'Organisational 'silos' kill value'

The'silo' mentality is the mindset of individuals or groups, which ensures interest only in their own local activities rather than collaborating with others to achieve overall organisational goals.

When groups suffer from the 'silo' mentality, they are similar to relay teams who continuously drop the baton, rather than seamlessly coordinating their activities to achieve overall success.

No business, institution, or government agency is immune from silo syndrome in which barriers develop among the organisation's many divisions. Marketing may develop its own culture and have difficulty interacting with other functions such as finance or with the supply chain.

This manifestation of the 'silo' syndrome breeds insular thinking and suboptimal decision-making negatively impacting the overall performance of the organisation.

Collaboration roadblocks

Command-and-control-oriented or regimental cultures breed silos. In such cultures, fear prevails. Managers focus on guarding 'turf' rather than engaging colleagues outside their group. Instead of reaching across the organisation, people in command-and-control cultures primarily move information and decisions vertically not horizontally.

If it seems necessary to involve another department or function, a team member runs the idea up the flagpole within his or her 'silo'. Then it's up to a more senior manager, whether to engage another department, function, or business unit. Unless an organisation does something to break down 'silos', the challenge will only get worse as the amount of information trapped in silos grows.

Senior leaders are by no means immune to the 'silo' syndrome. In some organisations, leaders of business units and functions focus more on managing their teams and their relationships with the CEO than on collaborating across the organisation. 'Silos' can also occur at organisational level when team members are either inhibited or discouraged from engaging senior leaders without going through channels. Also, senior leaders may feel inhibited from engaging front-line workers.

To break the organisational 'silo' barriers, the goal is not to destroy silos themselves but to eliminate the problems that cause silos. That is a critical distinction. Managers may be tempted to think that getting rid of silos is the answer.

But the structure that 'silos' bring is important in terms of creating accountability and responsibility within a function. After all every function has to deliver its own functional goals but the important thing is to keep the end game in mind which is the overall goal of the organisation.

Silo managers know clearly what they are responsible for. Cooperation, communication, and collaboration are the three keys to working across 'silos'. Those are components that ideally any successful working relationship would have, but they are must-haves to break the organisational 'silos' barrier.

You can break this barrier when knowledge, focus, and control are shared among more than one 'silo'. The solution is about losing tower vision and being able to look at things from a different person’s or department’s point of view.

Breaking this barrier is also not about proving who is 'wrong' and who is 'right'. It is perfectly understandable why 'silo' heads have different priorities and why they believe that they are doing their best for the company when they are doing their best for their 'silo'.

When managers have been given responsibility and authority, it is only natural that they will choose to exercise them and this is not always in moderation. When decisions to re-prioritise are made, it is because collaboration or communication has allowed a shift in perspective.

Human nature forces people to want to do the best they can within their own 'sandbox' at the expense of everybody else. 'Owning' a function or a part of a business naturally brings forth a manager’s entrepreneurial spirit, and you don’t get to be head of a silo without being competitive. Managers rationalise their lack of cooperation as “I’ve been given this area to run as I see fit and I need to do the best job I possibly can.” This is easier said than done, of course.

We are, after all, typical 'silo' heads talking about a group of more focused, highly competitive individuals. A good process to remove barriers, shows where cooperation is not occurring, and points out the consequences of those lapses. It puts in place measures to ensure that decisions are not made in isolation.