Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Join James and Coby from Roman 3 as they diagnose issues and prescribe solutions to today's most important workplace challenges.
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Why Does It Feel Like Us vs Them At Work?
This episode touches on the themes of Strengthen Culture.
In this episode, we explore workplace silos; what causes them, how they impact the workplace, and, most importantly, how do we tear them down.
Our prescription for this episode is, when looking to make improvements in your workplace, ask yourself the most important question "What needs to exist first before this will be successful"?.
NOTE: James wants to apologies for the poor quality of the sound of his intro, he had his mic plugged in, he just forget to put it in front of his face (see what Coby has to deal with).
Past Episode Referenced:
S4 E3: How Do I Fix A Competitive Or Hostile Team Culture?
S1 E16: How Do We Build A Workplace Culture?
S1 E17: How Is Organizational Culture Linked To Business Performance And Outcomes?
To talk more about The Workplace Culture Hierarchy, reach out to us at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
Don't forget to sign up for our New Quarterly Newsletter that launched in the fall of 2024!
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James. And let's get started with a question. Why does it feel like us versus them at work?
[JAMES]:Yeah. so the short answer is that it boils down to a few different possibilities. It's a lack of communication tends to be a lack of transparency and. Or a lack of collaboration, which, in other words, means that you're very likely operating in a silo. And we talked a bit about silos in our last conversation. specifically, we're talking more about the difference between, you know, how do you. Are you operating in a silo versus are you. In a stronghold? And I think for the sake of clarity, it's important to kind of restate what we mean when we're talking about silo versus when we're talking about a stronghold. So a silo happens when, a team or department is operating in isolation. it could be due to the structure, though, the way that the operations are structured. It tends to happen very frequently because of specializations. and silos really focus on their own goals, their own processes, and they are often unaware or misaligned with what other departments are doing. This leads to really poor communications, really poor coordination, and a fragmented strategy, if there's a strategy at all. When you're talking. When we talk about strongholds, what we're really talking about is when the team is. It's more about defending their turf or resisting outside input, and they're competing with other departments for influence or perks or, control. Strongholds really breed conflict and block collaboration. And what I want to focus on in this conversation today is the identification of silos and the frameworks that we use to begin to break them down.
[COBY]:Yeah. and like, our last episode, we define these two, and then we dug deeply into stronghold. So if that idea about those departments or those teams are kind of, like, at war with other departments that kind of act like, you know, they're fortifying their own way, their protection, protecting what they have, and kind of. They're really entrenched and really resistant to kind of outside influence or outside changes. If that concept is interesting to you, the last episode that we did, we're talking about teams kind of breeding hostile and competitive teams. Definitely check that episode out. But, I mean, silos are something that are Especially compared to strongholds a lot more well known or a lot more well understood. But I do think that we can dig into something that's a more practical and a very tangible way to kind of can of outline where they come from and why they happen and what the biggest challenges with them are. because again there really is a lot that. There's really is a lot of problems that silos kind of create and we see them like. So we go in and help kind of rebuild or additional infrastructure and address workplace culture and those kinds of things we like. I can't think of our organization that we've gone into in the last GE. Three or four years that hasn't just had like a silo problem. For sure, some of them have stronghold problems like that are m. Much are problematic. But almost all of them definitely have at least some level of silo issues.
[JAMES]:Silos are really common like's it'and they are. While they are not good, they aren't inherently bad, or they don't crop up as a result. Like strongholds are insidious, they breed conflict. They are at their core, they are a negative thing. They are not good. and so you. If we are operating in that mentality, you really need to address that because they create significant problems. Silos aren't good, but they're not inherently going to tear your organization apart. They are going to limit your growth. They are going to create this us versus them mentality. They are going to hinder communication and collaboration. And all of these things that you want are going to become much, much more difficult if you're operating in silos. But between the two I'd. If you. If you have to choose one, choose to work in a silo. but ideally what we want to do is make sure that you absolutely are not operating with strongholds because they are bad. Full stop.
[COBY]:Yes. Check the last episode where we really diggin into that. A lot of detail.
[JAMES]:Yeah. But today I think you know, identifying what silos are, it's good. I think we've done that. We've went into detail on it in the last one. Today it's. What's a Stronghold.
