Updated: October 22, 2025- 16 min read
Imagine your company spends 18 months building a product, only to watch the launch stumble. Marketing promotes features that engineers have cut. Sales promise features that don’t exist. Support braces for the wrong problems.
83% of executives admit silos exist in their companies, and 41% of employees find it more challenging to collaborate across departments (1). It all points in the same direction. Yes, collaboration failures and silos. They waste time, drain motivation, worsen the product experience, and stall product innovation.
In this piece, we’ll unpack what siloed really means, how to spot the signs, and what product leadership can do to break down organizational silos.
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What Does Being “Siloed” Mean in the Workplace?
In business, organizational silos refer to teams or departments that operate in isolation from others, with little information flow between them. People in a siloed team tend to focus only on their own goals and tasks, and they may be reluctant to share information or tools with other groups.
Vrushali Paunikar, the CPO at Carta, noticed on The Product Podcast how silos can creep in and stall efforts:
We realized that too much of our planning was happening in silos. Instead, we brought teams together to identify our five biggest priorities for 2025. Now, half of our capital is allocated to those priorities, with full cross-team alignment.
As a result, each silo develops its own processes, uses its own systems, and essentially becomes its own mini-organization within the company. This might happen intentionally (a rigid org chart or “stay in your lane” directives) or unintentionally (as a byproduct of growth, specialization, or poor communication channels).
What is a silo mentality?
Silo mentality is the mindset that accompanies this isolation. It’s a belief that “our team knows best” or a habit of not sharing knowledge with others. It leads to fragmented communication, duplicated efforts, and lack of alignment across the business.
In essence, siloed teams are cut off from the broader mission. Professor Vijay Govindarajan of Tuck School of Business famously said that silos
...create an environment where sharing and collaborating for anything other than one silo’s special interests is virtually impossible.
When product teams barricade themselves like this, it quietly strangles innovation. Great ideas or critical feedback never reach the people who need them.
It’s worth noting that not all structure is bad. Dividing an organization by function (engineering, marketing, sales, etc.) is common and can work well, provided those groups still cross-functionally collaborate and work toward shared goals.
Silos become harmful when they turn into rigid barriers. Next, let’s look at how to recognize the warning signs that your teams are siloed.
5 Signs and Symptoms of Siloed Teams and Department Silos
How do you know if your organization has a silo problem? Often, the signs start as subtle issues that snowball over time. Here are some common symptoms of team silos to watch for:
1. Fragmented communication and information hoarding
You notice that teams aren’t sharing updates or knowledge openly. Each department might use different communication tools or channels, so information never reaches the people in other groups who need to know.
Important news travels through whisper networks (private emails or chats) instead of transparent channels. As a result, colleagues in different departments are frequently left in the dark or hear news too late.
Decision-makers might spend hours hunting down data or contacts in other teams just to get answers. One McKinsey study found employees in siloed organizations waste up to 20% of their workweek searching for internal information or support (2). That’s a full day each week lost.
This communication breakdown not only slows everything down, it breeds mistrust that stems from “Why didn’t we know about this sooner?”
2. Siloed working leads to duplicate work and inefficiencies
In a siloed workplace, teams often unknowingly reinvent the wheel. With little visibility into each other’s projects, two or more groups might be working on very similar tasks in parallel. As you can imagine, that’s a huge waste of time and resources.
For example, different departments might even purchase separate software tools for the same purpose, because no one coordinated a shared solution. A lack of cross-team coordination leads to redundant processes and technical debt.
One warning sign is when an audit reveals multiple product teams have created their own versions of a report, system, or dataset that could have been built once and shared.
Overlapping efforts and siloed decision-making mean everyone is expending extra energy for poorer results.
3. Knowledge gaps stifle innovation
Siloed departments tend to keep expertise locked inside. When teams don’t exchange ideas, share learnings, or brainstorm together, creativity suffers.
You might see missed opportunities for product innovation because insights from one team never make it to another. Perhaps customer feedback collected by the support team never reaches the product development group, so product improvements lag. Or a clever process hack discovered by operations stays in that silo instead of benefiting the rest of the company.
