- By: Áine Byrne
- Published on:
Share on:
How to minimise silos and keep your business healthy
Silos, they were so 1990s or 2000s! In a world with various collaboration tools at our disposal and information so easily accessible, they no longer exist right? Sadly, and much to our amazement, you can still find them today!
The trouble with silos is they hinder your business. A business is like a living organism, every part of it needs to work in unison to be healthy. If you have a weak department, its inefficiency will impact all your other areas.
Value alignment and self-awareness
You hear a lot about putting yourself before work. And we are big supporters of that to ensure you maintain a healthy and balanced life. We are also big supporters of consciously choosing to work for a business where your own values are aligned with its vision and values. Be it your own business or a business you work for, values are the principles that guide our actions and behaviours, they impact people, our ways of working, and shape the environment around us every day. When we, as individuals, engage with a business and its values, we also need to make a conscious effort to exercise self-awareness, or in other words, run a self-ego check (yes, we all have one as we are all human). By doing so, we put the business first and with our values aligned we will collectively contribute towards helping it thrive and achieve its vision.
Why are we talking about values and self-awareness? Well, there are several reasons why silos occur, and while the cause may be different, the underlying reasons are usually the same:
- a lack of focus on the vision and values of the business
- weak value alignment
- or a lack of one’s self-awareness.
An example could be those, whether intentionally or unintentionally, working against the business’ values by wanting to carve out their own little empire, or the person who isn’t self-aware and constantly feels threatened by others’ work. In each case, it leads to a stifling of information and diminishes the well-being of any business.
We live in an age where team collaboration tools are a must for any business and where information (or data) is currency. This means having the right tools and accurate information to hand drives better business decision-making. We also need other departments’ information to have a complete picture of the situation to make the best-informed decisions. Silos will give you either the wrong information, different versions of the information, outdated information, or in extreme cases, information black holes.
The effect of silos on your workforce
With silos impacting the flow of information, your team members will end up feeling isolated. Should this happen, they will not feel part of the wider business family and their engagement will drop. This is especially true when they hear about decisions that affect their role, or company news, through third-party channels or by individuals who are not even involved. Your overall business productivity, performance and skill retention will all suffer.
How do we get rid of silos?
The good news is should you find silos in your business, there are ways to eradicate them.
Firstly, it needs to start at the top. Higher management needs to actively practice and communicate the vision and values and set the culture of the business. By implementing processes that encourage communication, information sharing and collaboration between departments, they will affect a cultural change for the better.
Secondly, you can use methods like Root Cause Analysis (check out more here) to identify why collaboration is lacking. By uncovering the root cause of your silos, you will find yourself armed and ready to combat them. It might be unnecessary competition between departments (let’s leave that for the company sports day shall we), or something more process-driven where business process integrity is lacking, or not having the right tools, or even lack of training on the tools, to do their job effectively.
The process-driven causes will make your team members feel they can do their jobs quicker by themselves by taking shortcuts (too much red tape!) rather than following outdated and possibly duplicate steps in a heavy process. But by having the right level of processes in place and championing collaboration, providing the right tools and the necessary training, and even showcasing how well things have worked in other departments, you can start breaking down the silos and enhancing information exchange. An example could be showcasing how a team delivered a successful project and the methods that worked well or sharing the lessons learnt. Sharing business wins will break down the barriers and create a more all-for-one atmosphere.
Silos on the micro level
As well as looking at silos from a higher level, we also need to consider looking at the micro team level. A silo can be made up of a group of one. Here, getting your teams to talk internally is the key. Championing collaboration and knowledge-sharing sessions, using best practices, and obviously tweaking them to suit your business (read more about this here), like the Scrum framework, or agile methods that incorporate a daily stand-up will give each team member the time and opportunity to discuss with others what they are working on as well as highlighting any blockers to their work.
The result is your entire team will be clued up on what’s going on. Trust-based relationships will be built, better stakeholder engagement will begin, and the whole team will start supporting each other and working collectively towards one common goal. Plus, with the feeling they are a part of something, their job satisfaction and morale will increase. All this will have a positive knock-on effect on the fitness and well-being of your business.
It’s time to get rid of silos for good
All the greatest journeys started with a single step, and it’s the same here. The rewards can be huge. Removing silos and breaking down the barriers to encourage cross-functional cooperation will result in your business not only becoming healthier but achieving greater success through better collective intelligence and optimised processes. You will see your project and product delivery times reduce, customer satisfaction increase, and team members’ morale go through the roof.
So, let us all lead by example, all of us, all at once. Starting… now.