Understanding & Improving the Silo Effect in Organisational Culture

Professional Leadership Coaching can support the development of Organisational Culture

"When cultures stop exchanging ideas, they stop evolving.

Coaching doesn't just build bridges between silos - it restores the flow of meaning that allows innovation to survive."

Introduction

This paper explores the application of the Wallace Effect - originally a biological mechanism preventing hybridisation between species - to the cultural domain via Meme Theory. It argues that human cultural groups may develop mechanisms analogous to reproductive isolation to protect and reinforce in-group norms. These mechanisms, often expressed as taboos, social boundaries, or ideological rigidity, serve to limit meme exchange between groups.

The paper considers the implications of this effect within organisations, illustrating how siloed departments may evolve distinct subcultures that hinder collaboration. While the analogy between genetic and memetic evolution provides a compelling framework, this paper concludes that the model is more metaphorical than deterministic, given the dynamic, recombinatory nature of human cultural learning via emulation, rather than strict imitation or replication.

Exploring the Theory

In biological evolution, the Wallace Effect, (Wallace, 1889), describes the process by which natural selection reinforces reproductive isolation between diverging species by selecting against unfit hybrids. This mechanism plays a central role in the maintenance of species boundaries. Analogously, Richard Dawkins' Meme Theory, (Dawkins, 1976), suggests that cultural traits (memes) evolve through variation, selection, and inheritance.

This paper explores the hypothesis that the Wallace Effect can be applied to cultural evolution, whereby in-groups establish and maintain barriers to meme hybridisation to preserve identity and coherence. This process is particularly salient in organisations, where distinct departmental cultures may emerge and resist integration. This analogy is examined for its explanatory power in understanding human cultural evolution and its limitations in capturing the fluidity of memetic exchange - through the flexible, intentional, and emulative nature f cultural transmission.

The Wallace Effect and Cultural Isolation

The Wallace Effect, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, posits that natural selection can act against hybrid offspring when they are less fit than their parent populations. This promotes the continuation of genetic isolation and supports the development of distinct species. Transposed into the cultural realm, this suggests that memes - defined as units of cultural transmission - might similarly evolve protective barriers to avoid dilution through hybridisation with incompatible or competing meme systems.

In human societies, these barriers take the form of ideologies, taboos, rituals, and narratives that serve to insulate in-group culture from external influence. By discouraging or punishing interaction with out-groups, these cultural mechanisms enhance group cohesion, preserve normative structures, and maintain the integrity of internal memeplexes. The effect may be seen in religious orthodoxy, political partisanship, and organisational siloing, where cross-boundary engagement is minimised or pathologised.

Organisational Subcultures and Meme Isolation

A practical example of this phenomenon can be observed within large organisations, where departments such as Research and Development (R&D) and Compliance may evolve distinct subcultural identities. R&D often prizes innovation, flexibility, and failure as a learning tool, while Compliance tends to value stability, rule adherence, and risk aversion. Over time, these departments may develop separate vocabularies, reward systems, and informal norms that reinforce internal cohesion while fostering inter-group mistrust.

Such differentiation can lead to the deliberate or unconscious construction of barriers: limited interdepartmental meetings, the promotion of internal over cross-functional mentorship, or narratives framing the other group as obstructive or naive. These are memetic equivalents of reproductive barriers, designed to prevent the "hybridisation" of norms that might dilute the group's functional identity or reduce internal fitness.

The result is cultural speciation within the organisation, where meme flows are increasingly internal and self-reinforcing. This can inhibit organisational learning, reduce adaptability, and foster internal competition that undermines collective goals. Thus, the Wallace Effect in memetic terms may help explain the persistence of dysfunctional silos despite efforts at integration.

Evaluating the Analogy: Viability and Limitations

While the analogy between the Wallace Effect and cultural isolation is conceptually compelling, its viability as a general theory of cultural evolution requires critical scrutiny. Biological evolution is largely unconscious and operates over long timescales through genetic inheritance. Cultural evolution, by contrast, involves conscious agents capable of reflection, communication, and intentional change.

One important limitation lies in the nature of human learning: unlike genes, memes are not merely copied through strict imitation. Instead, human beings learn through emulation, a process that involves understanding goals or intentions and adapting behaviour to achieve similar outcomes. This allows for greater flexibility and innovation, as cultural traits are not just passed on but are often reconstructed in light of new contexts. In genetic evolution, deviations from the norm (mutations) are random and subject to natural selection; they may be beneficial, neutral, or detrimental.

"Like species that evolve in isolation, siloed teams may survive - but they rarely adapt. The Wallace Effect of culture is not extinction; it's irrelevance through stagnation."

In contrast, in memetic evolution, deviations (innovations or reinterpretations) are often intentional and evaluated in real time by cultural communities. As a result, memetic variation is not strictly analogous to genetic mutation, and the mechanisms of selection are more dynamic and socially constructed.

