What’s top of mind for both a 21-year-old intern and a seasoned C-suite executive?
Information silos.
While the intern may be focused on how to function with limited information and the executive may be determined to understand the business impact, get to the root cause, and incentivize knowledge sharing…their frustration is the same. And significant.
When the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, there’s friction for everyone. At all levels.
In this post, we’ll explain:
In one sense, it feels strange to talk about information silos.
After all:
But the sheer volume of available information is half the battle. What adds another level of complexity? How fast knowledge can be created, captured, shared, consumed, and applied—and how tricky it is to consistently check all of those boxes.
The short answer is faulty knowledge sharing.
The long answer is a laundry list of compounding factors, including:
Whether you’re an individual contributor with a pulse on the big picture or a manager charged with change management, here are six scenarios that can create information silos.
Information Silos: 6 Common Catalysts
In an ideal world, information would flow freely between—and within—cross-functional teams.
We’d default to working in public. We’d know about all major initiatives underway. And everyone would know exactly where to look to find the knowledge they need to do their best work.
When that doesn’t happen, a few other things do.
Let’s consider each in turn. 👇
We spend an inordinate amount of time and mental energy looking for information. 1.8 hours every day, according to McKinsey research. What’s equally eye-opening, as a result of information silos? The amount of duplicative work going on.
Without a single source of truth, reconciling data from different software is frustrating at best. At worst? It increases the risk of inaccurate updates and forecasts—and pulls people away from doing valuable analysis to move the company forward.
If information silos are the norm, knowledge hoarding may become more widespread. When a scarcity mindset prevails and people want to get credit for their ideas above all else, you end up with subject matter experts who want to be the only subject matter experts.
The most successful teams make quick and informed decisions. What happens when people need to do extra legwork to find context they need—or skip digging deeper altogether? Your average decision making process gets extended, and data-driven decision making becomes a real challenge.
Microlearning is one of the best ways to build a culture of knowledge sharing, close skill gaps, and increase productivity. Where information silos thrive, learning does not.
By definition, information silos limit communication and collaboration between people, which can prevent the exchange of A+ ideas. When people work in silos, new market trends, technologies, customer insights, and more don’t see the light of day.
Friction felt internally becomes friction felt externally very, very quickly. When customer data is restricted to certain team members or departments, you run the risk of asking a customer to provide the same information more than once and accidentally contradicting previous messaging.
Wasting time is frustrating. Trying to get stuff done with incomplete and/or incorrect information is stressful (if not downright impossible). Being surrounded by people who are in it for themselves is disheartening. On a scale of 1 to so thrilled you’d want to post a glowing Glassdoor review, where do you stand?
Convinced it’s time to do away with your information silos?
You may want to act sooner rather than later. 👇
What tends to surface first, when you get rid of information silos? Opportunities to do things better and faster. Minimizing redundant efforts. Streamlining workflows. Eliminating unnecessary steps. Automating repetitive tasks. The possibilities to improve overall productivity are endless.
If misinformation flourished while you had information silos, information accuracy will improve as more information becomes available. What else will become clear? Where you and your team may have blind spots, and what you can do proactively to make the most of everyone’s time and talents.
Idle knowledge is useless knowledge. Without silos to inhibit the flow of information between teammates, teams, and departments, more knowledge sharing can take place. Beyond the obvious benefits, individuals and teams will be able to spend less time searching for help and answering the same questions—and more time making an impact and improving their craft.
#4 goes hand-in-hand with #3. When more knowledge transfer takes place consistently over time and there’s a wider range of readily accessible insights, expertise, and perspectives, everyone can make more informed decisions and projections.
“If you aren’t learning, you’re languishing” may sound harsh, but it’s true. Organizations that enable continuous learning—where and when work is happening—have a competitive advantage. You don’t need to have a big budget or formal programs in place, either. Learning on the job is cost effective *and* accelerates business growth.
It doesn’t matter if your information silo existed within a team or across teams. By knocking it down, new partnerships, natural synergies, and innovative ideas can quickly take its place.
By removing data silos, you can quickly deliver a more remarkable customer experience. When your sales team can see what your marketing team sent and your support team can see the customer’s last touchpoint with your brand, it’s infinitely easier to provide a seamless end-to-end experience.
Another win-win. Without information silos standing in the way, people can waste less energy finding/sharing the knowledge they need, and spend more time getting better at the most interesting parts of their jobs. What’s the result? Employees who are more engaged, motivated, and likely to support each other—which ultimately helps company growth.
At this point, we’re well beyond “what is a silo.” We’ve rounded up the issues with letting information silos live, and layered the advantages to breaking them down on top. Now we’ll give you some practical ways to put a plan into action to reunite your people—and their unique knowledge.
Information Silos: 14 Ways To Stop Working in Silos
What’s the TL;DR? [Shared] knowledge is power.
Information silos restrict the flow of information. And they don’t crop up just between teams—they can develop within them, too.
The simplest reason to share information is still the most important one. Knowledge sharing helps everyone do their jobs better.
For people with answers to share:
Dreading all the how-to guides in your future? Don’t. 🙂 Equally important: don’t create them manually! Tango makes documentation easy, fast, and fun—so you get the relief of getting it done, along with the gratification of helping the people around you succeed.
For people with questions to ask:
Can’t find the answers where you need them, when you need them? Tired of context-switching, wasting energy searching for help, and having to interrupt people? 🤦 There’s a simple solution: Real-Time Guidance. Tango makes it easy for you to get into get sh*t done mode—and find answers fast, in the flow of your work, with built-in insights from peers.
At an individual level, knowledge hoarding is an example of an information silo. At a team level, using different software to manage customer data often leads to information silos.
Information silos emerge in the workplace when relevant knowledge, experience, or insights aren’t accessible to all. They can occur when individuals or groups withhold information, use different software or systems, or don’t communicate effectively.
Information silos are problematic for organizations because they limit collaboration, communication, and knowledge sharing. The domino effect is significant when it comes to misinformation, decision-making, productivity, morale, and the need to adapt to change.
Silo mentality can show up when someone on a team figures out a way to streamline a process but doesn’t share it with a teammate. Silo mentality can also manifest in a lack of information shared between departments. For example, when a sales team neglects to share customer feedback on a product with the product development team, which impacts their ability to better understand customer needs.
We'll never show up
empty-handed (how rude!).
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