Move

Chapter 27Sharing InformationCommunicating Across Organizational Silos

People Feel Uninformed

When I do strategy execution work with executive teams, I typically begin with an assessment phase where I talk with people across the organization at multiple levels. So I end up talking to a lot of people across a lot of levels in a lot of organizations. One issue I hear pretty universally is about silos. People feel uninformed about what is happening in other organizations.

What Everyone Is Thinking

1. I thought you were doing that: So important tasks are dropped.
2. I didn't know you were doing that: So work is duplicated.
3. I don't know what I should be doing: So motivation is low; work stalls.
4. I didn't realize we knew/decided that: So bad calls are made when things that are actually known are not widely used.
5. I don't know the priorities: So wrong work is done. Effort is wasted. And needed work is not done.

Keeping momentum through the Middle requires a constant sharing of information across your organization, so people can feel safe that what they are doing makes sense in the context of what everyone else is doing.

Bridging Across Silos

Pretty much every organization struggles with siloed information. I have been so surprised to see the existence of silos even in very small organizations. I've seen this even in startups where there are only four people and one of them will say something like, “I need to get marketing to agree.” Seriously, marketing? You mean Bob?

Silos form no ...