Business silos are more than just a buzzword – they’re a threatening phenomenon that can manifest in almost any business, and if left unchecked, they can seriously undermine your organization’s communication, goals, and focus. To overcome them, you’ll need to take the time to understand their true nature and invest the time and energy necessary to break them down.
How Silos Affect Your Business
A “silo” forms when one department, team, or group of people within your organization becomes closed off from another. Think of it as multiple teams within your business operating as if they were separate businesses, rather than subgroups of the same whole. This usually happens when departments are physically separated, when they communicate infrequently, or when they follow different structures and rules.
These are just a few of the negative side effects:
- Poor communication. Approximately 39 percent of employees believe they don’t collaborate enough with other people in their workplace, and 86 percent of workers and executives believe that poor collaboration leads to project failures. When employees in one department feel separated from another, communication suffers; employees are less likely to ask questions or communicate openly, and may use different processes, mediums, or frameworks to send messages.
- Brand inconsistency. Two departments operating independently will eventually diverge, as a corporate variety of allopatric speciation. For example, your sales team might take the brand in a louder, bolder direction, while your marketing team takes the brand in a subtler, more eloquent direction. Customers who engage with multiple teams may have very different experiences?and an inconsistent impression of your brand.
- Limited cross-training. Departmental silos also limit your cross-training options; a software developer with limited exposure to other departments may have no idea how new clients are onboarded, or how project managers operate. This leaves them with no ability to step in if and when something goes awry in those areas. This is also a vulnerability when one department suffers a loss, such as multiple departures in quick succession, or multiple people on vacation at the same time?no one else can step in.
- Conflicting goals. In extreme cases, your siloed departments may end up with radically different goals. For example, your account managers may be so fixated on keeping your customers happy that they’ll promise them unrealistic deadlines and features that stretch beyond your engineers’ abilities, while your engineers don’t care about the client’s perspectives, solely focusing on completing what’s covered in the initial scope document.
How to Break Them
So what can you do to break down silos?
- Encourage cross-training. First, try to establish some level of cross-training between your departments and within them. It takes an investment of time (and sometimes money), but it’s important to build redundancy on your team. That way, your people will be able to cover for each other more efficiently, and more importantly, they’ll have a broader perspective on how your organization functions. This leads to higher levels of empathy, more effective communication, and stronger team bonds.
- Agree on common standards and goals. All your departments should be on the same page in terms of high-level goals and values. Each department should be working from the same set of brand standards, and should agree on the most important elements to your business’s success (such as client satisfaction, product quality, and consistent improvement). Keep these formally documented and readily accessible to leaders in all departments.
- Appoint departmental liaisons. It may also be helpful for you to train and/or appoint “departmental liaisons” if your team is big enough. These roles serve as hybrids between departments, smoothing over communication issues that might otherwise arise, and ensuring those departments evolve together. For example, you might have an intermediary to resolve disputes between account management and development.
- Invest more in teambuilding. It doesn’t take much to improve your internal teambuilding?even an occasional game or lunch together can do wonders for team morale. It’s important for employees to see each other as people, outside their normal working relationships, to prevent silos from getting worse.
- Listen to employee feedback. Finally, make an effort to encourage employee feedback, and listen to that feedback regularly. Employees may point out issues directly?such as noting conflicting goals between departments?or indirectly?such as complaining that someone from another department doesn’t “understand how things work.” Take proactive action when you hear these types of insights.
Any business with separate departments, or more than a handful of people, can eventually develop silos?and since they tend to develop gradually, it’s hard to see them coming until it’s too late. By using these strategies, you can attenuate the development of silos in your business, or if they’ve already manifested, reduce their impact.
