The country has been receiving good rains lately. The farmers, I believe are the happiest, as they now get to reap what they have sowed.
However, with rain, comes insects that can affect the harvest, one being locust. Locusts are destructive.
In fact, in Deuteronomy 28:42 it says, Locusts will destroy all your trees and crops. This month, I want to look at some of the destructive deterrents (aka locusts”) that impact organizational effectiveness and communication. Today I will touch on the concept- working in silos.
The term silos refer to a long, container without windows that has limited entrance, and kept on farms to store and protect grain. Similarly, you would find teams or individuals who imbibe a silos mentality.
This type of mentality is characterised by teams hoarding information, being locked up in their officers or departments, doing their own work, or working on similar objectives, but without sufficient communication, collaboration, co-ordination and commitment.
An organisation whose culture embraces a silo mentality is also characterized by individuals or divisions that withhold information from others due to factors such as power hunger, pride, fear, insecurity, mistrust, favouritism, and jealousy to mention a few. This type of mentality eats corporate strategy for breakfast.
Overtime, an organization that embraces such a culture, will be ineffective, complacent, not competitive, which eventually stifles innovation, creativity, staff morale and productivity. It also destroys trust.
So, what is the solution? Well, it has been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. When you have a fragmented executive and management leadership team, that division is further projected to the entire organisation.
It would be essential for organisations to ask themselves the following questions: what types of rewards/ compensation structure does the organisation? What communications tools does the company use to effectively communicate across the board? What is the communication style of the CEO?
What type of consequence management is in place? How often do management and their teams meet? Are factors like favouritism embraced? How effective are the team building initiatives?
Most of the time, the answers to the problems are right in front of us. The question is whether we are bold enough to make the changes.
If your organisation embraces a silos mentality, how has that increased your revenue, productivity, innovation and efficiencies? What will you do differently this year, to bring more unison to your organisation?
*Morna Ikosa is a Senior Corporate Communications and Brand Reputation Strategist, CPRP, MA, AKA Fixer. To connect, send her a shout-out at micommunicationscc@gmail.com or find her on LinkedIn.
