So, what’s a communication silo? In the simplest terms, it’s when people in an organization don’t share information. Often, it’s about teams and departments only talking among themselves and not with others.
Silos can develop for any number of reasons, but some common ones include:
Team concerns: People in one team feel that sharing information will cause a roadblock in their plan of execution.
Conflict: Ongoing or historical conflict between teams prevents people from communicating with one another in a reasonable manner.
Separation: Natural separation caused by physical distance or disconnected workflows.
When silos form, everything from culture to performance metrics are affected.
How silos impact culture
Silos break down cultures of trust and collaboration. Without trust, people do not feel psychologically safe. At best, communication outside of one’s silo becomes an inconvenience. At worst, it becomes a fire starter.
A weak organizational culture with poor standards for communication will cause problems for people and teams at all levels. Some examples include increased stress and burnout rates, reduced morale, lower employee retention, and lower levels of employee engagement.
How silos impact performance
When silos form, people don’t share information and opinions important to other teams and departments. They don’t seek information that might help their own team. In one way or another, a reluctance to communicate will induce consequences for everyone in an organization. This can take shape in many different forms, such as:
Increased risk of errors and misunderstandings. A lack of communication can turn what might have been an easy-to-fix misunderstanding into a grave mistake that’s only noticed when it’s too late. Without trying to remove communication roadblocks, there can only be confusion and ignorance. In this environment, errors are not only more likely to occur, but also to be more costly when they do.
Decreased efficiency. Teams and departments working together fluidly can create efficiencies just by understanding one another. For example, a production team might be able to make a small process change that creates a massive timesaver for a quality control team, let’s say by a factor of 50%. The quality control makes this known to production, which makes the change, increasing the volume of quality control’s outputs by 50%. With siloed communication, opportunities like this often go unseen. This results in lower overall productivity, suboptimal processes, stifled innovation and, ultimately, weaker bottom-line performance.
Tips to combat communication silos
As a leader, there’s quite a lot that you can do to make a difference. I see it all the time with our clients. I’ve worked with plenty of leaders who have gone out of their way to build and maintain relationships with other teams and departments. I’ve seen these leaders take already high-performing teams and almost double their output.
By taking the initiative like this, they are paving the way for better performance for their team, the teams they work with, and the organization as a whole. The likelihood that there is at least one impactful thing that other teams can do for you, and vice versa, is very high. Seeking out and maintaining those connections allows a leader to get ahead of the game and prevent silos.
For a comprehensive, organization-wide solution to breaking down communication silos, you need to provide people with the platform and structure necessary to connect with one another. Although core values and social events and happy hours will help, it’s often simply not enough to have the lasting effect that you are looking for. You need a structured, organized system built around encouraging and enabling people to connect with one another. When people are given the incentives and structure they need to create connections, understand others, and communicate with those outside of their team, silos are far less likely to crop up.
Joe Kiedinger is founder and chief executive officer at Dignify. Contact Joe at joek@dignify.com.