[COBY]:Silos.
[JAMES]:Yeah. Today I want to like really let's jump into silos because they, They're. They're pretty easy to identify. I mean most people know when they are like you, you see the effects very commonly and they're pretty easy to identify in terms of, you know, our departments don't talk to each other or we Everybody is trying to solve the same problem from their own unique perspective and it ends up just creating chaos and mayhem. like the effects of them are very obvious. but the remedy seems to escape a lot of organizations.
[COBY]:Yeah, I mean like again, the biggest problem with silos specifically is how everything is so inefficient. And implementation of anything that's not completely isolated within the silo tends to always just fall apart. Any kind organizational change that's not again, uniquely, completely within that silo completely, almost always falls apart or never fully implemented because of the nature of it. Because. And again a lot of it is kind of And I think you have to kind of take a step back and have a little bit of a broader perspective on your. Again, you feel like this is happening in your department or in your division or in your location or whatever it is. Like, think about it. Does our team, does our department or whatever have its own like goals and rules and outcomes? Like, is like, is the way that we're measured for success, is the way they're expected to work? Is all of that very much defined within, within the singular isolated view? And is the expectation kind of at leadership or within other departments that you really need to stay in your lane? And that's really how we're supposed to operate. Because like, I mean that's not an uncommon view. It's not an overt like statement or like it's not written in your mission statements or anything like that. But is that the well understood expectation that your team and other teams have? Again, the idea of your own rules, your own goals, your own outcomes and you're asosed to stay in your lane. If that is kind of some level of understanding about how it works supposed to be done, then you're built for a silo.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I mean it's, that's a really good way of framing it because there is value in helping people to understand what is the responsibility and what is not the responsibility. So when people, when you hear the language of you have to stay in your lane, it sounds somewhat negative and somewhat restrictive. But from an organizational structure perspective, there is some value to that. It's just understanding when the rules help and when the rules hinder and a hard and fast absolutism of you can only ever like stay in your line and never deviate. Head down tunnel vision, just look at what you're doing is a dangerous mentality. Stay in your lane in terms of, you know, each department has its own responsibilities and don't try to Overstep is that's where a lot of the intent comes from. But a rigid adherence to the stay in your lane mentality creates those silos and then everybody just does their own thing without communication, without collaboration. And though that's when it becomes problematic.
[COBY]:Well mean it really is going back to one of our favorite topics, talking about rules that restricted. Rules of empower.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:Because I mean part of the silo expectation of the way that you interact with other departments or the way that your work is kind of rolled out is it coming from a restriction piece to kind of limit autonomy, to limit freedom, to of keep everything uniform and consistent and within your narrow view, in your narrow isolation. Then yeah, the there's a problem with stay in your lane. But if it's a matter of belt for rules that empower, it's about we have the ability to work with other organizations. You're empowered to kind of like you explore new ideas. You're, you know, look at, look at kind of jumping in and working with other divisions department specialists to kind of help make a more holistic solution. But keep in mind you can't add extra work to their caseloads. You can't derail the work. They're. You know what I mean? Like it's the idea of stay in your lane of like don't negatively impact the work that they're doing and be a distraction is there's value in again but you're right. But how the rules are defined, if it defined to be restrictive, then you're just insulating the silo. But if they're designed to be empowering, then it's a matter of you. This is to kind of make sure that you don't cross lines and you don't overstep. But beyond that color the corners of the square because you've got lots of autonomy there.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it makes sense. Right. If you've got a marketing department, you don't want your HR department to do marketing activities. That's not what you are there to do. right. If you've got a comms team, you know, you want to be utilizing your comms team to push out your messaging rather than everybody, you know, just pushing out their own messaging. Stay in your lane. That makes sense. But how we define those lanes and how more importantly how we encourage communication and collaboration are going to be the difference between operating in with blinders on in silos versus actually creating a collaborative high performing organization.
[COBY]:Yeah. So I think the most important thing to understand when it comes to silos is that silos make every problem seem like an isolated issue and in need of an isolated solution. Right?
