End of siloed work in companies: a good manager advocates collaboration

What is siloed working in a company?

Silo work refers to a mode of organization in which each department operates in a compartmentalized manner, without sharing information or transversal coordination with other departments. Communication remains vertical, resources do not circulate, and decisions are made in a vacuum.

In a siloed organization, the system is generally pyramidal and based on the directive management style : autonomy, teamwork and collective intelligence are not encouraged. The sharing of information, resources and ideas is almost non-existent, and there is no cross-functional communication between departments.

This siloed operation manifests itself in multiple ways on a daily basis:

• Marketing and sales teams working on different targets without knowing it
• IT projects launched without consulting the business lines concerned
• Duplicate reporting between departments, each using its own indicators
• Strategic decisions made without a consolidated view of customer data

The true cost of the silo effect: what the numbers reveal

Silos are now increasingly criticized in the business world. And for good reason: its cost is measurable. According to a McKinsey study, companies with teams that collaborate effectively across departments are 20 to 25 percent more productive than siloed organizations (McKinsey, The Social Economy).

The silo effect tends to encourage individualistic behavior and can be very harmful to the proper functioning of the company as well as to the well-being of employees. The lack of cross-functional communication often leads to errors, wasted time and direct financial losses. This siloed mode of organization complicates strategic decision-making and undermines overall productivity.

Gartner confirms this trend: according to its analysis, more than 80% of organizations that fail in their digital transformation identify organizational silos as one of the top three obstacles (Gartner, Top Strategic Technology Trends). In other words, the silo effect does not only slow down operations: it directly compromises the company’s ability to adapt.

The end of silo work is accelerated by the digital transformation, the rise of new technologies and the growing importance given to CSR issues. Faced with the new expectations of consumers and employees, the silo effect is becoming unsuitable, or even obsolete in most structures.

Why break down functional silos now?

Faced with these documented limitations, decompartmentalizing the company is no longer a simple continuous improvement project. It is an imperative of competitiveness. Breaking down silos allows you to:

• Streamline exchanges and reduce decision times
• Eliminate duplication of tasks and reporting between departments
• Strengthen employee engagement with a shared vision
• Accelerating innovation by combining business expertise
• Improve the customer experience with a consistent end-to-end journey

Advocating collaboration and breaking the silo effect is now a real prerequisite for strengthening the company’s competitiveness, its capacity for innovation, its agility and its responsiveness.

Companies that have managed to break down their silos

Several organizations have demonstrated that it is possible to profoundly transform a compartmentalized way of working:

• Spotify has popularized the squad model: autonomous multidisciplinary teams (developers, designers, product owners) who work on the same product objective, regardless of departmental boundaries. This model has been documented and analyzed by the Harvard Business Review as a textbook case of successful desiloing (HBR, How Spotify Balances Employee Autonomy and Accountability).
• Haier, the Chinese home appliance giant, has done away with its traditional hierarchical structure to create more than 4,000 in-house micro-enterprises. Each unit operates as a startup with its own goals, while sharing resources and customer data on a group-wide basis.
• ING Bank has reorganized its entire Dutch headquarters into squads and tribes inspired by the Spotify model, reducing its product delivery cycles and improving team satisfaction.

What do these transformations have in common? None of them has been purely technological. All of them required a profound change in managerial culture.

How to break down silos in your company: frameworks and concrete levers

To reduce the silo effect within the company, several actions can be deployed by managers. But make no mistake: it is not enough to declare the end of silos. We need to structure the approach.

Deploy OKRs to align teams on common goals

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are one of the most effective frameworks for breaking down functional silos. The principle is simple: each team defines its objectives in line with those of the company, and the key results are visible to all. This transparency forces coordination between departments.

According to Deloitte, organizations that adopt shared and transparent goal systems see a significant improvement in strategic alignment across teams (Deloitte, Global Human Capital Trends).

In concrete terms, OKRs make it possible to:

• Make the priorities of each department visible
• Identify interdependencies between teams
• Create cross-functional OKRs that require multiple departments to collaborate
• Measuring the collective contribution, not just the individual

Adopt the squad model for operational transversality

The squad model is based on the creation of multidisciplinary teams of 6 to 10 people, bringing together skills from different professions around a common product or customer objective. Unlike the classic matrix organization, the squad is autonomous in its operational decisions.

