Question

explain how organizationsl silos develop and justify how the study of business Process can reduce or eliminate problems caused by the silo effect.

10 points required

Answer 1

Ways To Recognize Organizational Silos

To aid executives and employers spot these emerging and established company silos, CMSWire's Kaya Ismail has consulted business leaders to get their help on identifying silos before they become a major problem.

1. Broken Customer Experiences

“The most obvious sign of siloed teams, and what ultimately makes them extremely undesirable, is a broken customer experience,” Harris explains. One example he offers is an eCommerce brand that doesn’t have the technology or communication channels in place to discern potential customers from existing customers. “If you’ve already purchased from an eCommerce brand but their marketing team treats you like a [potential] customer, [it points to sales and marketing teams that are] siloed,” he says.

2. Internal Unfamiliarity

If your employees or colleagues aren’t generally on a first-name basis, something could be wrong. “The first sign of working at a company with silos is when you don’t know the majority of people working outside your team, or what they do at your company,” says Jay Goldman, co-founder and Managing Director of Toronto, Canada-based Sensei Labs.

It's not to say that every employee has to be a familiar with everyone else, but first-name familiarity is paramount — particularly in small and medium-sized organizations. Obviously, this becomes impossible for companies with hundreds of employees, but even then, knowing the names and having direct access to every executive should be part of company culture in order to ward off the threat of silos.

3. Us Vs Them Mentalities

When departments get isolated, they begin to develop an "us vs them" mentality, seeing other departments as competitors and obstacles to success. Jay Goldman offers this point, “protectionist thinking [can develop as a result of silos], where people don’t share information or collaborate with one another out of fear that another team’s gain will be their loss.” He also shares that with time, this could lead to “subcultures (or even cliques) with their own separate and distinct cultures that may not align with a company’s overall mission and culture.”

4. Disenfranchised Employees

If a proud, protectionist mentalities aren’t visible, you may need to look out for the opposite — disenfranchisement. Goldman says that there is indeed a link between silos and disengagement at work. “People who don’t feel like they’re part of the team at large or that they aren’t treated like others in the company will likely become unhappy, unproductive, and pose the risk of sharing their negativity with their coworkers,” he says.

5. Task Duplication

Another common sign linked to organizational silos is task duplication. If there’s no communication, there’s no way to know if the work you’re doing isn’t simultaneously being done by somebody else in another department. And that, according to Ken Tacelli, COO of Bedford, MA.-based Datawatch, is a sign that managers need to watch for. “One of the tell-tale signs of a heavily siloed organization is duplication,” he says.

He warns that businesses that lack collaboration will have individuals and teams in different departments working on similar assignments and projects which will ultimately lead to inefficiencies and loss of productivity. "The best-case scenario for this duplication of data analysis is that teams came up with the same result. However, in many cases, these individuals or teams produce different numbers causing disagreements about who had analyzed the 'correct' data and which can be fully trusted,” he says.

How to eliminate it

1.The Behaviors and Mindsets That Need to Shift

Many executives may look at their organization and dismiss department inefficiencies and lack of cross-functional solutions due to immature employees, lack of basic training, or simply the inability for some employees to play nicely with one another. Unfortunately, while these behaviors may be a result of the silo mentality; it is not usually the root cause. These assumptions will actually lead to long term harm to the organization as a whole by creating resentment and cynicism within the teams. It is the responsibility of the leadership team to recognize this and rise above to create effective, long-term solutions that are scalable, executable, and realistic.

How to Succeed in Complex Environments

Organizations that will succeed in this more volatile and complex business environment have to not only develop and regularly communicated an aligned vision - and the specific narrative to support it - but also answer the questions:

"What behaviors and mindsets need to change in order to accomplish this goal?"

"What barriers need to be broken down to accomplish this change effort?"

More meaningful relationship building outside of the silos people exist in will gradually dilute the strength of those barriers. This also improves trust and willingness to regularly share important information. Everyone is working towards a common goal and all understand their roles in move the ship in that direction.

It didn't happen overnight, but when senior leaders throughout the military ranks, especially in special operations, got behind this change effort, started demonstrating the new behaviors themselves and talked about the new vision every day; only then didn't the culture start to shift to align with the vision and strategy.

Here are 5 steps to encourage a unified front and open up the lines for communicating a powerful vision for change.

As written by Patrick Lencioni in his book Silos, Politics and Turf Wars; "Silos - and the turf wars they enable - devastate organizations. They waste resources, kill productivity, and jeopardize the achievement of goals." He goes on to advise leaders to tear down silos by moving past behavioral issues and address the contextual issues that are present at the heart of the organization. For many organizations, this means that not only do all employees of the company need to row in the same direction, but the executive teams must be engaged and at the forefront steering the boat.

It is imperative that the leadership team agrees to a common and unified vision for the organization. There must be a large level of executive buy in and core understanding of the company's long term goals, department objectives, and key initiatives within the leadership team prior to passing it down to the teams. A unified leadership team will encourage trust, create empowerment, and break managers out of the "my department" mentality and into the "our organization" mentality. And the leaders must consistent with all of their behaviors first before others will follow.