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:The idea of what is the problem that I'm seeing in my department is a problem that only lives within the confines of my department. So the solution only has to solve my department's issue. It's an isolated problem. So the solution can be. Needs to be isolated to solve my problem. And again that is fine if that is the reality, but that is almost never the reality because the benefit of specializations is that you're playing your part, but you're not completely. But you don't. You, your department does not. Is not actually isolated within the organization. Like you know, marketing messages has to come from somewhere. You have to come from product development or HR can be, you know, is a department but all the staff are in all the other departments and. Right. And I mean like even sustainability, like sustainability is about trying to find better solutions for more eco friendly solutions. But that has to come from products and has to come from you know, all the other pieces too. So it's a matter of if you understand that the impact of an issue is not isolated and the solution cannot be isolated. But that's what makes silos so dangerous is that an isolated issue is seen all you need an isolated solution. And that's where almost most of the problems come from.
[JAMES]:When it comes to, with silos, I really like the way that that is framed because we see that mentality happen very frequently. And I mean to the heart of what this podcast is about is diagnosing the sickness, not the symptom. And what happens when you take that isolationist approach to solving problems? Is that what you are, what you tend to be looking to resolve is the symptom. Right. You're looking to resolve this pain point that you are experiencing. So let's put a piece in place. Not necessarily investigating what is the root cause of it and how do we resolve that piece, which is likely going to require input or collaboration from other divisions, other leaders, other departments so that we can actually address the root cause rather than just this is a problem that I'm seeing that I'm experiencing. So I'm going to just address this one issue in isolation.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah. And we see this with like like plans and strategies where one department makes a plan and then. But then like because of the mandate, the mandate kind of crosses departments that every department has their own plan.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I mean we've seen this in corporate settings. I mean we Touched on sustainability before. you know, working with a sustainability team within the corporate setting where they're really pushing out their efforts. They want to make sure that the frontline staff are really aware of everything that the core, that the entity, the larger entity is doing to address sustainability from an, from an environmental perspective, from a number of different pieces. And they're pushing out all of this communication about what the organization is doing. But because this is a broad mandate, throughout the entire organization you also have the comms team pushing out communication about what sustainability efforts are in place. You have product development, who is now talking about sustainability. You've got HR talking about sustainability. You've got all of these different divisions and departments and leaders to talking about the same thing from within their own very narrow scope. I mean sometimes it might be a larger scope, but within the context of their particular department rather than there being a more collaborative effort of okay, what is the entire organization doing around this? Who's going to lead the messaging? What do I need to pull in from the sustainability team, the comms team, the marketing team? Like how do we actually align all of these pieces together so that we're not in. Was what we found. What was happening is that the frontline staff were being inundated with all of these different initiatives, all talking about the same thing from slightly different perspectives and slightly different contexts. And because they were slightly, they were pushed out from different departments, they had conflicting priorities. Right. Because everybody was approaching the same topic from only their lane. Right, right. And there is, there was contradictory messages because there's somewhat competing priorities between different departments. And this is where leadership really becomes critical to foster collaboration, to break down these silos. The departments really had virtually no interaction between each other. And pushing out this information caused a lot of confusion, burnout and just employees got fed up and didn't care anymore about what the organization was doing because they were inundated with these messages that seemed contradictory.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then. Right.
[JAMES]:And then had the exact opposite effect of what they had, what they were planning and months of work that each of these divisions were doing is wasted.
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. But that's just it. Each of the plans or each of the priorities within each division was an isolated issue.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:So they created an isolated solution which was their own communications and that went out. But that competition and an over saturation to the front line staff, as soon as they saw anything around environmental or sustainable or, you know, they just like tuned out.
[JAMES]:yeah, the eye roll, the glazed.
[COBY]:Look and just Stop reading and moved on to something else. And you're right. And it was an absolute disaster and an absolute, completely counterproductive effort. But that is exactly kind of what happens when we see our priorities or our goals, our outcome as isolated issues and we look for isolated solutions.
[JAMES]:Well, and what's funny is that all came about because of the engagement survey and that employees didn't feel that the organization was doing enough around sustainability. Right. So what's really funny to me is that you have these engagements, like gathering this data is really good. And then the company actually used the data that they collected, which is very good, but they used it in the most inefficient and ineffective way possible, which is not very good.
