Silos Are For Farmers!

Image courtesy of Pixabay

I originally wrote today’s article for CallidusCloudCX; it had been published on their site on July 26, 2017.

In past July’s webinar using CallidusCloudCX, I spoke about nine behaviours of CX Losers. (There are over nine, without a doubt!) One of those behaviours was failing to break down organizational silos.

I was raised on a plantation, so I’m very familiar with silos. And that is where they belong, to the farm; they’re concrete or metal structures which are created to hold or to store something, to divide the materials (grains), and also to create that something hard to have at (by predators, rodents, climate, etc.).

That seems very like what organizational silos perform: grip, independent, and protect. One silo, er, section, will maintain, independent, and safeguard its contents (data, data, tools, etc.) from another section. Worse, the concentrate within every organizational silo is determined by the taste of the day, or even of this silo — anything that silo is working on, which may or may not be associated to what the rest of the company is centered on.

Organizational silos cause pain for your workers. They lead to reduced efficiencies, waste funds, kill growth, reduce morale (using a them-and-us mindset), and so are detrimental to your capacity to make a customer-focused culture. This implies they cause pain for your customers, too. And also they wreak havoc on your own CX plan.

Innovation is killed by silos. They create nightmares for the customer experience. And say good-bye into the omnichannel experience! When sections and stations don’t speak and share customer data, the experience is fragmented and frustrating. You’ve undergone this: Think about needing to re-enter your information once you go from website to telephone or providing information when moved from rep to rep. That frustrates customers for free!

When a Provider is silo’d, the following are just a Few of the things that happen in a vacuum?

• Communications: no more consistency
• Actions: no consistency
• People development: training, training, hiring, benefits and recognition, etc.: no shared standards or consistency
• Data access and usage: no more data sharing
• Information and knowledge: no more sharing
• Tech and resources: special to each silo of the company
• Metrics: unique and inconsistent

There’s no consistency or uniformity whenever there are silos; each department is using its own tools and methods to support what they’re doing instead of working efficiently and consistently with the rest of the organization to be cohesive, to be one company. And workers and clients feel it and know it.

What do businesses need to do?

They need to find everyone in sync, to precisely the identical page, and working collectively toward a common goal.

Consider this: silo is much more of a mindset than a physical entity. There are no walls set up to keep you from speaking to your coworkers in another department and out of sharing everything you are working together with other individuals. Department or business unit heads opt to not share data or to collaborate. It’s a leadership issue. It’s a culture issue. It takes a change in mindset!

How do you start to shift the mindset? Try these…

1. Journey maps: By definition, even if you map customer journeys, you need to involve cross-functional stakeholders, and (a) gets them collaborating and sharing and (b) helps them determine how various departments impact a single customer travel. As a consequence of the epiphany, they realize they must work together to enhance the experience. A previous customer mapped their customer journeys and learned that their silo’d business units created a bad experience for the customer, who had to cosign because a new customer every time he worked using another business unit. After mapping, then they flipped the company on its head and coordinated the business to align with the customer travel instead of becoming a silo’d travel through their individual business units.

2. Governance structure, steering committee: helps ensure that action plans are implemented and outcomes are measured — cohesively, in a collaborative fashion — across the organization; the government board functions as the motor and the supervision committee of a CX change management adviser. They get people working together with a common cause/goal. They ensure equilibrium and accountability, and also their cross-functional collaboration is priceless.

3. Communications and collaboration technology: put programs into place that allow workers to share data, learnings, and much more across sections, channels, business units, etc.. Place technology in place that facilitates and promotes communication and collaboration. Invite cooperation and cross-functional teamwork — during travel mapping, activity planning, design thinking, etc. — in the interest of the customer. Having the technology and tools in position facilitates and supports an open culture.

4. Leadership and executive commitment: breaking down silos is a culture and a mindset change, and naturally, so it comes from the very best. Both business executives and also department/business unit heads need to direct the charge. What do they do?

• Improve cross-functional and organization-wide communications and interactions by initiating, supporting, and facilitating the conversation starters
• Share stories, admit victories, and cross-team collaboration
• Function toward a Frequent goal, at a very vocal way, i.e., talk about the Frequent target and how every section impacts it
• Talk the Identical language, using a Frequent language when it comes to the customer and the consumer experience
• Blend CX along with other advantages in the Identical way from department to department, i.e., don’t give people a reason to hate what’s happening in another department

Other thoughts? Make sure you’ve defined and conveyed the firm’s mission, vision, values, guiding principles, and also brand guarantee. These help get everyone on precisely the identical page. While they may not break down silos, they will make alignment and break down some of those mindset barriers which exist with silos.

Have you had success busting own silos? What do you do? Would like to hear your thoughts!

Silos construct the wall from people’s minds and create the barrier in associations’ “hearts” -Pearl Zhu

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