In fact, PwC estimates that silo-induced inefficiencies eat up 350 hours per employee every year (3). That’s nearly an entire workweek gone, where teams should be learning, collaborating, upskilling, and innovating instead.
Over time, this isolation can cause the organization to fall behind more collaborative competitors. Employees stuck in silos may also feel their growth is limited. They aren’t exposed to new perspectives or skills outside their bubble. This monotony further dampens creative problem-solving.
4. Competing priorities and “us vs. them” culture
Another classic sign of workplace silos is when departments develop conflicting product goals or OKRs that put them at odds. Because each silo focuses only on its own success, they can inadvertently sabotage other teams.
For instance, the product team might be rewarded for outputs over outcomes. Perhaps for churning out new features, while the support team is measured on reducing issues which is a recipe for tension if those rushed features create a surge in bugs.
As one manager described (4), siloed organizations end up “paying one group to create problems that another group is paid to solve.” You’ll hear language like “that’s not our department’s problem” or an “us vs. them” mentality between product teams.
Departments act like rival fiefdoms defending their turf rather than collaborators in a common mission. This dynamic breeds mistrust and finger-pointing. Over time, morale plummets because employees feel frustrated with internal politics and lack of support.
In a Research Gate case study (5), researchers found silo mentality so ingrained that it led to “extreme emotional confusion and exhaustion” among team members. When people start to dread interacting with other departments, you know the silos are deeply toxic.
5. Silos in the workplace lead to broken customer experience
Perhaps the biggest red flag comes from your customers. Silos in the workplace don’t stay internal. They become painfully visible to outsiders.
Have you ever contacted a company and been transferred from rep to rep, each of whom has no context of your issue? That’s a silo problem. If customers receive inconsistent answers or have to repeat the same information to sales, user onboarding, and support separately, it signals your internal teams aren’t communicating.
In fact, 70% of customers expect a company’s reps to share information with each other, yet 55% say it feels like dealing with separate departments rather than one unified company. Disconnected, siloed processes behind the scenes translate into confusion and frustration for the people you serve.
A fractured organization simply can’t deliver a seamless product experience. Over time, this hurts your brand reputation and bottom line. Customers may flee to competitors who present a more coordinated front.
Two or more symptoms are a problem
If several of these symptoms sound familiar, there’s a good chance your organization is suffering from operational silos. The effects tend to compound: miscommunications lead to delays, which cause missed deadlines and blame games, which further erode trust and engagement.
The silo effect has been called one of the biggest barriers to organizational success and product innovation. It can quietly cost huge amounts of time and money if left unchecked. The next step is figuring out how to break those walls down.
Silo Management Strategies: Aligning Teams and Tools Across Silos
Silos won’t disappear on their own – overcoming them requires deliberate effort across leadership, culture, and processes. The good news is that with the right strategies, even deeply entrenched silos can be dismantled. Here are several proven approaches for breaking down organizational silos and improving cross-team collaboration, especially in product-driven companies:
Align everyone around a unified vision and shared goals
The foundation of an integrated organization is a common purpose. Leaders must clearly communicate the big-picture mission and make sure each team understands how their objectives contribute to it. This means establishing company-wide goals that cascade down to department and team goals.
When everyone is aiming for the same north star, it shifts the mindset from “our department vs. theirs” to “we’re all in this together.”
Make collaboration and collective success part of your core values. Executives and product leadership should regularly articulate a unified product vision and show concrete links between teams’ work and the broader product strategy.
For example, a product-led organization can set a high-level objective (say, improving customer retention) that cross-functional teams tackle together, each contributing from their area. This reduces the chance of teams pursuing conflicting priorities.
As a bonus, it’s motivating. Employees are more engaged when they see how their work fits into the bigger picture, rather than feeling siloed. If upper management notices turf wars or silo thinking among leaders, address it head-on. Realign their incentives to reward collaboration over competition. A transparent goal structure keeps everyone literally on the same page.
