The Silo Mentality: How To Break Down The Barriers

The Silo Mentality as defined by the Business Dictionary is a mindset present when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company. This type of mentality will reduce efficiency in the overall operation, reduce morale, and may contribute to the demise of a productive company culture.

It Trickles Down from the Top

The silo mindset does not appear accidentally nor is it a coincidence that most organizations struggle with interdepartmental turf wars. When we take a deeper a look at the root cause of these issues, we find that more often than not silos are the result of a conflicted leadership team.

Many executives may look at their organization and dismiss department inefficiencies and lack of cross-functional solutions with immature employees, lack of basic training, or simply the inability for some employees to play nicely with one another. Unfortunately, while these behaviors may be a result of the silo mentality; it is not the root cause. These assumptions will actually lead to long term harm to the organization as a whole by creating resentment and cynicism within the teams. Most employees become frustrated with their department and the organization as a whole when they have identified the problems, but can’t do anything about it. It is the responsibility of the leadership team to recognize this and rise above to create effective, long-term solutions that are scalable, executable, and realistic.

Here are 5 ways to encourage a unified front.

1.  Create a Unified Vision – A unified leadership team will encourage trust, create empowerment, and break managers out of the “my department” mentality and into the “our organization” mentality.

2.  Work Towards Achieving a Common Goal – A unified focus, should be applied across teams to encourage collaboration, team work and ultimately accomplishment of the common goal.

3.  Motivate and Incentivize – All of the tactics within Motivation are designed to avoid the “it’s not my job” attitude and encourage input, team work, and most importantly – productivity.

4.  Execute and Measure – Team work and constant cooperation must be present for the above 3 steps to work properly.

5.  Collaborate and Create – There are a few key factors in creating a thriving and productive team; knowledge, collaboration, creativity, and confidence. Without these four basic factors any team is destined to fail.

Breaking down the silos is not an easy task for any organization; however, the avoidance of these issues will be more detrimental to the employees and ultimately the overall health of the organization. The five steps laid out within this article are designed to help facilitate a unified vision and establish realistic steps to providing team members with a clear purpose and means to accomplishing the ultimate common goal. There is nothing more powerful in any organization than having all employees rowing fiercely in the same direction.

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Forbes