[COBY]:No, absolutely. And this reminds me of another issue that we saw with or we dealt with a little while ago. working with an organization that had a major overtime issue. Right. So we were talking about work in this organization and we talked to their finance team and their HR team and they were saying that they're just like being killed by overtime. And so when, you know, we said ok, so what's the plan to deal with that? And they were like, well, we're just going to create an overtime policy, capping overtime in all the different locations. And we're like, well, what's causing me overime? They're like, they share our payroll teams. Like well, I'm not too sure, but I mean it just needs to stop. It'like well, again, that's a very isolated problem that you're seeing where you're seeing the dollars and cents of overtime. But you're not really. If you don't know what the cause is, how effective is that policy going to be?
[JAMES]:Well, and this is the danger of making decisions based only on line items. Yeah, right. Payroll, over time was a line item financial problem. So it required a line item financial solution. Was the mentality.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so then we helped dig into what the cause of the overtime stuff was. And there was an understaffing in many of the locations that was causing people to pick up veual shifts. There was a wellness issue where these are stuff that were already there, were being burned out and were missing more and more time. So that was causing more of it. There was a scheduling issue where because of the nature of the shifts there they weren't really being able to be effectively utilizing the manpower that they had. so there was all these different issues that really kind of came to that were really influencing and none of them on their own were the main cause, it was the collection of all these complex issues that was causing all these problems that was creating the need for more overtime. So this is the thing that I think we want to get to when we're talking about, solving isolated problems is the idea of our favorite question, which is what needs to exist first before this will become effective? And when it comes to solving the overtime problem, it was like, well, what has to exist first before the policies around overtime will actually work is kind of the question that we always try and pull everything back to. And that really is something that I think is going to be the answer to a lot of the question of why does it feel like us versus the mentality at work is largely because we're not asking ourselves that question enough when we're implementing solutions to problems that we see.
[JAMES]:And the policy approach, there's nothing wrong with that. Having a policy around your overtime use makes a lot of sense.
[COBY]:You have to have that, you don't have that, have that.
[JAMES]:Right, right. So the solution that they came up with was logical and it was needed. The problem was it wasn't part of a larger strategy. It didn't play into anything beyond this one issue and it addressed the sickness not.
[COBY]:Or the symptoms not the sickness.
[JAMES]:Exactly right. So this is why having operational strategies happen, having human capital strategies, having, having these strategic decisions made, if you all, if you know where you aspirationally want to be, that's what a strategy is, right. Identify where you want to go and the actions needed to get you there, then you can filter your decisions, you can design your solutions in the context of a larger strategy. But we always need to be looking at are we actually resolving the root issue here and with the overtime policy piece, as needed as that policy is, and as good as of an idea is to have that policy in place, it didn't actually resolve anything. All if fully implemented, that identification of what needs to exist first, it would have had unintended consequences, right?
[COBY]:Yeah, absolutely. Probably would have run with less staffing and it probably would have potentially shut down the location at certain times due to staff shortages.
[JAMES]:Right?
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:So instead let's investigate when you're presented with a symptom, when you're presented with a pain point, when you're presented with a problem identifying what is actually causing that. But, and you know, if you want a solution of we need to fix overtime, then what needs to exist first for that to be successful? It has, it is such a simple question, but if you really connect with the intent of asking that question. It can be transformative in how you approach problem solving, how you approach strategic development, how you approach operational requirements. What needs to exist first for overtime to be successful, what needs to exist first for anything to be successful is really. That's the main takeaway from our conversation.
[COBY]:Yeah, I think actually I'm going to share a little bit of our history with that question because it was transformative for us.
[JAMES]:It changed everything quite literally.
[COBY]:Yeah. So when we started Roman i3 we were looking at trying to solve organizational issues. So James again has came from economic development background and was seeing a lot of issues with businesses around, you know, lack of productivity, lack of performance, lack of a lot of these things we're talking about around efficiencies and no.
[JAMES]:Human capital strategy, no poor performance, poor. no recruitment strategy, no engagement. People are burnt out. Like all of the issues that businesses are still experiencing, y we identified those and we wanted to create a solution to it.