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Foster open communication from the top down
Breaking silos often starts with breaking the silence. Leaders should actively lead by example in sharing information, updates, and even challenges openly across the agile organization. When the default behavior is transparency, it encourages teams to talk to each other rather than hide in bubbles.
Practical tips:
regular cross-department check-ins, joint briefings, or agile retros
all-hands meetings or newsletters where updates are shared broadly
open Slack channels or forums where teams post what they’re working on
a clear “no surprises” rule so decisions that affect others are communicated early
The key is to create communication bridges so that people in one team can easily learn what others are doing or ask questions. By modeling openness, leaders signal that it’s not only safe but expected to reach across organizational boundaries. Over time, this breaks the habit of “information is power” hoarding.
In fact, research by McKinsey & Co. suggests that simply improving internal communication can claw back a huge amount of lost productivity from silos (6). Make it standard that important knowledge is documented and accessible to all (through wikis, shared databases, etc.), rather than kept in private email threads or individual heads.
When communication flows freely, it’s much harder for silos to survive.
Encourage cross-functional teamwork and relationships
One of the most effective silo breakers is to get people from different departments actually working together. This can be done by forming cross-functional project teams, committees, or “tiger teams” composed of members from various departments tackling a common initiative.
When product managers, engineers, product designers, marketers, and others sit together (virtually or physically) to solve a problem, they naturally start to understand each other’s perspectives and constraints. These cross-functional teams build personal relationships that humanize the “other” departments.
Leaders can kickstart this by creating opportunities for interdepartmental collaboration. For example, pair up a product team with sales and support to jointly plan an upcoming launch, so each group’s needs are represented.
Another idea is temporary job rotations or shadow programs, where employees spend a short stint embedded in another team to learn how they operate. Even informal social interactions help: hosting cross-team lunches or interest groups can break down the walls of unfamiliarity. The goal is to replace the mystery (or mistrust) between silos with familiarity and empathy. As teams bond, the “us vs. them” mindset fades.
Some of the most innovative companies design their org structure specifically to promote cross-functional collaboration. Apple, for example, famously organizes product development with interdisciplinary teams. Designers, engineers, and marketers work closely together from concept to launch, rather than in isolated departmental silos.
This integrated approach has been credited with helping Apple deliver well-integrated products and diverse ideas. Similarly, many organizations have adopted agile “squad” models (pioneered by Spotify) where small cross-functional squads take ownership of a project or product feature from start to finish.
Tricia Maia, the Head of Product at TED, on The Product Podcast, shared how they also operate as squads:
We operate in a squad-based model. You have your functions, but then you have your team that you're actually doing the work with. It's about structuring teams along dimensions that make sense, like platform-based squads, and ensuring that PMs and engineers have their own areas to focus on but also work together.
When you actively tear down the walls between roles and mix people up, silos have little room to take hold.
Standardize tools and processes for shared visibility
A practical step to combat silos is giving everyone a single source of truth. Often, silos form because each team develops its own processes and adopts its own favorite tools in isolation.
Marketing might track work in one project system, engineering in another; one team lives in Microsoft Teams while another only uses email. This fragmentation makes it hard to collaborate even if people want to – the systems don’t talk to each other.
To fix this, establish some common platforms and norms for cross-team work.
Here are some practical examples:
roll out an organization-wide product management tool or knowledge base
require all departments to document projects, product goals, and key updates in the same system
implement a company-wide dashboard for goals and OKRs so misalignments surface early
standardize handoff processes (e.g. product → marketing → support) to prevent gaps
With a centralized work management platform, everyone can see what other teams are working on and access the information they need. It creates accountability and transparency by default. Standardizing processes also prevents things from falling through the cracks. You’re effectively removing the physical (or digital) barriers that kept teams siloed.
Keep in mind, rolling out new tools requires change management and training. Teams need to learn how to use shared systems effectively and to trust them. But once in place, integrated tools break down a lot of walls: they enable real-time information sharing, reduce duplicate efforts, and let cross-functional groups coordinate more smoothly.
Align incentives and accountability with collaboration
People respond to how they’re measured and rewarded. If your organization only celebrates individual or department achievements, you might unintentionally be fueling silo behavior.
