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Steps Organizations Can Take to Avoid and Break Silos

How can organizations avoid creating new silos, or break existing ones?

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Tue Jan 28 2025

Breaking Down Barriers and Stereotypes
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Are different departments or teams isolated from each other? Is there a lack of communication, and do they seem to blame each other for what isn’t working? If this sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. In a recent study by management consultants McKinsey, 80 percent of the organizations they surveyed reported that some of their divisions operated in silos.

And that’s a problem, because silos affect business performance. When different parts of the organization do not want to share skills, knowledge, or information with other areas in the same company, this inhibits collaboration and cooperation. This affects customer outcomes, innovation, effectiveness, performance, and, ultimately, the bottom line. So how can organizations avoid creating new silos, or break existing ones? Here are some steps you can take.

Understand the Issues

Breaking silos is not easy, but it can be done. The first step is to understand what the barriers to collaboration are. This may involve conducting surveys, interviews, or focus groups to identify why silos exist. Common causes include communication breakdowns, competition for resources, or unclear goals. By proactively addressing these issues and cultivating an inclusive, transparent workplace, organizations can create an environment that promotes collaboration, unity, and efficiency.

Clear Leadership and Organization-Wide, Shared Goals

Leadership comes from the top. Silos can develop when each senior leader begins to pursue their own department’s goals irrespective, or even at the expense, of other parts of the organization. Instead, leadership at all levels should be actively working to remove silos. It’s important that an organization has clearly defined goals that link to the function of each department, so that individuals and teams can understand how their work relates to the whole organization. Senior management must lead by example, clarifying how individual and team efforts contribute to the broader vision. A key part of their role should be to promote cross-functional collaboration and foster a unified organizational culture. If this is not the case, or if they are not held accountable when they fall short, silos will almost inevitably form.

Effective Communication

Communication can be an effective tool to break down any barriers between teams, thereby creating a unified culture. Organizations should create channels where employees can share ideas and updates across the business, and make use of collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack. Having other opportunities for regular communication across teams, such as town halls or interdepartmental meetings, can also help.

In creating effective communication, it is also important to think about communication style and therefore personality. People’s natural tendency is to communicate with others in a way that might work for us, and this is heavily influenced by their personality type. Because different personality types tend to be attracted to different types of job, this can mean that different teams or departments end up with very different overall personalities to each other. As a result, the communication put out by one team may not land with another team in the way in which it was intended, contributing to the creation of silos. Using tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment can help individuals appreciate how their communication style differs from that of others, and thus prevent miscommunication and communication breakdown. Consider facilitating psychological safety by creating an environment where all personality types feel their input is valued, regardless of their natural communication style.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Bringing people together across departments will help to break down silos—provided the gatherings have a clear purpose. Encourage cross-departmental projects and working groups, and schedule regular cross-team meetings to discuss progress and challenges. Establish cross-functional task forces for key initiatives, and recognize and reward employees who actively engage in these projects. Senior leadership has a key role to play here too. They should openly share information across their teams and demonstrate collaboration with other departments. Training leaders and managers to behave inclusively will also be important. You should provide training on collaboration, teamwork, and conflict resolution to encourage a cohesive work environment. Where appropriate, consider allowing employees to spend time in other teams to gain perspective on their challenges.

Seeing Other Teams as People

Stereotyping comes naturally to human beings. It’s easy to fall into unjustified generalizations about people, teams, and departments; “finance people are rigid bean counters,” “salespeople are pushy, they don’t care about the rules and they cause chaos in the back office,” and so on. This is another place where tools like the MBTI assessment can help. Having a framework to understand the differences between themselves and others helps employees see the people working in different functions as individuals, rather than as “them.” People can understand how they are like those in other teams, and how they are different, and learn to collaborate and use those differences in a positive way. All of this helps to debunk assumptions about different departments or roles, breaking down the sense of “them.” Individuals and teams can appreciate how other MBTI types work and why their contributions are essential.

Streamlined Processes and Systems

Study the processes that have grown up in your organization and the systems being used. It’s natural that teams will develop and adopt processes that fit their needs, but sometimes these get in the way of other teams achieving their goals. You should standardize processes across the organization, reducing inefficiencies. Identify the points where one team’s process impinges on another team’s and remove points of conflict. Eliminate redundant processes and procedures. Regularly assess and adjust processes that contribute to silos. Map out workflows and identify where interdepartmental collaboration fails.

Different teams will often use different software. Where possible, integrate systems, using centralized tools for data sharing. Break down technical barriers that prevent data or resource sharing.

Clear Roles and Responsibilities

When roles and responsibilities are unclear, different teams or departments may take on the same tasks, leading to conflict and protectionism. Clearly define roles and responsibilities to reduce confusion and overlap, and encourage teams to understand each other’s functions and expertise. This will help to build mutual respect.

Training and Development

Training programs that include members of different teams or departments can help employees get to know and understand the concerns of other parts of the business and foster cross-functional relationships. MBTI-based training can help teams understand each other’s preferences and how they complement one another, facilitating open discussions about differences and how to bridge them. As mentioned above, specific training on collaboration, teamwork, and conflict resolution will encourage a cohesive work environment.

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