Identifying Ways to Tear Down Organizational Silos

Silo Mentality: An Organizational Case Study
Living in specialized silos might make life seem more efficient in the short-term. But a world that is always divided into a fragmented and specialist pattern is a place of missed risks and opportunities. – Shayne Kavanaugh, 2015
Chapter One: Introduction
The interconnectivity of teams within a company requires information to be shared both laterally and vertically with all teams to positivity impact morale, labor, and production (du Plessis, 2008). When teams become dysfunctional and do not work well with other teams, it creates a ‘silo’ mentality. Silos have a negative impact on the long-term viability of a company by impacting its ability to implement its strategic plan; therefore, it is imperative that companies improve workflow through communication barriers, such as silos, in order to survive in an increasingly competitive global market (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990). The guiding proposition of this study will be that team dysfunction enables the creation of silos which occur when teams do not share information with other teams within the same company.
Study Objectives
The primary objective of my research will be to help leadership groups better understand subculture dysfunction in organizations that depend upon a collaborative communication model to achieve strategic results. A second objective was to help corporations understand why some leaders are unable or unwilling to implement silo-eradication solutions.
Organization of the Study
This study will be developed in three chapters. Chapter one will focus on the collection of empirical data using a case study of two nearly identical business units within a medium-sized (300 employees) company. In conjunction with these two ‘twin’ work units, a comparison of a dissimilar but interrelated third business unit as a cross-department analysis. Finally, chapter three situates the thesis within the larger framework of a literature review related to organizational design and the impact of silos on collaborative communication (Carlile, 2004). With regard to consent, privacy, and confidentiality using qualitative research, the study consulted the Tri-Council Policy on Research Ethics.
Contributions
This study contributed to the current scholarly knowledge by providing much-needed insight into the behaviors of leaders who negatively impact organizational collaboration (Dell, 2005). The improvement in organizational communication will have a definitive impact on costs, retention, and engagement through process alignment. By using a single-organizational approach, it is possible to source rich data from the organization’s respondents who represent respondents in other similarly structured organizations, allowing for generalization to achieve theoretical and leadership improvements (Brattström, Löfsten, & Richtnér, 2012). In sum, as organizational technology improves, so should organizational communication.
Chapter Two: Literature Review and Data Analysis
Part One: Literature Review
Chapter introduction
While the literature on organizational design and teams has proliferated over the past 30 years, there is little literature to address the following questions:
· Why and how do team silos get created?
· What prevents organizations from implementing solutions to overcome ineffective collaboration between departments (Dell, 2005)?
These questions will be answered through a systematic review of the secondary literature together with a primary exploration of organizations’ view of collaboration, training, collective roles and responsibility, leadership involvement, and the various collaboration tools and mechanisms used between organizational teams discussed below (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008), following by a description of the study’s methods and data analysis.
Why and how do team silos get created?
Most people are familiar with grain silos that contain oats or wheat, and it is intuitive that these products are not fungible. Therefore, a silo mentality emerges when a silo becomes filled with a certain type of product. In this regard, Linden (2015) emphasizes that, “Once a silo gets filled with one kind of material, it is human nature to want to keep the content pure and not mix up the contents of different silos” (p. 2). In an organizational context, silos can refer to different technical organizations with their own technologies and customers as well as teams with different objectives. For instance, Reynes (1999).reports that, “Increasingly, team members are in different silos” (p. 20). According to Gleeson and Rozo (2013), “A silo mindset [is] present when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company” (para. 2). Not surprisingly, silo mentalities can adversely affect organizational efficiency as well as having a dampening effect on team member morale and productivity (Gleeson & Rozo, 2013).
It is important to note, though, that a silo mindset does not just fall from the sky but is rather caused by leadership team with overlapping and/or conflicting objectives. As Gleeson and Rozo (2013) emphasize, “When we take a deeper a look at the root cause of these issues, we find that more often than not silos are the result of a conflicted leadership team” (para. 3). Unfortunately, there are other reasons for the development of organizational silos that defy easy solutions. The intractability of these types of silos makes it essential for top leadership to take action when necessary, but a number of obstacles exist that limit the effectiveness of interventions that are designed to tear down these barriers as discussed further below.
What prevents organizations from implementing solutions to overcome ineffective collaboration between departments?
Some of the overarching obstacles to implementing solutions that can overcome ineffective collaboration between departments include cultural and language differences. For example, Reynes advises that, “Language and cultural differences multiply the hurdles of interacting across silos” (1999, p. 21). These obstacles are especially pronounced in multinational organizations, particularly when virtual teams are in place. Regardless of the organizational setting, however, there are other barriers to implementing effective solutions breaking down silos, including a lack of understanding concerning their causes on the part of top management which is in a position to effect meaningful changes but fails to do so. As Gleeson and Rozo (2013) conclude, “Many executives may look at their organization and dismiss department inefficiencies and lack of cross-functional solutions with immature employees, lack of basic training, or simply the inability for some employees to play nicely with one another” (emphasis authors’) (para. 6).
Although a silo mentality may be the source of these types of behaviors, they are not the main cause (Gleeson & Rozo, 2013). Indeed, silo mentalities can emerge in both the public and private sectors based largely on the same reasons. As Kavanaugh (2015) points out, in the public sector, “Different tribes of government workers, such as police, fire, building inspectors, and even public finance, benefit from having distinct languages, cultures, and work processes, which help organize the complexity of highly specialized professional endeavors” (p. 51). While the silo mentality may be difficult to overcome in both the public and private sectors, there are some steps that leadership can take to mitigate the mindset, including the following steps that are particularly suited to private sector enterprises suffering from silo mentalities:
· Encourage and reward collaboration and networking;
· Mix up groups, and find opportunities to collaborate in cross-functional teams;
· Communicate transparently and create alignment (everyone in the firm needs to understand the bigger picture of his or her, as well as others' roles, and what everyone needs to do to help the firm to succeed);
· Focus on the clients because within silos, the focus is typically on internal issues rather than on response to clients; and,
· Share marketplace information and customer feedback so that everyone understands how the firm as a whole is meeting, exceeding or missing customer expectations (Hodges, 2010, p. 3).
Taken together, the secondary literature makes it clear that the source of and remedies for organizational silos are situation-specific, but there are sufficient overlaps in both to draw some general conclusions concerning their causes and optimal interventions that can help guide the mitigation process and the primary data collected below was used to complement this body of knowledge.
Part Two: Methods and Data Analysis
Epistemic, Paradigmatic, and Theoretic Assumptions: The epistemic assumptions for this study include the notion that the lived experiences of individuals who have contributed to organizational silos or mindsets as well as those who have sought to break down these silos can be known through appropriate research methods. The paradigmatic assumptions for this study include the view that people naturally resist change and will struggle to maintain the status quo as long as it is in their best interests. Finally, the theoretic assumptions that are applicable to this study include the perspective that people tend to act in their own best interests in ways that exacerbate the adverse effects of organizational silos, making them even more intractable to change.
Discussion of Methodology: The study will use a mixed methodology research design to inductively understand the issues, which included one-on-one and focus group narrative interviews; survey questionnaires, with a Likert scale (1-5), to gather data on beliefs and values of team collaboration; as well as a direct observation of the behaviors of the focus group participants. The selection of a mixed methods design was based on its ability to collect primary qualitative and quantitative data to enhance the robustness and trustworthiness of the findings that emerge from the data analysis (Neuman, 2009). The data collection involved five focus groups consisting of 15 leaders and 10 team members, with five individuals per group. In chapter two, all data collected was analyzed, focused on themes and trends to identify clusters of interrelated beliefs and behaviors.
Conclusion: Social science researchers have a number of different research methodologies available to them, but a growing body of evidence confirms that the use of a mixed methods research design provides more “bang for the research buck” compared to the use of either qualitative or quantitative methods alone (Neuman, 2009).
Summary of focus group narrative interview results and observations
As noted in chapter one, this phase of the data collection involved five focus groups comprised of 15 leaders and 10 team members with five individuals per group. A summary of the five focus groups’ narrative interview results will be provided in tabular format as shown in Table 1 below, together with salient verbatim excerpts.
Table 1
Summary of five focus groups and verbatim excerpts format
Question
Summaries
Verbatim excerpts
#1:
#2
#3
#4
#5
Summary of survey results
As also noted in chapter one, a custom survey was used to collect a series of responses concerning respondents’ beliefs and values concerning team collaboration using a Likert scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) with a neutral no opinion/no applicable option (3). The results of the administration of the custom survey to the 25 focus group participants resulted in the finding will be presented as shown in Table 2 below together with corresponding graphic results (questions subject to change following final literature review and face analysis).
Table 2
Proforma custom questionnaire format
Likert-scaled statement
SD
D
NA
A
SA
Team members are reluctant to share important information because it diminishes their own influence.
Silos are more commonplace in cross-functional teams.






