Week 4 Video Destroying Silos

Week 4 Video Question and Answer: Silos and team dynamics Silos are like organizations inside of organizations that tend to work most efficiently when independent from other departments or groups. This can cause miscommunications, errors, duplicates, arguments, indecisions, volatility, confusion, or incomplete tasks due to overall company functionality. According to Destroying Silos, if there isn’t a common rallying cry within the company to reach a collaborative goal then department’s step on each other’s toes. If people don’t know how their activities and decisions affect other parts of the organization, it is considered unhealthy competition and silos emerge. (Destroying Silos, n.d.) Silos are a sure way to lose profits and overall moral due to fragmentation of people and information. Ideas can become arguments while teams and groups are torn apart by different perceptions of what’s acceptable. Managers can breakdown silos by having a common clear priority that everyone in the organization understands. By unifying an objective, departments can begin to challenge not only themselves, but with other departments as well to keep communication lines open and transfer ideas. Another strategy could be to offer incentives for managers and employees to implement interdepartmental changes so relative awareness grows and communication is encouraged. Healthy competition is the balance between competitiveness and overall efficiency to align departments in a common objective. According to Destroying Silos, although metrics are the most common progress measurement tool, if you start by trying to motivate people around numbers it usually fails especially further down the ladder because the scope is so broad and unmeasurable. (Destroying Silos, n.d.) People need to be motivated by something far more actionable such as incentives and advancement in order to focus on company success rather than individuality. Good leaders want to be better leaders so respectful