[COBY]:Yeah. So we started building some resources and tools and training around kind of like, you know, like, like around collaboration and around optimal performance and innovation and stuff like that. And then we started rolling them out and a lot of companies that we were engaging with, they kind of weren't ready for them. They're like, well our staff are kind of not unmotivated and kind of not really wanting to take on these new pieces. They'like okay, well maybe we'll start with that first then maybe that'be step one. Maybe these things around innovation and change and collaboration will be step two. So we started digging heavily into employee engagement and employee motivation and employee experience and building resources, tools, training around that. And then we were working with more businesses again and they were like, well actually they're not ready for that either.
[JAMES]:And if we're being completely honest, the work that we were doing at that time, our clients weren't seeing the type of success that we knew that they should be. Yeah, right. It just. The strategies were good. The intent was there. We properly identified a problem and we created a solution to that problem..
[COBY]:And it's funny. So actually I'm going to tell this story quickly but then, we actually dug into the full version of this story in our first season on episodes 16 where we talk about how you build a workplace culture and you'll know why that episode when I get there. but yeah, so then we. Okay, so the problem is they're not engaging, they're not motivated because they feel disconnected. They don't feel a part of the organization. They feel like that they can't bring their full self to work. Okay, well let's work on those types of solutions and they're trying top put those things. And then when we're doing that, people weren't still having this level of success. It was still better, but still wasn't the level of success that we know that they could have based on all the work they're putting in and how how comprehensive the strategies were we felt at the time. And then we realized, well, why is that not happening? And they're like, well they don't feel like they can share their ideas, they don't feel safe to speak up. So they don't have psychological safety. What. So then we were like, okay. So we kept kind of asking ourselves at this point, okay, what needs to exist first before they can collaborate, before they can be motivated, before they can feel like they're included and they belong? they can have safety. And we end up kind of falling down Malow's hierarchy of needs, which is the reason why we built what we call now the workplace culture hierarchy. That's based on realizing that you have to build the foundational pieces before the things that you want to do can actually be sustainable. And it's a matter of going, okay, if you want to improve employee morale, you have to ask yourself what has to exist first for them to be effective. And the answer is you have to fill out the, the lower levels of the work workplace culture hierarchy in order to actually get there. And this is what brings us back to the idea of the organizational success. So the top of the hierarchy is what we call strive. And in strive is striving for the five types of organizational success. And those orient successes are successful change, innovation, collaboration, internal growth and customer acquisition or external growth. And to make those five successes happen, you have to have created if the resolve job of satisfaction of the lower level of the hierarchy, create psychological safety at the second tier, create inclusion of belonging at the third tier and improve employee experience and the employee engagement at the fourth tier to get to the fifth tier, of organization success. And that is how you can really build sustainable plan. But so stating this, the reason why I felt this is important to share was because now we're saying you have to have those four things resolved before you can deal with collaboration and innovation. Which is what you have to do if you want to start fully sustainably addressing silos.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it's the hierarchy is such a foundational tool framework to the work that we do and what we talk about it really understanding how the hierarchy, builds upon each other and builds towards those successes that if we look at what any operational organizational strategy should be framed around, we're trying to achieve one of those five things. We're trying to achieve effective change management or implementing new change pieces. We're trying to improve our innovation and how we work, together and create new products, bring new products to market, whatever that innovation may be. We want to collaborate, better, so that we can actually foster more innovation. Or we're looking to scale up our internal operations or we're looking to scale up our external operations. Right. Those five broad categories are what 98% of business strategies revolve around in some capacity. So understanding what needs to exist first before any one of those five things can be successful is the heart of the hierarchy. And it is the heart of everything that we talk about in terms of organizational strategy rebuilding, like organizational culture, you need to address job dissatisfaction because if people are actively ticked off about the factors of their workplace, they're not going to be receptive to change. right. They're not going to be receptive to collaborating. Right. So addressing the foundation, like building your strong foundation using the hierarchy is such an instrumental tool to rely on.
