Ever since civilised society began, we have felt the need to classify, categorise and specialise. It can make things more efficient, and help give the leaders of any organisation a sense of confidence that they have the right people focusing on the right tasks. But it can also be catastrophic, leading to unnecessary internal competition and a resistance to sharing new ideas. Most importantly it can lead to a structural haze, with the full picture of where an organization is heading hidden from view. It is incredibly widespread: the chances are these 'silos' are rife in any organisation that features in your life, whether your business, or your local school or hospital.

Across industries and cultures, as this brilliant and penetrating books shows, these silos have the power to collapse companies and destabilize financial markets, yet they still dominate the workplace. They blind and confuse us, often making modern institutions collectively act in risky, silly, and damaging ways.

Gillian Tett has spent years covering financial markets and business, but she's also a trained anthropologist, having completed a doctorate at Cambridge University and conducted field work in Tibet and Tajikistan. She's no stranger to questioning the assumptions and practices of a culture. Those in question - financial trading desks, urban police forces, surgical teams within medical clinics, software debuggers and consumer product engineers - have practices and rituals as ordered and intricate as those of any far-flung tribe.

In The Silo Effect, she uses an anthropological lens to explore how individuals, teams and whole organizations often work in silos of thought, process and product. With examples drawn from a range of fascinating areas from the New York Fire Department and Facebook to the Bank of England and Sony, these narratives illustrate not just how foolishly people can behave when they are mastered by silos but also how the brightest institutions and individuals can master them. The Silo Effect is a sharp, visionary and inspiring work with the insight, prescriptions and power to remove our organisational blinders and transform the way we think for the better.

Praise for Fool's Gold

'Her blow-by-blow story is an impressive piece of detective work. She pulls back the curtain on a closed, unaccountable world of finance' Will Hutton, Guardian

'A very readable, well-informed account of the way investment bankers invented, promoted and profited from the financial products that were at the heart of the banking collapse' Vince Cable, Daily Telegraph

'A fascinating, and detailed look at the crisis' Ruth Sutherland, Observer

'A truly gripping narrative . . . There's pathos as well as pace . . . The fact that Tett is able to reproduce such raw private communications is a tribute to her journalistic abilities' Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times

'The best journalism, they say, is the first draft of history. There is no doubt that Tett's reporting . . . is in that category' Howard Davies, Financial Times