This model is generally structured in three levels:

• Squads : autonomous teams focused on a specific mission
• Tribes : grouping of squads working on the same domain
• Guilds : cross-functional communities of practice (e.g., all data analysts in the company)

Setting up participative or transversal management

Breaking down functional silos also involves the implementation of participative or collaborative management, which promotes initiative, mutual aid and collective intelligence. The manager empowers his teams, strengthens cohesion and collective work. This managerial style often goes hand in hand with a project-based operation.

Transversal management, which consists of having several departments and different hierarchical levels cooperate together, will also make it possible to break down the silo operation within the company.

Install collaborative tools and agile methods

It is also necessary to set up close and immediate communication between the company’s teams and departments. This can be facilitated by the installation of collaborative digital tools (Slack, Notion, Asana), by the implementation of agile methods (Scrum, Kanban, Lean), and by the organization of regular rituals: daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, inter-team retrospectives.

Let’s be clear: the tool alone is never enough. A misused Slack creates as many silos as a doorless hallway. The challenge is to support the deployment with shared rules of use and information governance.

Organize team-building activities

The manager will also be able to promote collaboration by organizing team building activities, coaching and inter-departmental training. These types of events help to strengthen bonds and team spirit within the company, especially when employees are not in contact with each other on a daily basis.

Reorganize workspaces

To promote collaboration and break down organizational silos, it can be beneficial to reorganize the company’s offices by creating an open and collaborative workspace that promotes interactions, exchanges and the dissemination of information. Be careful, however: a poorly designed open space can have the opposite effect. The goal is to create intentional areas of collaboration, not to remove all privacy.

Embedding collaboration at the heart of company culture

To deeply desilo the company, it may sometimes be necessary to transform a hierarchical organizational model that has often been anchored for many years. This means reviewing the entire company culture and placing collaboration and mutual support at the heart of the company’s culture and values.

The manager’s mission will then be to transmit this collaborative culture on a daily basis to his teams and to create a strong and engaging common vision to unite all employees. According to BCG, companies that incorporate collaboration as a structuring value—not just a slogan—achieve 30% higher innovation results than their peers (BCG, Most Innovative Companies 2024).

The role of the interim manager in desiloing

Breaking down silos is a transformational project that touches on structure, processes and culture. This is precisely the field of intervention of an interim manager.

Its contribution is threefold:

• Objective diagnosis : without internal political ties, he identifies the real sticking points between departments
• Operational deployment : he sets up frameworks (OKRs, squads, agile rituals) and supports their adoption
• Transfer of skills : its temporary mission includes the increase in the autonomy of internal teams to ensure the sustainability of transversality

Within Wayden, our interim managers regularly work on reorganization missions where decompartmentalization is a direct lever for performance. Their multi-sectoral experience allows them to adapt good practices to each context, without imposing an unsuitable theoretical model.

Frequently asked questions about working in silos

What is siloed working in a company?

Silo work refers to a mode of organization in which each department operates in a compartmentalized manner, without sharing information or transversal coordination with other departments. This operation is generally based on a pyramidal structure and directive management that hinders collective intelligence.

What is the real cost of organizational silos?

According to McKinsey, companies whose teams collaborate effectively across departments are 20 to 25 percent more productive. Silos lead to duplication of work, miscommunication, delays in decision-making, and loss of employee engagement.

Which frameworks break down functional silos?

Several frameworks have proven their worth: OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) align teams on common and measurable objectives; the squad model creates autonomous multidisciplinary teams; agile methods (Scrum, Kanban) promote short iterations and cross-functional communication.

How can an interim manager help to break down silos in an organization?

An interim manager brings an outside perspective and operational expertise to diagnose silos, redefine cross-functional processes, deploy collaborative frameworks and support cultural change. Its temporary posture allows it to act without the internal political biases that often slow down transformation.

What is the difference between transversal and horizontal management?

Cross-functional management coordinates teams from different departments around a common project, while maintaining the existing hierarchical structure. Horizontal management goes further by reducing or eliminating hierarchical levels to give more autonomy to employees. Both approaches aim to break down silos, but with different degrees of transformation.