[COBY]:Yeah. so we dig into the full picture of the hierarchy, we go into great detail about what's into each of the five stages of it. Again in season one, episode 16, how do I build a WordPress culture? but for now I want to talk mostly about that fifth stage, the change, innovation, collaboration and everything. And we did dig into that in a full episode, which is episode in season one, episode 17 where we talked about kind of conning culture toizational performance and growth. but, yeah, but the idea of going back to silos and going back to kind of the us versus them feeling at work. It is so important to understand that the desire for effective collaboration amongst departments and amongst people really does require that those four levels beneath it do exist. Right. Because I mean, the idea of want people, you want engaged employees who are there, who want to bring their best self to work, who are dedicated to, of giving you the highest quality work, who are motivated and who are, you know, again they, they're engaged in their work and they want to, you know, they want to perform. Right.
[JAMES]:And they feel safe to challenge in a professional manner and raise concerns and bring you new ideas. Right. Like all of these things play together.
[COBY]:Yeah. So the thing is that that's really kind of what you need if you're going to effectively create, a collaborative environment that's that breaks down silos. So again use, the idea is that a lot of silos are not necessarily created because of a fully cultural thing. A lot of them, like we talked about before, are operationally structured pieces. Yeah. so I mean can. But like, here's the thing, if you have that, then you want to change the operational structure, but then you're going to have to be able to effectively manage change. And to manage change, you also need to have employees that don't home job a satisfaction. They feel like logical safety. They feel that they can belong and are engaged and motivated for change to be successful. But then once you have that, then you're also at the point where you can actually now collaborate better because people have accepted the new or additional structure that has changed. And then you can look at more innovation pieces and you know what I mean. The five successes of change, Innovation, collaboration, growth, customer acquisition, feed off each other.
[JAMES]:They are not siloed.
[COBY]:Exactly. That's just it. Like you can be nimble and you can change and then you can innovate because you're collaborating more and then you see more internal opportunities for growth, then you capture more external growth opportunities. And that's how it all feeds off each other. But the problem is where most businesses go wrong is when it comes to breaking down silos. Just like with innovation and change in customer acquisition is they try to jam a solution in isolation into their organization without asking themselves the important question. The what needs to exist first before this priority that we have will be successful? And they try and jump up the hierarchy without doing, without building the foundation. And what they try to do is unsustainable and then falls apart in front of them. And they often don't know why, but it's because they took the completely wrong approach.
[JAMES]:Well, and you're right. And going back like us versus them was the heart of this question. Right. Why does that exist? Why do I have an Why does it feel like we are pitted against each other or there's us versus them mentality. That feeling tends to. Where that tends to live is in job dissatisfaction. It's in the, the first stage of the hierarchy. First, probably the first two people don't either don't feel psychologically safe and may feel like they, if they say anything then they may be, penalized there. But it's very likely, rooted in that dissatisfaction piece where maybe it's that u, workplace is not equitable. Right. So you see employees see one group getting benefits or perks that another doesn't. or even that perception of, you know, they have it better or the grass is always greener on the other side type of mentality. Those are. Those feelings are often rooted in how we address or fail to address the factors of our workplace and whether or not they are competitive, sufficient and equitable. And we've talked about that many times. It probably comes up in virtually every conversation because it is such a critical piece that I mean there's a reason why it is our foundational tier of the hierarchy. Because nothing else that you do as you try to move up the hierarchy will be sustainable if you have high levels of job dissatisfaction.
[COBY]:Yeah, but. And again, it doesn't always have to be that. Even in organizations with good morale and good you know, where people kind of enjoy working with each other is still that us versus them feeling. Because it's a matter of like, you know, like. Well, it's like it's a matter of again, like we talked about with the sustainability piece, like the different plans, it's almost like, well, their plan and our plan. Now that we look at them like why do they have their own plan? And it's more of like, you know, like let's. So there's just the idea of like, well, that's supposed to be our lane to play and why are you playing in our lane? Even if the morale is good and people, you know, feel. I thought it's safe, but they're just acting with blinders on. They're acting in isolation. Right. And it's that idea of it. It's a much easier thing to resolve if you're not dealing with job of satisfaction. You have psychological safety and those kinds of pieces. But. But separate from what stage of the hierarchy you're kind of stuck on or. Or what foundations that you have and then versus the ones that you don't have, it's still a problem right up until the top. And this is why we say that the silo issue is a lot more of a, top of the hierarchy, change collaboration piece as opposed to, we talk go back to strongholds. That strongholds really exists primarily because the job of satisfaction at the lower level.
