3 steps to remove silos in your company

It is easy to underestimate how quickly silos appear in businesses of all sizes, but how do you prevent them?

I work in team X

Team identities based on their function is the first silo that is easy to identify and remove. Team members have a skill, and they use that skill to create value - but this becomes problematic when they identify the value they create with simply having the skill. This equally applies to sub teams - silos within these teams behave in the same way.

How to fix: Cross functional teams that are focused on value and outputs for the customer, not on their job title or status.

You get what you measure

Setting goals is very difficult. It is all too easy to set the wrong incentives and create behaviour that leads to silos - “this is not my KPI” or “this is not my goal this month”.

How to fix: Be very careful how you create reward structures. People are good at optimising what they are asked to do, make sure the rewards are aligned to customer value.

Poor communication and culture

Us vs Them behaviours can come from multiples places, and very commonly it comes from the structure and communication from leadership. Creating competing goals between teams (and teams seeing executives compete rather than collaborate) leads to teams not sharing information and ultimately reducing output.

How to fix: Lead from the top, make clear examples of the leadership team collaborating and being customer obsessed and this will filter down. Communication is not always verbal, set an example with leadership behaviours.