“We want to break down silos and collaborate better”. In my fifteen years of running team coaching and team building programs – of which I must have done hundreds if not thousands – I have heard this more times than I care to imagine. If I had a dollar for every time that this has been the brief from my client, I would be a rich man!

Working in silos is up there in the top 3 things that organisations do that they wish they didn’t. (The other two most common things I have heard are ‘communicate better’ and ‘have better leaders’ – topics for another day!) Silos can be between function teams, territories, tiers, and product teams – the opportunity not to collaborate cross functionally is everywhere. We structure our teams and organisations in this way – org charts showing delineation between departments, and we behave that way. 

What Happens When We Work in Silos

Working in silos isn’t necessarily an inherently bad thing. All it means is that we don’t function as efficiently or as well as we could. Silos can breed a lack of trust, hesitation, insularity, a lack of creativity – but ultimately it can mean we miss our targets. Teams are there to achieve things, and sometimes working within our own blinkered existence means we miss the targets we need to hit. 

It’s all too easy for teams to work in silos. We get busy, we don’t know people in other teams, egos (both individual and collective) mean we think we are better than ‘them’ and don’t need their help. And sometimes we get relationship breakdown because we are competing for resources or have contradictory beliefs about how to do things. One of the common issues I am often facing when running team coaching and team building programs is between front line and back-office functions – for example, sales and operations. They both complain equally passionately about each other’s bad behavior and lack of support. 

What Can We Do to Collaborate Better

If your teams are working in silos and you want to change this, then you have to take action and do different things to change this. Einstein famously said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result”. Here are some things you might like to consider as tactics to help.

Raise Awareness

Eckhart Tolle says, “Awareness is the greatest agent for change”. If people are not aware of things their brains will not bring them to their consciousness. Start talking to people who you need to involve and start at the top. Start noticing and highlighting the issues, the pitfalls, the negative impact of the silos. Communicate this with people so they are aware of what’s going on.

Deal With Legacy Problems

Sometimes silos are deeply ingrained and come with a lot of bad blood. There might be a pattern of mistrust, poor communication, and strong feelings that people are holding on to. You need to get this out of the way before you can move forward. Reconciliation, apology for previous behavior and apology may be necessary.

Sell the Need

It’s important that you explain why better collaboration is necessary and sell this to the people involved. Everyone at work is there by choice, and as much as you can use incentivize or punish people, it’s better if they proactively choose to collaborate more. Explain and communicate this to them as a positive thing that they will benefit from.

Identify Charismatic Connectors

One of the best ways to break down silos in teams is to generate relationships between people on the teams. Operationally it is often not possible for everyone to know everyone. But some people are more naturally attuned to building relationships and we call these people ‘charismatic connectors’. As an example, if you have 100 people split into ten teams of ten, you can’t expect them all to know each other. Instead, identify one person in each team and connect those ten people together. These people then become the information and relationship conduits between the teams to help build relationships.

Leaders Go First

Any change in behavior must come from the top. If the leaders are not invested and don’t instigate and champion the behavior of collaborating better, then it is unlikely anything will happen. Leaders need to go first and be the champions and sponsors of better collaborative behavior.