As I ask certain questions, I quickly find out that there is no alignment between the top, middle and bottom of the organization. The vision and mission of the company have been lost even though they are displayed prominently on the office wall and proudly on the company’s website.
This lack of alignment and collaboration has lead to many of their employees working in proverbial silos. As you can see in the photo, silos are individual compartments--although in close proximity to one another, they are separate. Now, in farming, silos perform a specific function, but in business, silos can be detrimental to maintaining a team environment.
Departments, along with their employees, who work in silos, are not connected to the whole. They do their work and only their work. They’re not concerned so much with what the other departments are doing, only about their department and how it performs. Individuals can also work in silos; they too can find themselves only concerned about their own job and couldn’t care less how anyone else is doing. The danger here is that even if one department meets the goals of its department and the others fail, then the entire company fails. Departments, as to function, must be kept separate, but the focus and reason for the company’s existence must ever be in full view.
It is the job of the leader to make sure silos are not constructed, either departmentally or individually, and where they exist it’s the leader’s job to tear them down. How? By making sure everyone in the organization understands that if the company is going to meet its goals and deliver for its customers, they are all interdependent upon each other.
Tear down those silos and build a team focused on collaborative efforts and you will see a dramatic turnaround in your organization. Simply put, it’s called working together.
Good article. ^^
ReplyDeleteNow I understand what is silo means.