How to create organisational silos

Silos - you can do it

If a siloed organisation is what you’re after, here’s how to go about doing it.    The only pre-requisite to being able to form silos is people who have a genuine urge to get work done and who care for the organisation.  Don’t worry, we’ll set it up so these natural instincts are naturally turned toward silo behaviour.

First, make sure the top team in the organisation never argues.  This is achieved by making sure they don’t trust each other enough to be open, honest and demand clarity of thinking from each other.   This will allow different views about how the organisation should move forward to take root, allowing small cracks to grow wider as they are communicated down through the organisation.   Each area will then be able to follow it’s own agenda, secure in the knowledge that should other areas not be on board, they can be declared wrong.

Make sure your own group of peers doesn’t trust each other enough to argue.  This is done by never showing that you are a normal, somewhat vulnerable human.  Never admit a mistake, cover up where possible, and make sure no one knows even a single fact about you outside of work.   If your teammates see that you’re a human, they might start to trust you, and that will quickly close any gaps in clarity between the two of you as discussions might become honest.

To assist this,  have stronger loyalty to your team of direct reports than to your peers.  This lets you satisfy your ego as well as having a fall-back position should the work in creating clarity with your peers become too difficult.  Your team of direct reports will most likely never realise that you are actually making their life harder by not ensuring clarity above them, and so will gladly conclude along with you that it’s the fault of the other areas.

Lastly, if there are issues between people, make sure you blame personality or culture, never clarity or structure.  Do not consider whether the mutual purpose between the two roles is clear (this is why you can’t build trust with your peers), don’t check to see if the outcomes of the two roles are actually in conflict, and above all, never set up the appropriate authorities to go with the accountabilities so its clear who can decide what.  This will naturally force them into a situation where they will blame personality, use political power, and will hopefully see them drawing negative conclusions about the inevitable nature of people from ‘that area’.

Silos formed, and your work is done.