The Hidden Cost of Siloed Teams

Silos are one of the quietest yet most destructive forces inside an organisation.

They rarely appear overnight — instead, they creep in slowly. A department becomes protective of its information. A leadership team becomes fragmented. Communication becomes selective. Eventually, each team starts operating like its own business within the business.

And at that point, performance suffers.

The three hidden costs of siloed teams

1. Slow decision-making

When departments aren’t talking, problems bounce around like a pinball. No one has the full picture, so decisions take longer and are often made with incomplete information.

2. Distrust between teams

Silence creates stories — and not positive ones. Departments begin making assumptions about one another:

“They don’t care.”

“They don’t understand us.”

“They’re blocking us.”

This is where infighting begins.

3. Duplication of effort

When teams don’t communicate, they unintentionally work on overlapping tasks — wasting time, money and energy.

The Working Together system eliminates silos by design. It insists on:

•⁠⁠Total transparency

•⁠⁠One shared plan

•⁠⁠Regular Business Plan Reviews

•⁠⁠Facts and Data over emotion

•⁠⁠Leadership modelling the behaviours they expect

When everyone sees the same information, alignment becomes inevitable.

When people from different teams listen to one another, trust grows.

When leaders include everyone in the process, the entire organisation moves as one.

I’ve seen businesses go from fragmented and defensive to collaborative and high-performing within weeks — not because we added new tools, but because we created a culture where communication is expected, not optional.

Silos are a choice.

Working Together is a better one.