Moreover, hybrid cultural forms - such as syncretic religions, fusion cuisines, and interdisciplinary research - frequently thrive, undermining the assumption that hybridisation leads to maladaptive outcomes. In many cases, the mixing of meme systems generates high-fitness innovations that benefit from the strengths of multiple traditions. Therefore, while memetic isolation may explain certain forms of cultural resilience or rigidity, it does not universally confer advantage, nor does it preclude successful hybridisation.

Nonetheless, in contexts where identity preservation or normative coherence is paramount - such as religious sects, nationalist movements, or high-stakes corporate environments - the memetic Wallace Effect may indeed be a powerful force. It explains the persistence of group boundaries and the active resistance to outside influence that is not easily reducible to instrumental rationality alone.

Conclusion

The Wallace Effect, when applied metaphorically to cultural evolution, offers valuable insights into how groups maintain normative coherence by resisting the hybridisation of memes. Within organisations, this dynamic is visible in the emergence of siloed subcultures that operate with increasing independence and ideological insulation.

However, as a theory of human cultural evolution, the Wallace Effect must be applied with caution. Human culture is uniquely adaptive, and meme hybridisation often leads to innovation rather than dysfunction. The fact that humans learn through emulation - rather than strict imitation - means that cultural transmission is flexible, contextual, and often intentional.

The model is best used as a lens for analysing specific contexts where cultural isolation is actively reinforced, rather than as a universal principle governing cultural change.

Expanding on the theoretical foundation of memetic isolation and the Wallace Effect, we explore how targeted coaching interventions can be applied to overcome organisational silos - unlocking the cultural adaptability and innovation that emerge through intentional cross-boundary exchange.

Leadership coaching fosters teamwork and communication, helping to break down silos within organizations for more effective collaboration.

"Coaching is not just a tool for personal growth -  it's a cultural intervention.

 In breaking down silos, it reactivates the flow of ideas that makes evolution - and innovation - possible."

Coaching Against the Silo Effect in Organisational Culture

Building on a memetic interpretation of the Wallace Effect in organisational culture, this paper explores how coaching interventions can counteract the isolating effects of siloed teams and support the cross-pollination of cultural norms. While silo formation serves as a memetic equivalent to reproductive isolation - helping maintain internal coherence - it also risks stagnation, identity entrenchment, and missed innovation.

Drawing from psychological theories of identity, group dynamics, and learning (such as Social Identity Theory and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development), as well as anthropological insights into cultural transmission, this paper argues that coaching provides a structured means to reopen blocked channels of memetic exchange, cultivate adaptive hybridisation, and facilitate cultural resilience.

Exploring the Theory

Siloed structures in organisations are often treated as an unfortunate by-product of scale and complexity. However, from the perspective of Meme Theory, siloed departments function as semi-autonomous cultural groups, each evolving its own memetic system of norms, language, rituals, and values.

These “internal cultures” may become increasingly resistant to external influence, mirroring the Wallace Effect in evolutionary biology, where natural selection favours mechanisms that prevent the dilution of fitness through hybridisation.

While such cultural barriers may enhance internal cohesion, they inhibit memetic recombination, a key driver of innovation and organisational adaptability. Coaching - when strategically implemented - can serve as an intentional mechanism to restore permeability between meme systems, allowing for productive hybridisation and the emergence of new adaptive behaviours.

Silos as Cultural Reproductive Barriers

In the memetic analogy of the Wallace Effect, silos represent intentional or emergent mechanisms of meme isolation. They are reinforced through practices such as specialised jargon, reward systems that disincentivise collaboration, and group identity narratives that elevate in-group superiority. 

According to Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), individuals derive part of their self-concept from group membership, leading them to favour their own group while distancing themselves from perceived out-groups. 

This can lead to ingroup entrenchment and intergroup misattribution, where cross-functional collaboration is not only avoided but actively resisted. Over time, such isolation results in cultural rigidity, where internal norms go unchallenged and adaptive learning slows. From a memetic standpoint, these closed systems reduce the influx of new memes, thereby limiting variation - one of the essential preconditions for cultural evolution. The very mechanisms that preserve identity can also inhibit innovation.

The Role of Coaching in Reopening Cultural Memetic Exchange

Coaching, particularly when focused on leadership development, intergroup dialogue, and reflective practice, offers a means of intervening in silo dynamics without dismantling functional identities. Effective coaching creates structured environments where intentional emulation - rather than automatic imitation - can take place.

1. Cross-Cultural Perspective Taking and Identity Expansion

Using coaching frameworks grounded in constructivist psychology, individuals can begin to hold multiple group identities in tension. Kegan’s theory of adult development (1994) emphasises the capacity to take perspective on one's own meaning-making system. Coaching interventions designed to increase metacognitive awareness of cultural assumptions allow individuals to see their team or department’s norms as contingent rather than absolute.

