The Amp It Up Fieldbook

8Teach Everyone to Go Direct and Build Mutual Trust

Two major challenges in aligning people and culture are silos and lack of trust. Leaders should build on their organization's mission and cultural values to encourage employees to work across departments. When everyone is working toward the same mission and top-level strategy, it's easier to tear down silos. A more unified, cross-functional workforce sets the foundation for increasing trust among colleagues. When your organizational culture supports trust, respect, and integrity, people will feel more comfortable speaking up and making decisions. They will also act with a greater sense of commitment and accountability.

The following activities will help you determine whether silos are a problem in your organization. They will also help you learn how to build trust and use it to perform at a higher level. Because these topics are so integral to teamwork, these activities will include a number of sections for your team to complete.

IDENTIFY SILOS

To fully realize your strategy and mission, different functions must work together. Even when people execute well within their departmental silos, performance is limited until teams can work together across different functional units. To determine if silos are a problem in your organization, ask your team to answer the following questions anonymously. Complete them yourself as well.

1. Aside from your manager, with whom do you work most closely in the course of your daily work and ...