Fixing the Silo Problem

Silos are a ubiquitous problem. The truth is, however, that we need silos. We need to break people into groups who share expertise so they can work together to get that specialized work done. The challenge is that we also need them to collaborate effectively with people outside of their group, and that’s where it breaks down.

In Chapter 2 of Culture Change Made Easy we dig into this problem, and the case study we found that successfully overcame the problem of “awkward collaboration” had an interesting approach to busting the silos: reducing cognitive load.

One of the key reasons that silos don’t collaborate well is that no one really knows what’s going on in the other silos. Because of that, when we attempt collaboration, we end up making up a lot of stories in our heads about what the other silos are doing or thinking. It actually takes up a fair amount of brain power—figuring out what’s going on over on the other side. And as humans, when we don’t know, we often assume the worst, so when that other department comes to you requesting assistance, in your head you’re thinking, “Why can’t you do this yourself? Isn’t this your job? Is everyone over there working as hard as they should?” and other such suspicious thoughts.

They, of course, think the same thing about your department when you end up missing the deadline for the help you were supposed to provide. Everyone wastes a lot of brain power on these suspicious thoughts. But the case study broke through this problem by investing heavily in a new system of project management.

I know project management sounds like a boring solution for such a big problem as silos, but by getting everyone to use the same software and system, it suddenly made visible what everyone was doing, which eliminated the need to guess and figure it out on your own. The other department could already see that you’re about to be swamped with a big project, so they wait until it’s done before they ask for help or adjust the deadline. You can see what their tasks and deadlines are, so you can identify the best way to offer them help that fits into their system.

When you take the guessing (and second guessing) out of the equation, collaboration—even across silo lines—becomes much easier.

If you’re curious to see whether or not you even HAVE the awkward collaboration culture pattern, you can take our free Culture Pattern Quiz online.