Effective Strategies for Breaking Down Workplace Silos and Enhancing Team Collaboration

Welcome, everyone! Today, the old jarhead, Dennis Guzik, is back with some great career advice, focusing on an important concept in workplace dynamics—silos.

Key Highlights:

• Introduction to Silos:
• Silos are structures on farms used to hold grain, where nothing gets in or out without effort.
• In a business context, silos refer to divisions within a company where information flow is limited unless active efforts are made.
• Examples of Silos in Businesses:
• Internal Divisions: Different departments not sharing information about projects, purchases, etc.
• On-site vs. Remote Workers: Lack of communication between those who work on company premises and those who work remotely.
• Personal Experiences:
• The speaker saw numerous silos during his tenure in the defense world, particularly at the Pentagon.
• Efforts to break down silos were only marginally successful, often requiring continuous effort to maintain communication.
• Impact on Employees and Companies:
• Silos can hinder employee awareness, professional growth, and overall company productivity.
• Breaking down silos fosters cross-division work, enhancing skills and professional experiences.
• Advice for Managers and Employees:
• Identify and Break Down Silos:
  • Managers should actively look for silos and work to dismantle them.
  • Promote information sharing and cross-division collaboration.
  • Engage in Volunteering and Social Functions:
  • Activities like team sports and company events increase communication and awareness.
  • Example: Mary, who organized a company picnic, gained recognition up to the CEO level.
  • The Importance of Breaking Down Silos:
  • Essential for both organizational success and individual employee growth.
  • Efforts should start from the bottom and reach all the way to the top.
• Call to Action:
• Think about how you can apply these strategies to your own career. For more career insights, check out the Dennis's book, "Find a Job that Fits Your Life."
• Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello folks. Well, the old jarhead is back again, survived another week and I'm here to give you some great career advice, career advice that is guaranteed to help you and listen up and get ready to learn. So my manager who happens to be my wife recently came across a couple of articles about silos and she said well, old jarhead, you ought to do a podcast about these things. And I well, I've been around enough to know that when she suggests things, I'd better do them. So that's what we're talking about now silos. So, for those of you who do not know, silos are tall structures on farms that are used to hold grain, and a thing about a silo is that nothing gets in and nothing gets out unless there's a real effort made to do it. So, on a farm, a cow can move from one field to another without much problem, but the grains from one silo can't get into another without a whole lot of work. So you're going okay. So what does this have to do with me? Unless your career involves farming, you don't care, right? Nope, silos exist in businesses all the time. In fact, many executives of large and small businesses spend a considerable amount of time breaking them down. So now you say okay, get it there. Old jarhead. Tell me more about this silo thing. Well, one type of silo is where there are multiple divisions in a company and little information gets passed between them unless a real effort is made to make it happen. Things like what are you working on and what sort of new stuff you got going on? What are you buying? Different parts of the company may not have any clue what another part of the company is doing. Another type of silo could be between those who work on the company site and those who work remotely, and you may find that there's some information that's just not being shared. So look around where you work. Do you see any silos? Maybe you already noticed them but did not know what to call them. Yep, they're silos. I saw it all the time in the defense world. The higher you go in that hierarchy, the more silos exist, especially at the Pentagon, where I spent three years. Some of that's because of classifications and that's kind of understandable. Others are because of the competition for limited resources, and I've been part of efforts that were marginally successful in breaking them down. But if you're not careful, they seem to grow back again.

Speaker 1: 2:53

In my last position in the corporate world. I think that we were pretty good at cross-division work, but the bigger the company got, the harder it was to eliminate silos. So you say, why should you care? Well, here's the deal. What's going on in other parts of the company, those other silos may be very interesting to you, but if you're not even aware of those things, you can't get involved. I found that some of my best employees were very good at looking across the division and even doing work across the division. This increased their awareness of what was going on within the company and it also increased their skill sets, their professional experiences. Skill sets, their professional experiences. Now, if you're a manager, then you need to be looking out for these silos and making every effort to knock them down. Sharing information is great, but you need to take it one step further and make an effort by, let's say, offering one of your good employees to help out another business unit. And one last tip good tip here for managers and employees is the value of things like volunteering and social functions. Things like team sports increase the communication and awareness between silos. This is a great way to do it, and I'll give a nod out here to Mary who volunteered for the picnic and sent up the picnic and just got her name all over right up to the CEO. So, and wrapping it up, silos exist everywhere and, for the sake of the organization and for the employees, they need to be broken down, starting at the bottom but going all the way up to the top.

Speaker 1: 4:38

Well, that's it for now. That's my podcast for this week. Lots of good information. These things are short, but if you want a longer version, check out my book. Find a Job that Fits your Life. I guarantee it. And thanks for listening. Bye, thank you, thank you.