
Indeed, groups and individuals may work in silos without realizing that they are doing so. Studies have also shown risks of silos in remote work: “As employees shifted to remote work due to Covid-19, organizational networks around the world became more siloed and that the membership of communities within these networks became less stable.” Creating a unified goal is a strong solution to breaking down the silo changing the mentality to create a company-wide team is key., TED Talk, Get comfortable with being uncomfortableįor Kate Turner, director of Motivational Leadership, working in silos means that groups ‘ do not want to share information or knowledge with other individuals they work with.’ Although Turner is right to reflect on the lack of collaboration that occurs in siloed organisations, her point regarding the intentional nature of silo working, as something that employees actively choose, requires further discussion. Only when silos fragment companies into tribal communities of expertise does the losses in creativity, risk management, trust, and communication cause significant problems in the company. It is important to remember that silos aren’t binary, and some aspects of silo mentality will exist in any company. Despite this, creating a time-frame for the goal is also important to feel achievable and concrete.

The goal should also be difficult to measure – quantitative achievement will eventually be connected to the goal – so that a general desire to achieve this goal is met. It’s important to not divide this goal into several: it must stand by itself to show what is important to the entire company. There are specific qualities which a good unifying goal has some of which may seem counterintuitive to the SMART goals we all know and love. This can break down the competitive departmental goals which only serve to emphasize independence. Having a single, unified vision for the company gives both individuals and their teams a reason to work with other teams. So how do you prevent this? One of the best solutions is creating a company-wide goal. How could some of the world's most experienced bank managers all fail to predict the crash? Through thorough introspection, UBS discovered that teams on one side had no incentive to look into the other side each team only looked at their respective risks and never used their expertise towards other sides. During the 2008 housing bubble, UBS faced losses of over 19 billion dollars. This reduction of creativity can be highly detrimental to the creation of new products or services.Īnother issue silos cause is concealing risks. Because of this, teams of different expertise won’t collaborate and brainstorm as much new ideas, improvements, and creativity as a whole will be limited within the boundaries of each separate silo. Information gathered from one silo will not be connected with others.
SILO EFFECT HOW TO
Here’s what to look out for in a silo, and how to break them down. Often in the process of growing companies, silos of departments are unintentionally created, compartmentalizing employees of different departments.

These ‘silos’ are mental barriers of departments that contain integral information, but block communication, reduce creativity, and conceal risk. How vertical teams within companies can cause unseen problemsĭespite the increase in fast communication and widespread connectivity, ‘silos’ often emerge.
