How to Deal with Silo Mentality in the Workplace

"That's their business, we don't need to get involved! It's a mistake, we're the ones who got hit!”

"Our work is already busy, there's no need to add more work!"

"This is the data we are looking for, there is no need to share it with other divisions. It's just delicious! Let them find out for themselves!"

Have you ever heard a conversation like the one above? Or is this often said in your work environment?

If so, then you just need to be careful! The conversation above more or less shows the existence of a silo mentality in the office or place where you work.

What is silo mentality?

Silo mentality is a term generally used in the business world to describe the condition of a company where departments or divisions feel reluctant to share information with each other. This kind of mindset has the potential to be detrimental to the company because it will reduce work efficiency, damage employee morale and mentality, and ultimately hinder the creation of a productive culture in the workplace.

This term is taken from the word silo, a tall building that is a place to store agricultural harvests. The building is tall and has no windows, making access to it very limited.

When used in a business context, silo mentality describes the condition of each division in the company that operates individually. In fact, companies have common goals that can only be achieved if each division synergizes with each other.

Factors that trigger silo mentality

Generally, silo mentality occurs unconsciously and appears when there is work that requires collaboration between divisions. There are several factors that can trigger the emergence of silo mentality, including:

• Employees in a department who are too busy with their own affairs. So, it is easy for differences of opinion or method to occur which causes friction between departments.
• There are differences in culture or habits between teams that hinder the rhythm of collaboration between them
• Differences in time zones, languages, and habits of the people who work at the company. This condition may occur if the company has employees spread across various locations.

How to Overcome Silo Mentality

Every problem in a company certainly starts from small things that are ignored. Likewise with silo mentality. If the leadership of each division continues to allow this, the long-term effect that may occur is greater cynicism and conflict between divisions.

Therefore, finding effective and realistic solutions to prevent bigger problems from occurring due to silo mentality is the responsibility of superiors. Below are tips that superiors can use to overcome silo mentality in their divisions:

1. Harmonize a Shared Vision

Silo mentality occurs when employee communication and coordination between departments does not work well. If this problem is ignored, it will certainly hinder the process of achieving the company's main goals. For this reason, superiors have the responsibility to convey the company's vision and mission to their subordinates so that they can understand and work together.

It needs to be understood that the responsibility for realizing the company's vision and mission does not only lie in the hands of employees. The leadership also has the same responsibility. Moreover, the leader should understand the company's long-term goals first before conveying them to the team.

An organizational leader who successfully unites all departments will encourage mutual trust among employees. In this way, there will no longer be any assumptions about each other's business, but rather a common goal of the organization.

2. Work towards a Common Goal

After everyone in the team knows and understands the common goal, the next thing that can be done is to identify whether there are small problems that indicate the existence of a silo mentality among employees.

Every employee is invited to understand the role and contribution of each division which is crucial to achieving organizational goals. Through this, employees in each division will understand the importance of collaborating and uniting to achieve common goals.

3. Provide Motivation and Incentives

The most challenging task in team management is unifying the understanding of the entire team to be able to work together to achieve organizational goals. One way that can be done to avoid silo mentality in the workplace is to provide motivation to employees to be able and willing to communicate effectively with various colleagues in different divisions.

If employees have succeeded in doing this, of course the leadership should give appreciation to employees, such as in the form of incentives. Incentives can be one of the mainstay tricks for increasing employee enthusiasm and motivation.

4. Execute Accurately

So that efforts to achieve this goal can run effectively, leaders also have the responsibility to design strategies that are measured accurately. Some of the things included in this are setting a time period for joint completion, determining benchmarks for success, and delegating tasks to related divisions. Then, it is also important to hold regular meetings as an evaluation and also to maintain the momentum of cooperation that has been going on so far.

5. Collaborate to Create

There are four keys behind a solid and productive team: knowledge, collaboration, creativity, and early trust. These four things will happen if leaders provide space and opportunities for employees to interact across departments. This effort can support the exchange of ideas and good collaboration between departments.

Breaking down silo mentalities in the workplace is not a job that can be done in just one day. Commitment is needed from the superior level to the workers in each department to make this happen.

All stages starting from conveying the vision and mission, setting a strategy, to providing space for employees to work will make the company or organization stronger because everyone is moving in the same direction.

To adapt managerial needs in a leadership setting, you can take the Certificate of Business Management: General Business Management program. In general, you can study organizational behavior, organizational development, recruitment processes, development and careers in order to build a solid and successful team.