Your business is continually facing challenges, new technologies, fresh competitors and changes in the macro environment. However, your biggest challenge is most likely to come from within. Siloed experts within your company are necessary but can also pose a major risk.
These experts excel at their role in their team but rarely cross the boundaries of other teams. This results in a lack of development of whole-enterprise solutions and puts the company at a disadvantage.
Build connections
So many companies invest a fortune in developing their teams but then spend nothing connecting them. A great way to do this is to plan some team-building activities that bring people together who don’t usually connect every day.
As opportunities arise to work on business-improvement activities, form multi-disciplinary teams to address them. Working closely with members of other teams will force the building of relationships and begin to tear down the traditional business-unit silos.
Create a one-team mentality
Changing your organisational structure to reflect nimble, high-performing teams that are multi-disciplinary and highly connected is a big, positive change to make. The three keys to achieving this are for your employees to be aligned, collaborative and always learning. This creates a cycle that is highly adaptive and always improving.
If you don’t have the right culture, you'll start to see employees move back to their siloed ways. Also bear in mind that your siloed experts may be reluctant to change to this new way of working and may need a lot of support to get there.
TAKEAWAY: Shifting to adaptive, high-performance teams is a great way to improve your organisation and move away from the enterprise risk of having siloed experts and teams. The primary way to do this is by encouraging cross-team communication and forming multi-disciplinary teams.