Extraordinary companies don’t do extraordinary things, they just do ordinary things extraordinarily well. A significant barrier to doing the ordinary extraordinarily are organisation siloes.
Siloes are distinct groups with their own perspective, culture, goals, and priorities. They can form from various sources, including vertical siloes between levels of hierarchy, horizontal siloes between teams, geographic siloes between head office and regional offices, and demographic siloes along gender or race lines.
Siloes have a profound impact on an organisation’s ability to innovate or identify risks early. They also hinder the flow of communication and knowledge, and limit an organisation’s agility to respond to external challenges.
One of our clients rather graphically described the impact of siloed working as “organisation constipation” because things just get stuck. Siloes risk creating a self-perpetuating cycle where individuals only interact with those who share similar perspectives and behaviours.
So why are siloes such an intrinsic part of organisation life and what can leaders do to reduce their impact?
The ‘us and them’ problem
Anthropologists have long argued that humans have a natural tendency to simplify and manage the world by categorising things and people. We classify people into groups to make sense of the millions of sensory inputs our brain receives every minute.
By developing an understanding of each other’s roles, challenges, and priorities we can build mutual respect and trust.
The downside of this efficiency is the development of ‘us and them’ thinking.
As humans we constantly strive to belong. We want to fit in and have a connection with others. Being part of a group who share parts of our identity helps us develop a positive self-concept.
People who share part of our identity are seen as ‘one of us’ or our ‘in-group’. People from different identity groups are often seen as ‘them’ or an ‘outgroup’. Having an identity that is tied in with one group, creates borders. This makes collaboration more difficult and fraught with suspicion and mistrust.
Emerging siloes
If you consider how we design our organisations, with employees categorised into job types, you can see how it becomes fertile ground for this mental fragmentation.
Leaders need to be constantly vigilant for any signs that siloes are emerging and take a proactive approach to helping their people span the organisation’s boundaries. Here are some practical steps for leaders can take.
Tactic one: Good fences make good neighbours
A strong but counterintuitive first step towards fostering greater unity is reinforcing the barriers between teams.
Reward systems often encourage employees to focus only on the success of their team and their own narrow objectives.
When we work with ‘them and us’ groups we initially define the boundaries that divide the groups. The phrase ‘good fences make good neighbours’ is a useful way to think about it.
By developing an understanding of each other’s roles, challenges, and priorities we can build mutual respect and trust. Acknowledging difference and diversity builds a strong foundation for meaningful collaboration.
Tactic two: Identify shared challenges
An important next step is to identify the shared challenges between groups. It’s the exploration of these ‘grey areas’, i.e. the issues that span boundaries, that provide the opportunity for innovation.
Creating cross-functional project teams provides a stepping stone towards greater integration.
Gradually, the siloes that once defined your working environment begin to fade. What was once ‘us and them’ becomes simply ‘us’.
Tactic three: Onboard in an intentional way
At Facebook, all new starters regardless of seniority, are put through a six-week onboarding bootcamp. This is designed to build strong social ties between employees across this vast organisation.
We may have pre-programmed cognitive tendencies to categorise and classify, but we can also change what we classify.
During onboarding, they are given joint tasks to complete with people outside their own team. These ties encourage them to develop relationships that they will utilise throughout their career.
Rather than rushing people into their role, onboarding can be a great opportunity to help your new starters to nurture their broader network. This will pay dividends in the long term.
Tactic four: Incentivise to integrate
There is often little incentive for leaders and their teams to collaborate and contribute outside their area of interest.
Reward systems often encourage employees to focus only on the success of their team and their own narrow objectives.
Many organisations fail to encourage their teams to develop interdependent, overlapping goals that require collaboration and there is little consequence for working in a siloed way.
Remedying this can mobilise people to put their differences aside and work together towards larger collective goals.
Tactic five: Who you promote and how you support them matters
Many organisations promote subject matter experts into management roles. These often result in leaders who excel in their respective domains but may lack the motivation to seek perspectives and insights from outside their own world.
To create transformational change, you sometimes have to take big steps.
You need your leaders to understand the basics of identity, belonging, and diversity. Initiatives like cross-functional working, shadowing and rotations can facilitate this.
Tactic six: Challenge conventional labels
We may have pre-programmed cognitive tendencies to categorise and classify, but we can also change what we classify.
Author Gilian Tett studied many of the financial failures from the 2008 crash and identified siloed thinking as a major cause of failure.
Review how your organisation labels different groups of people and think about how you can reinvent the definitions being used to encourage greater integration.
Tactic seven: Bring the whole system into the room
To create transformational change, you sometimes have to take big steps. We regularly use facilitation approaches like open space and world café to bring the whole system together.
As a leader, you can set an example by breaking down siloes in your own work.
We use these approaches to carefully integrate different groups to discuss key organisational issues that cut across the boundaries.
Three steps to breaking siloes
If you want to be an extraordinary organisation it can feel like a complex endeavour to breakdown siloes, requiring understanding of human psychology, organisational dynamics and strategic leadership, but it doesn’t need to be out of reach.
Here are three simple next steps you can take to start breaking down siloes:
- Scan constantly for division and tackle it early and often.
- Identify and articulate shared challenges between groups to find the opportunity for innovation and cooperation.
- Lead by example: As a leader, you can set an example by breaking down siloes in your own work. Attend different team meetings to gain a broader perspective of the organisation. Be inclusive in decision-making and celebrate cross-functional teams who work well together.
If you enjoyed this article, read: How your organisational structure impacts coaching success.
