innovation and efficiency, ensuring that leaders and teams could work together seamlessly to solve complex problems and meet evolving market demands.