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Since moving to more distant jobs, companies seem to have become more stable. Smaller circles and a greater sense of isolation make it easier to get stuck in your own carriage rather than trying to contribute to an integrated team. While they are only concerned with their silos, though, people tend to focus on their own priorities at cross-departmental meetings or events without the slightest interest in others, which means the manager has to work twice as hard to get them involved.
Breaking the silo is the key to staying agile and keeping pace with changing technology and the business world, but it’s also a matter of a company’s bottom line. One study found that large companies averaged ক্ষতি 62.4 million in losses due to poor communication with and between employees, and small companies averaged an average loss of $ 420,000. But what if we can prevent them from ever forming without taking steps to break the existing silos?
To truly eliminate silos, design a management framework that not only enables cross-communication, but is required.
Related: Want to improve diversity in your company? Get rid of silos
Leaders establish the structure
If you come across an organization that has silos or you are already in one, the best way to break them is with a visionary strategy that starts at the top. The job of executives is to set the vision or where the company is going. At our company, we’ve updated our “Coming of Age” plan with the “Age Now” plan as we move forward and achieve our goals, and now my job is to set and reset that vision. The responsibility of my staff is to establish Strategies to achieve that vision with the purpose of each of their divisions. Strategies are the way employees and their supervisors meet those objectives. When everyone does their job properly, design creates cross-communication within the company.
More than an idea or opinion, an approach should be market-driven. Present your point of view with a detailed explanation of how it follows the market direction, how you want to ride that wave, and why people can learn and respond to it better. People believe in your vision for the company, and they will have a much easier time buying the idea of silo resistance. Your point of view should be consistent, but once you get to the place, never silence anyone’s opinion about how to get closer to a purpose. The strategy level allows for such disagreements because everyone has already bought at least visually. From there, the strategies should be simple, but make sure they are measurable and defined and have high-level specific features, including a timeline and action plan. The more precise each step of the process, the less conflict – and less silo problems – will result.
Related: 10 Measures That Improve Internal Communication
Employees can model behavior
Even if you are not the boss, you can contact and purchase an organization wherever you are that will break the silo step by step. Find a person in another department on an equal footing and start a project to inspire cross-organizational collaboration. The easiest way to do this is to form an alliance with someone who already agrees with you.
However, the higher the level of difficulty, the more effective the results. Challenge yourself by finding a colleague who doesn’t agree with all of your ideas, and focus on finding common ground where you can set up a small project. Such collaboration enhances productivity, performance, engagement levels, and success rates. Others will see two employees from different departments working together and this behavior will become an example for others. Make a public display of departmental agreement, at least in this case, and cooperation will only extend from there.
Related: 3 Strong Internal Communication Tips To Be A Good Business
Managers manage by purpose
Whether an organization offers bonuses or performance reviews needs to be guided by objectives (MBOs). Managers should set the right working conditions that an individual needs to achieve a given objective, which often does not require cross-sectional integration. Before employees and supervisors are engaged in a strategy towards achieving a strategy, managers should make it clear which departments need to collaborate on what. Following that vision-strategy framework prevents confusion or conflict within the MBO, allowing for greater success for the company.
Setting objectives, such as increasing productivity, hiring and retaining goals, or addressing specific concerns for your business, will align employee and business goals into more collaborative and integrated systems. When potential employers come back to my interviews everyone is moving in the same direction as part of our team, aiming at the same goal and accomplishing the same focus, they can’t believe how much we align with each other. Even our quality inspector once told me that it is rare for him to see a company in such a long line.
To move everyone in the same direction, we line them up behind a philosophy. We then resolve conflicts at the strategic level to find common ground. Until then, managing strategies with clear purpose and fluid communication is out of Silo’s path for us.
The silos are really about disagreement and disunity, but a visionary-tactical approach can break them down without leaving room for the silos to exist in the first place. More communication and better collaboration between departments builds greater harmony and less resistance to change, allowing goals to be achieved more easily. Cross-communication with a clear alignment of objectives allows for the necessary collaboration to do more with less resources, reduce waste, establish better efficiency, increase revenue and, at the end of the day, help create and maintain a happy, close team.
