Are silos sabotaging your culture?
One of the biggest challenges in organisations today is the silo. Those self-contained teams that operate in isolation, disconnected from the greater whole.
It’s a trap many leaders fall into, lured by the false promise of control and simplicity. They think, ‘If I can just keep my team over here, focused on our own work, doing our own thing, then surely we’ll be more efficient…’.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Because it’s only through collaboration, through breaking down those walls, that real progress happens. When teams work together, supporting each other, the impossible becomes possible. Milestones are met, targets are smashed, and the organisation unlocks its true potential.
Yet so many leaders cling to the silo, unwittingly sabotaging their own success and that of the organisation. Why? Because it’s comfortable. It’s familiar. And change is hard. The truth is, once an organisation grows beyond a certain size, the silo is inevitable.
Each organisation is a collection of subcultures. Subcultures naturally form, each with their own unique needs and norms. Trying to force a single, centralised culture — which is a mistake many organisations try to make — is a fool’s errand. It will only breed defensiveness, distrust, attrition and increase the chances of toxicity. Particularly if the owners or senior leaders of the organisation are the ones trying to force it.
In the Centralised model the organisation tries to define every element of the culture from the top. Not only the purpose, vision and values, but also behaviours, how people should collaborate and the mechanisms for innovation.
This approach will only work in organisations of less than 25–30 people who are close enough to the top to understand how to put the culture into practice. It doesn’t work for employee sizes above that number.
The solution lies in embracing a Federated model. Empowering managers to define and nurture their own subcultures, while maintaining alignment with the organisation’s core purpose and values.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. Most leaders don’t feel equipped for the task, with only 3% saying that they feel completely confident in building a great culture. They lack the skills, the confidence, the know-how to build vibrant, collaborative subcultures.
Silos are broken subcultures. And when one silo forms, then it can become a stubborn obstacle to continual collaboration, high-performance and great results.
The Federated model therefore, needs to be reinforced with an education program to ensure that there is a consistent approach to building subcultures.
By doing this, the silo-busting path is clear. Invest in your middle managers. Give them the training, the tools and the knowledge they need to build teams that work well with each other. Because when they succeed, the entire organisation reaps the rewards. No more wasted potential, no more missed opportunities, no more communication breakdowns or selfishness. Just a unified team, working in harmony towards a shared purpose or vision, united by common values.
It won’t be plain sailing. Change seldom is. But the alternative? A slow, steady descent into irrelevance, as your organisation becomes trapped in the silo spiral. The choice is yours.
