But whilst locking in and laser focusing can help you tick things off your to-do list in the short term, in the long term, working in a silo is likely to result in duplicated work, less creativity and more emotionally draining office politics.
To build and sustain a motivated, high performing team, you need both context from leadership on how your work impacts the organisation's long term goals and support from colleagues and peers across different teams.
In this cheat sheet, we’ll cover ways to spot a silo and reduce tension between teams, making everyone’s working life just a little bit easier and more enjoyable.
Silos come in many shapes and sizes. Knowing what you’re dealing with is the first step to addressing the issue.
Here are a few common culprits:
Departmental silos: If you’re constantly butting heads with a team you should be in sync with, you might have a departmental silo on your hands.
👀 Look out for: blame games, bad handovers and single points of failure (e.g. only one person is responsible for sharing crucial information between teams.)
Geographical silos: that team you work with in another country? They might as well be on another planet.
👀 Look out for: miscommunications and cultural mis-steps, timezone chaos, assumptions that what’s right for one market is right for all.
Remote vs in office silos: whilst remote work doesn’t automatically create silos, it can be a contributing factor if you’re not intentional about the tools that you use and your communication rhythms and rituals.
👀 Look out for: your remote team members repeatedly asking ‘why am I only just hearing about this?’!, a lack of investment in essential tools for collaboration and an imbalance in the length of time it takes to get promoted between in-office and remote staff.
Hierarchical silos: if communication between leaders and the wider team is only ever one way, then both parties suffer. Leaders lack context on day-to-day frontline challenges, whilst team members feel like they have no voice.
👀 Look out for: low engagement scores, an ‘us vs them’ culture, attrition, poorly managed change processes.
Tech silos: if everyone is using different platforms to manage their work, it’s not going to help you communicate well as a team.
👀 Look out for: a ballooning software budget, lots of passive aggressive IT tickets and technical blockers to building processes that involve more than one team.
Whilst you can’t combat a silo solo, once you’ve identified the issues you’re dealing with, you can set an example by reaching out to your peers in other teams to tackle the issue together.
It’s highly likely that if you’re experiencing issues around lack of communication and collaboration, others in your peer group will also feel the pain. Take the time to listen to the perspectives of others to build consensus on a way forward, then agree on some quick wins to build momentum.
By making the first move, you’re also setting an example to your team members to prioritise relationship and alliance building.
Another way to combat silos is to set a clear expectation for your team members from day one that they should spend time connecting and collaborating across the organisation.
Make sure your team members have access to a clear org chart and organise intro sessions with other teams to help build context on their current priorities and ways of working.
Silos do not emerge overnight. They rear their ugly heads when recurring issues go unaddressed by leaders.
When processes break down or vital communication doesn’t reach those it’s meant to, it’s important to avoid playing blame games and tackle the issue head on.
The exact way to go about this of course depends on the situation. Minor issues can generally be addressed through a 1:1 conversation with a peer, whilst major incidents might warrant a retro to identify root causes.
Whatever you do, avoid making assumptions about your peers' motives and priorities. Instead, focus on listening to understand and identify common goals.
Silos can also arise when incentive structures are misaligned and unintentionally place teams at cross purposes. The prototypical example here is sales vs account management - if sales teams are incentivised purely based on conversion they might bring on customers who cause a myriad of issues once onboarded.
If you have influence over incentive structures, think carefully about aligning targets across teams to ensure that you’re not creating perverse incentives.
As a manager, you are directly accountable for your own team’s goals and performance. However, you’re unlikely to succeed within an organisational vacuum. Investing time and energy in building alliances, establishing clear channels of communication across teams and tackling issues early will pay dividends.
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