Silos in Organizations

Barriers to Cultural Unity

Silos in organizations can represent barriers to cultural unity. Culture enables an organization to communicate and maintain the values it fosters. When barriers to cultural unity occur, departments fail to share the same values; the same ideals and principles are not communicated from one sphere of the organization to the next. Tribalism can result, with each department or unit having its own in-groups, its own values, and its own culture; creating fear within divisions and an us vs. them mentality among workers (McGee-Cooper, 2005, p. 12). Anxiety and doubt about the future of the organization can especially take hold when organizations merge; one side might be more fearful and skeptical with respect to job security or success of the merger; some groups brought into the new entity from the old company might be hesitant to abandon their old ways of doing business. The result can be the development of gaps between the workers and their leaders.

When gaps open up between leaders and followers, the cultural messages that should be spread cannot get through. Followers are not hearing the message because they have essentially closed themselves off from the rest of the organization and have persisted in their own views. They prevent the formation of worker solidarity and convey hostility in all directions, which can damage morale. If new employees are brought into the organization they may not be received warmly by older employees who fail to accept or embrace the organizational culture and its values. The new employees on the other hand find themselves trying to fit into a system based on what they have been told from the HR department or from their mentors assisting them through the onboarding process. Older workers might resist the new blood brought into the company, fearing that new hires are a threat and have come to push the older workers out. This feeling can reinforce the tribalism and further contribute to the reinforcement of silo walls (McGee-Cooper, 2005).

At the same time, new hires might find that the old ways of thinking that they are expected to embrace are outdated and not at all what they expected or were taught to use in school. Young workers can be just as likely to have a sense of how a culture should be as older workers. The important point that an organization must consider is that the organization...

Therefore, the organization must be careful to include older workers with younger workers, get them working together, and get them engaged in exercises that can teach them to appreciate one another. The more that units and departments realize that they are part of a whole, the more likely they will be to naturally break down their own silos and contribute to a culture of communication and sharing. To establish cultural unity, management must adopt an integrative approach to leadership.

Leadership

The leaders of an organization have to be mindful of the risk that silos pose and they have to be ready to prevent their formation and to remove them if they do appear. The important point here is that silos are not always visible or seen within units or divisions. Sometimes they exist within the mind, and leaders must be cognizant of this fact so that they can address these kinds of silos as well (Gilmore, 2010).

Silos in the mind can form especially when a change is required in the organization and employees must adapt to new environments, new rules, new methods, or new ideas. To protect themselves...

…what the various systems are; and overall it is simply a way to acquaint the new employees with their new workplace environment.

Training, however, is not enough. On-boarding and mentoring are both needed, as each facilitates cultural integration. On-boarding is the process of providing the new hire with support over the first few weeks and months of his entry into the organization. This allows the new worker to learn about the organization without pressure or fear. For workers brought into a company by way of merger or acquisition, on-boarding is especially helpful because it gives the new workers a sense of having a safety net below so that they do not feel anxiety about adapting.

Mentoring is crucial here as well, because this involves the new workers having access to a mentor who can answer questions, guide them in their work, and be there for social and emotional support. The mentor is one of the most important parts of a successful integration process. The role of the mentor is essentially to bring the new worker in, get him caught up to speed, make him feel comfortable in his surroundings, and give him the confidence he needs to succeed. If the mentor is good at this, there will not be any risk of silos being developed. The mentor is like the general on the front lines who is among the soldiers making sure their morale is high, that they have everything they need, and that no one is falling back.

If this is done well, it will naturally lead to cultural integration. Of course, it all depends upon the good will of the workers coming over from the merger, and it depends upon the good will of the workers receiving them. There has to be a culture of good will already in place, which is…