[JAMES]:Right, yes, that's fair.
[COBY]:Right. But I mean, but this idea of like what has to exist for this collaborative environment where we're not all looking at isolated solutions to where isolated problems. Is that a matter of you. We have to just change the structure a matter that we have to actually have the level of engagement that we need for employees to want to collaborate and want to work together and feel like that, like they can. It's just a matter of again, what is the things, where are we failing? And when it comes to trying to resolve the evolution towards this, a new, more collaborative model and basically what has to exist for us to actually have sustainable success. Because again, the problem that we take is that we just try to jam in a new solution, a new policy, a new piece completely in isolation. Again, because, Don, we haven't done our homework to make sure that we actually have the infrastructure and the culture in place that will make this new priority that we've jammed in there to be as important and be as sustainably effective. Because we just haven't asked ourself that important question.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it's really interesting how like so many times, on in our conversations I talk about the need for a plan, the need for a strategy, the need for like just some strategic vision in terms of what we're doing. And it's funny how even with that, if you have departments that are creating their own strategies, we're still creating silos. Right? You plan beats no plan every day of the week. But if you are a part of a large organization with know, multiple locations, multiple departments, corporate infrastructure, you know, potentially large, a number of large different groups of employees and classifications, it can be challenging to create that overarching operational strategy. But every department plan should be in service to that overall, business plan, that overall strategic plan, that overall operation. Whatever language you end up putting on it, you have to ensure that there is that every, each piece is kind of feeding into the next. And how what one department does not only feeds up, but also across the spectrum of how what the marketing team is doing is going to help, what the core operations is doing, what the sustainability team is doing, what the comms team is doing, what the HR team is doing. Right. They again, don't create your, strategies in a silo.
[COBY]:Thanks. Avoid the isolation. And that's just really what live it is. All right. This has been a pretty good conversation. I feel like we've done justice to the silo element after, really digging into the stronghold, one last episode. So again, three episodes you may want to check out if this was a very interesting conversation with you, was our last episode where we talked about, strongholds in great detail. And season one, episode 16 where we talk about how to create a workplace Culture where we break down the hierarchy. And then season one, episode 17, where we talked about the again, these five successes and how your culture is connected with your strategy and everything else like that too.
[JAMES]:Those three are great. Or you can just binge our entire catalog of, I don't know, what are we at like 83 some episodes? Because you really love hearing our voices.
[COBY]:All right, I'm going to do a bit of a recap.
[JAMES]:Yeah.
[COBY]:All right. So the question was, why does it feel like us versus them at work? And part of that is to figure out, well, in that us versus them feeling, do you think you're operating in a silo or a stronghold? Again, a silo happens when our operational structure is set up, that we are, you know, that we are looking at our own goals or own processes, and that everything that we, we are doing is isolated within our team or our division, and we're built to stay in our lane. Strongholds happen when our teams are potentially hostile or in conflict with other departments, where we act as kind of a fortified area that prevents teams from working with others, it entrenches them in their own ways, and is resilient to outside influences. But if you're operating in a silo in the us versus them at work, it's likely because every problem that you're seeing is an isolated issue and requires an isolated solution. Divorce of what's happening in other departments, which is why it feels like they're over there and we're here with us. But largely, if you want to actually address these issues, we have to really figure out what is it that needs to exist first before we can start to break down the walls of our silo and make it not feel like it's as versus them at work. And prior to that is we really need to understand that we have to create a culture that allows for more successful collaboration, more successful implementation of change, and more successful innovation. And that's by asking ourselves that question, what has to exist first before this will become effective? And working our way towards an organizational culture that is rooted in a strong foundation of filling in our needs before we can actually jump on to the next level and not cramming these solutions in without again verifying that we have the infrastructure, the culture, the systems that will allow that plan to be sustainable and successful long term. Otherwise, if we don't do that, we're gonna feel like it's always us versus them and the isolation can become greater. And in robbing performance, efficiency and productivity, which is what really most companies are trying to strive for. So that does it for us. For a full archive of our podcast and access the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman.3ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[ANNOUNCER]:For more information on topics like these, don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, and employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion of the sound of James voice, Desire to find a better podcast...
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