To break down organizational silos, review your incentive structures and performance metrics. Are you inadvertently pitting teams against each other for budget, recognition, or bonuses?
Shift the focus to shared wins. For example, implement goals (like product OKRs or other targets) that multiple teams must work on together, and evaluate them on collective success.
Encourage managers to set objectives that require cross-team input. Additionally, recognize and reward employees who exemplify cross-functional collaboration. Make it a part of performance reviews or give shout-outs for bridge-building efforts.
Some companies introduce teamwork incentives: bonuses or awards that are given to multi-team project groups or to individuals who helped other departments reach a goal. This sends a clear message that collaboration is valued, not just siloed achievement. It can also help to institute some checks and balances in decision-making.
Ensure that no single team can unilaterally make a major decision that impacts others without review. For instance, a product feature that will affect customer support load should involve input (or sign-off) from the support team.
You might set up cross-functional councils or a simple rule that significant projects must have representatives from key stakeholder teams. The idea is to embed cooperation into the DNA of how the company operates.
When goals, metrics, and rewards all reinforce working together, the silo mentality starts to dissolve. Teams will be more likely to say “How can we partner on this?” because that’s how everyone wins.
Empower leaders and train teams to work across silos
Tackle silos through education and continuous improvement. Often, silos persist because leaders don’t know how to address them or employees lack the skills to collaborate effectively.
Invest in leadership development that emphasizes cross-functional management. Teach managers to spot silo behaviors (like hoarding information or blaming other departments) and coach them on conflict resolution and inclusive planning.
When leaders are accountable for collaboration, they will cascade those expectations to their teams. Similarly, provide training for all staff on the tools and best practices of teamwork.
Here are some examples:
workshops on effective communication and conflict resolution
onboarding programs that expose new hires to multiple functions
rotations or shadowing opportunities in other departments
mentorship or buddy systems that pair employees across teams
knowledge-sharing platforms that make information accessible company-wide
By building a culture of learning and curiosity, you help break the silo mindset (“that’s not my area”) and replace it with a more holistic view. The more your people develop relationships and empathy beyond their immediate group, the more naturally they will reach across silos in daily work.
Remember, breaking silos is not a one-time project, but an ongoing effort. Leaders should continuously monitor the organization’s communication and organizational health, and be ready to adjust strategies or intervene when new silos sprout.
Commit to Breaking Down Organizational Silos
Siloed teams are a common challenge, but they are not insurmountable. When product leadership and executives proactively tear down silos, the change is often dramatic. Information flows faster, decisions get made with input from all the right people, and teams begin to trust and support each other toward unified goals.
The payoff is a more innovative, efficient organization that can adapt quickly. Not to mention a happier workforce and better service for customers.
For any product organization struggling with team silos, the important thing is to recognize the symptoms early and take deliberate steps to address them.
Silos might feel “safe” or natural to individual groups, but they ultimately hold everyone back. By breaking down organizational silos (through transparency, collaboration, and aligned purpose) you enable your whole company to work as one cohesive team. Your teams will communicate better, your products will get to market smoother, and your organization will be far better equipped to tackle whatever challenges come your way together.
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(1) https://www.proofhub.com/articles/workplace-collaboration-statistics
(2) https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/technology%20media%20and%20telecommunications/high%20tech/our%20insights/the%20social%20economy/mgi_the_social_economy_full_report.pdf
(3) https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/gx/en/insights/2016/dealing-market-disruption/dealing-with-market-disruption.pdf
(4) https://okrinstitute.org/7-warning-signs-your-teams-are-operating-in-dangerous-silos/#:~:text=evaluated%20on%20ticket%20resolution%20times,and%20customer%20satisfaction
(5) https://ir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/14592/The%20impact%20of%20silo%20mentality%20on%20team%20identity.%20An%20organisational%20case%20study.pdf
(6) https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/technology%20media%20and%20telecommunications/high%20tech/our%20insights/the%20social%20economy/mgi_the_social_economy_full_report.pdf
Updated: October 22, 2025