This psychological distance supports the kind of intentional memetic hybridisation that fuels innovation, where new perspectives are selectively integrated rather than reflexively resisted.

2. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) for Intergroup Learning

Drawing from Vygotsky (1978), coaching engagements can help position leaders and teams in a Zone of Proximal Development, where the challenges of intergroup interaction are just beyond their current competencies but within reach through structured support. Coaching provides both the scaffolding and psychological safety required to engage in difficult conversations that might otherwise trigger defensive closure.

In this way, coaching facilitates inter-group knowledge transfer, allowing for the incremental uptake of new memetic structures that might otherwise be perceived as threatening or incompatible.

3. Ritual Design and Anthropological Realignment

Anthropologically, rituals serve as key mechanisms for cultural transmission and group cohesion (Turner, 1969). In siloed environments, rituals often reinforce separation (e.g., department-only retreats, exclusive language). 

Coaching interventions can include co-creation of new cross-functional rituals - shared reflection sessions, storytelling circles, or collaborative design sprints - that serve as memetic bridges between groups.

These interventions, when intentionally designed, foster symbolic integration while allowing for distinct identities to persist, enabling a new level of cultural coherence without requiring homogeneity.

"Rituals shape culture - and when designed intentionally, they can bridge silos without erasing identity."

Coaching for Cultural Innovation: Unlocking the Benefits of Memetic Diversity

While silos protect internal cohesion, they do so at the cost of memetic variation, which is essential for cultural innovation. Coaching can re-enable this variation by:

• Facilitating selective memetic recombination: Encouraging teams to borrow and adapt the most useful practices from other subcultures.

• Amplifying high-fitness memes: Coaching can identify and support the diffusion of novel, high-performing behaviours across organisational boundaries.

• Creating cultural 'translators': Coaching can help develop leaders who act as brokers between subcultures, performing the anthropological role of mediating norms and values between groups.

Rather than treating cultural hybridisation as a threat to coherence, coaching helps organisations curate and harness hybridity as a source of resilience and growth.

Discussion: Memetic Evolution as a Driver of Organisational Adaptability

As organisations navigate increasing complexity and volatility, adaptability becomes a strategic imperative. Viewed through the lens of memetic evolution, adaptability arises not from rigid control or cultural uniformity, but from an organisation’s capacity to generate, test, and assimilate new cultural patterns - selectively retaining those that prove adaptive under changing conditions.

Coaching interventions, when strategically applied, can facilitate this process by enabling intentional cultural variation (through new behaviours, perspectives, and rituals) and guiding selective integration of what works. In this way, coaching supports the development of an organisation’s memetic resilience - its ability to preserve core identity while flexibly responding to internal tension or external shocks.

Rather than resisting change, organisations that embrace memetic fluidity can evolve new norms and practices that increase psychological safety, support cross-functional collaboration, and build cognitive diversity into the system. These are not just traits of high-performing cultures - they are evolutionary advantages in a memetic landscape shaped by constant flux.

Final Thoughts

The Wallace Effect, as applied to cultural evolution, highlights the risk of over-isolation in organisational subcultures. While silos may emerge as protective mechanisms that support group identity and cohesion, they also limit the memetic variation required for innovation and adaptability. Coaching interventions - drawing from psychological theories of development, identity, and learning, as well as anthropological insights into ritual and transmission - offer a powerful method to reopen blocked cultural pathways.

Through intentional coaching, organisations can foster memetic permeability without losing identity, allowing for the recombination of norms and practices in ways that enhance collective intelligence and strategic responsiveness. In this way, coaching becomes not just a developmental tool, but a cultural evolutionary mechanism, enabling human systems to thrive in complexity through intentional adaptation and learning.

Supporting Organisational Cultural Development

"Cultural evolution isn’t just about preserving what works - it’s about creating the conditions for what’s possible.

Coaching opens the channels, memes carry the meaning, and together they keep organisations alive to change."

At KT Core Solutions, we help leaders and organisations tackle one of the biggest barriers to cultural change: the silo effect. Silos don’t just limit collaboration - they fracture identity, restrict innovation, and slow down adaptability.

Our work targets the cultural roots of siloed thinking by combining coaching, facilitation, and cultural design. We support leaders in creating cross-functional rituals, shared meaning, and trusted communication - without erasing what makes each team unique.

By enabling cultural connection rather than enforcing alignment, we lay the foundations for lasting, adaptive change. When silos are bridged with intention, culture becomes a living system - one that learns, evolves, and thrives.

Thank you for reading.

 At KT Core Solutions, we’re committed to helping leaders and organisations navigate complexity through cultural clarity, connection, and change. We appreciate your time and interest in our work, and we welcome the opportunity to continue the conversation.

— Katy Eckert-Turnbull