Cross-team collaboration can mitigate the silo mentality.






The major cause of organizational silos is decentralized responsibilities for cross-business practices.






Larger organizations with geographically disparate teams are especially vulnerable to silos.






Team members who possess expert knowledge in their fields want to protect their positions of influence which contributes to the silo mindset.







Note:
SD = Strongly disagree
D = Disagree
NA = No opinion/Not applicable
A = Agree
SA = Strongly agree
Summary of one-on-one interviews
Three interviewees (one leader and two team members) will be selected from the focus groups based on their active participation for one-on-one interviews and summaries of the interviews will be provided as shown in Table 3 below.
Table 3
One-on-one interview summaries format
Interviewee #
Summary
Comments

#1



#2



#3







Chapter Three: Summary and Conclusion

Summary
Just as farmers want to keep the contents of their silos separate from other types of agricultural products, so too do many members of teams and other divisions of organizations who want to protect their “tuft” and are therefore reluctant to share important information and tacit knowledge or expertise. The research showed that the silo mindset can adversely affect organizational productivity and employee morale as well as the effectiveness of cross-functional teams and work groups. In sum, to the extent that a silo mindset is allowed to persist will likely be the extent to which organizational fails to achieve their goals, including most especially developing and sustaining a competitive advantage and implementing strategic plans in response to changes in its operating environment. Therefore, identifying opportunities to overcome the silo mindset represent a valuable and important enterprise for organizations of all sizes and types.
Conclusion
Although the problem of the silo mindset is well documented, there remains a dearth of relevant research concerning its causes and best practices in directly addressing the problem. The mixed methods research design developed for the proposed study is intended to address this gap in part by providing empirical observations and primary data from real-world practitioners with experience in responding to organizational silos and their negative effects. Finally, because the proposed study intends to examine these issues from different sector perspectives, the findings that emerge from this study will be more generalizable than a study focused on a single sector.


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