Silo Kings and Silo Queens
Rich Baron • August 30, 2023
What is an Organizational Silo
What is an organizational silo and how common are they? The fact is that silos are more common than you think. Organizational silos happen in business whenever the company is separated by department, specialization, or location and fails to align the vision, mission, and purpose of the organization as a collaborative effort leaving the various departments to direct themselves. Let's talk about five types of silos found in business today.
The Executive Silo
- Unfortunately for many organizations, the closer to the top you get, the farther away you are from solving problems and the people in the organization. This in turn starts to create that executive hubris that creates blinders and barriers. More formality, entitlement, reports, meetings, and less feel for the workforce will give birth to executive silos.
The Departmental Silo
- in working with organizations, I have come to see departmental silos created in two separate ways. The first is when there has been very little direction and communication over the years as to the vision, mission, and purpose of the organization. The departments then begin to work towards what they interpret are the company goals with no collaboration or communication with other groups. In this case, they develop their own processes, reports, tribal knowledge, and satellite culture. The second way a departmental silo is developed comes from those people on the executive team that are determined to run their own kingdoms the way they see fit. Hence, we see the birth of the silo king and silo queen. They believe that departmental loyalty to themselves is key to their success. Therefore, very little to no effort in collaboration with other groups is encouraged.
The Location Silos
- This type of silo comes from organizations with multiple locations. In many instances, these locations are working on the same types of products using the same type of processes with little communication on best practices or collaboration with other locations.
The Intellectual Silos
- These types of silos exist where there are various departments in organizations that specialize in a specific area such as quality, engineering, sales, R&D, etc. Generally speaking, these are the employees who are well-educated, have a specific direction, and do not feel the need to collaborate or share information with other groups.
I Hold the Keys Silo
- There is also a silo that exists within each of these groups that can be detrimental to any organization. This occurs when some of the key employees in these groups have specific information on processes, products, customers, regulations, etc., and purposefully do not document or share the information and instead, keep this information secret, or to themselves. It is a shallow attempt at self-preservation with the mindset that if I have certain information the company will not get rid of me. Therefore, my career is safe as long as I hold the keys.
So how do silos form and how can an organization break the barriers? The following are some tips on what to look for and how to deal with the silo mentality.
How Silos Form
- No cross-functional team projects
- Lack of meetings or activities that promote interaction between departments
- No top-down-driven organizational culture (As the CEO goes, so does the organizational culture)
- Competing for resources in the organization
- Poor knowledge management practices or lack of an internal knowledge base
- No direction promoting collaboration
- Organizational communication barriers
- Incentivizing individual departments
- No focus on the vision, mission, or purpose of the organization
How to Break Down the Silos
- Create cross-functional teams that promote collaboration and accountability
- Utilize knowledge base software for a centralized location for information
- Promote activities that include all the employees
- Communicate and post the vision, mission, and purpose of the company and align the organizational goals with these statements
- Assign projects to multiple departments which require people to collaborate and work together
- Ensure communication flows throughout the entire organization
- Provide opportunities for employees throughout the organization
- Encourage employee engagement at all levels
- Assess your culture with ILEC’s proprietary Organizational Cultural Assessments
It is the role and responsibility of leaders to recognize when silos have formed and break them down. By introducing some of the above measures you can move towards a better culture, one with less politics, less frustrations, greater teamwork and collaboration.
About the Author
Rich Baron is a Master Certified Intelligent Leadership Executive Coach at John Mattone Global, with over 25 years of experience in operational and executive leadership positions.
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