In a followup to my post last month about the risk of having diversity & inclusion efforts be too easy siloed within organizations, I found a number of articles to help both prevent the silo effect from happening in the first place and deconstruct the silo once it has begun to take effect.
Marjorie Derven uses Jay Galbraith’s STAR model as conceptual framework for ensuring that D & I work does not become siloed: http://www.astd.org/Publications/Blogs/Human-Capital-Blog/2013/06/Obtaining-Star-Results-from-Diversity-Inclusion
Jeffrey Cufaude writes about the need to shift entire systems within organizations, systems based on mental models and belief systems. http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=46320
This blog at the Harvard Business Review talks about how to bring down all kinds of silos within an organization. In the article, Vijay Govindaranjan recommends two strategies for de-silo-ing departments, both of which could easily apply to diversity and inclusion work: http://blogs.hbr.org/govindarajan/2011/08/the-first-two-steps-toward-breaking-down-silos.html
In my experience, the key is organizational culture change. At its basic level, this means that those in leadership who model the way and set the standard must be in alignment with core diversity and inclusion values. Full commitment is one of the key ingredients that leads to the kind of transformative work many D & I practitioners and consultants strive for.