2. Work Towards Achieving A Common Goal.

Once the leadership team has agreed to the over-arching unified vision of the organization, it is important that this team determines underlying root problems that may be causing the ripple effect of silos. Many times there are multiple tactical goals and objectives identified, but it is up to the Leadership team to remain on task and define the single, qualitative focus that is shared among them as the top priority. Once the "elephant in the room" has been identified it is important that all executives and all members of management work together towards achieving that common goal. It is also important that all employees are aware of this objective and understand how they can make an impact individually.

In Virginia Anderson and Lauren Johnson's book, Systems Thinking Basics, they define systems thinking as a holistic and big-picture view of the whole. It is recognizing the interconnections between parts of a system and synthesizing them into a unified view. This thinking, along with a unified focus, should be applied across teams to encourage collaboration, team work and ultimately accomplishment of the common goal.

Kudos to execs and management teams who are able to successfully establish a unified, common goal and understand how the various parts of a whole intertwine. Half of the battle is won. The final steps in eliminating silos cover execution and implementation. Motivation can vary across teams, and most importantly across individuals. What really defines a successful manager is one who is able to identify what key components motivate each of their employees and how to communicate this effectively to a wide-range of audiences. Once the common goal has been identified, each member of the management team must incentivize their employees accordingly.

If your common goal is to revamp the reputation of your company, then one of your objectives might be to improve the quality of your product. If the objective is to improve the quality of the product then your employee incentives should be built to maximize this desired result. For example, someone in product development might receive an incentive for reducing bugs within deadline; while the customer service representative might receive an incentive on increasing customer satisfaction. Incentives will go a long way with motivating employees; however, it is not all that is needed. Managers need to remember that motivation encompasses a wide variety of tactics including common interests, individual investment in growth, shared voice, and positive words of encouragement. All of the tactics described within Motivation are designed to avoid the "it's not my job" attitude and encourage input, team work, and most importantly - productivity.

4. Execute and Measure.

Just like any established goal, it is important that once this goal is defined, it is also measured accurately. The leadership team must establish a time frame to complete the common goal, benchmarks for success and delegate specific tasks and objectives to other members of the management team, and down to front line troops. Empowerment and accountability are key.

It is not uncommon that a large amount of inertia is needed to keep the momentum going. Let's not forget that teams thrive off routine and constant reinforcement. Team work and constant cooperation must be present for the above 3 steps to work properly.

The famous quote by Francis Bacon "knowledge is power" has a very pivotal role in modern organizations. There are a few key factors in creating a thriving and productive team; knowledge, collaboration, creativity, and confidence. Without these four basic factors any team is destined to fail.

To encourage your teams to exhibit all 4 of these traits it is recommended that management allows and fosters cross-departmental interaction. The exchange of knowledge and the collaboration that will inevitably take place between teams is absolutely priceless. To maximize collaboration, knowledge, creativity and confidence it is suggested that management works to reduce unnecessary long and frequent meetings, builds out accessible and small meeting rooms, implements a cross-departmental training system, and encourages constructive feedback from outside departments.

Breaking down the silos is not an easy task for any organization whether it be military, business or other; however, the avoidance of these issues will be more detrimental to the employees and ultimately the overall ability to unite by any transformation effort. The five steps are designed to help facilitate a unified vision and establish realistic steps to providing team members with a clear purpose and means to accomplishing the ultimate common goal. There is nothing more powerful in any organization than having all employees rowing fiercely in the same direction.

And again, these visions don't have to be overly complex or be wild leaps at greatness. They have to be something that the team can connect to, where everyone understands how not only to talk their way to the win, but to behave their way there. A clearly communicated vision, a little restructuring and shift in mindsets coupled with consistency and discipline is how the best organizations are going to thrive in the twenty-first century.

It is not uncommon that a large amount of inertia is needed to keep the momentum going. Let's not forget that teams thrive off routine and constant reinforcement. Team work and constant cooperation must be present for the above 3 steps to work properly.

5. Collaborate and Create.

The famous quote by Francis Bacon "knowledge is power" has a very pivotal role in modern organizations. There are a few key factors in creating a thriving and productive team; knowledge, collaboration, creativity, and confidence. Without these four basic factors any team is destined to fail.

To encourage your teams to exhibit all 4 of these traits it is recommended that management allows and fosters cross-departmental interaction. The exchange of knowledge and the collaboration that will inevitably take place between teams is absolutely priceless. To maximize collaboration, knowledge, creativity and confidence it is suggested that management works to reduce unnecessary long and frequent meetings, builds out accessible and small meeting rooms, implements a cross-departmental training system, and encourages constructive feedback from outside departments.

Breaking down the silos is not an easy task for any organization whether it be military, business or other; however, the avoidance of these issues will be more detrimental to the employees and ultimately the overall ability to unite by any transformation effort. The five steps are designed to help facilitate a unified vision and establish realistic steps to providing team members with a clear purpose and means to accomplishing the ultimate common goal. There is nothing more powerful in any organization than having all employees rowing fiercely in the same direction.

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