Open Borders

Close the borders. Levy the tariffs. Protect the turf.  It’s a natural instinct to circle the wagons and guard yourself from threats beyond the boundary, whether those boundaries are national, organizational, or team-based.  It’s a natural instinct. Except it doesn’t work.

Consider this

We remember Genghis Khan as a fearsome conqueror. But his true genius wasn’t just in vanquishing his enemies, it was in what he did afterwards. 

He forged diplomatic relations with the peoples he’d conquered. He eliminated trade barriers and protected merchants by building roads and trade routes. Under Mongol rule, the Silk Road flourished, connecting China to the Middle East, India, and Europe for the first time ever.

His empire became a zone of relative safety where ideas, goods, and cultures flowed freely: Arabic numerals, Chinese medicine, paper money, Persian astronomy. Even religious tolerance was enforced by law.

While feudal Europe hoarded wealth and resisted exchange, locking peasants into self-sufficient manors that stalled progress and the creation of a middle class, Genghis Khan understood that prosperity comes not from protecting what you have, but by sharing it. 

Putting it into Play

Exchange creates value. Openness fuels innovation. And collaboration multiplies impact.

When we open borders—between teams, departments, cultures, or disciplines—we invite a division of labor based on strengths. People can contribute what they do best, and receive what others do better. 

Biology teaches the same lesson that Genghis Khan modeled: every living system depends on exchange with its environment. Cells absorb nutrients and expel waste; ecosystems thrive through interdependence. Seal off the borders, and the system slowly starves. That’s how systems grow stronger, not by closing in, but by opening out.