ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Explore the transformative journey that is leadership. In each episode, we will dive deep into strategies, stories, insights, and the core values that shape and inspire effective Christian leaders who make an impact - all around the globe. Get ready to unlock your leadership potential.
When leaders are equipped, kingdom impact multiplies. Equipping leaders and spreading the Gospel. Let’s change history together!
This podcast is brought to you by the International Leadership Institute.
ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Ep. 40 | Breaking Down Silos for Effective Leadership and Collaboration
In this episode, we tackle one of the biggest challenges leaders face - breaking down organizational silos. These invisible barriers can stifle collaboration, limit innovation, and prevent teams from reaching their full potential. But what if dismantling these silos could transform your organization into a thriving, unified community?
Daniel and Norival explore the real impact of silos on leadership, resource management, and team morale, drawing on practical examples and proven strategies to overcome them. Learn how to foster cross-team collaboration, create a shared vision, and shift from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance and resourcefulness.
Join us as we discuss how breaking down silos isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about building stronger teams, cultivating trust, and driving your organization toward its mission with clarity and purpose.
When you begin ILI training, you will discover how the Eight Core Values will lead to the Seven Outcomes in your life and the lives of those you lead. Join a community of leaders who are ready to change history and make an impact in this world. Discover more at ILITeam.org/connect.
Welcome to the History Makers Leadership Podcast, where we explore the transformative journey that is leadership. Each episode, we will dive deep into strategies, stories, insights and the core values that shape and inspire effective Christian leaders who make an impact all around the globe. This podcast is brought to you by the International Leadership Institute. Now get ready to unlock your leadership potential and let's change history together.
Speaker 2:Well, hello and welcome to the HistoryMakers Leadership Podcast. My name is Daniel. I'm incredibly excited to be joined again with Norval Trindagi. Norval, it's great to have you back, man.
Speaker 3:It's great to be back in the podcast. We missed recording these episodes. These are great conversations, great opportunities for us to look into some issues in leadership, and it's amazing how much we grow by just having these conversations.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I'm telling you there is so much good in just having leadership conversations with other believers that are trying to navigate life and leadership and I really appreciate you sitting down and kind of navigating some of these things. And I'm excited for today's topic of silos because I know that's something you know every organization deals with to different degrees and it's something even we are trying to navigate and look at for ourselves saying how do we operate a little bit in silos in our own practice?
Speaker 3:Absolutely and precisely. The value of these conversations is that we get to process this. So I think we need a disclaimer right off the bat that we're not too expert in organizational leadership or silos. We might be expert in silos because we've seen it happen to us for experience. But we are fellow journeymen in this journey of trying to lead with excellence and leading teams. We call ourselves leaders of leaders. At ILI, we equip leaders of leaders.
Speaker 2:Well, and to give everybody a little bit of a context, you know, norval, you are ILI's vice president of training and that means really, ultimately, we're helping to navigate and lead 100 national teams around the world and in those groups of people and navigating the complexities of different languages and cultures and all those kinds of things. But even within our internal team, right, there are teams within the international office that exist for operational purposes and those kinds of things, and, and there's this moment where, whether that's the international groups or the, the local operational groups, these, these kinds of again we call them silos, can begin to form, begin to form. But what have you, if we've been preparing for this, what have you seen as kind of some helpful definitions or frameworks for helping us understand what? What is a silo Like? What is that thing Right?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, this is something that that organizational leadership experts have been talking about for 20, 30 years or something, but but honestly, as a leader, you experience this as your leadership grows.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:As your organizational grows, because I read this definition and I'm going to actually read it. It comes from a publication called the Business Dictionary. It was quoted by Forbes saying it's a mindset present when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company or organization. This type of mentality will reduce efficiency in the overall operation, reduce morale and may contribute to the demise of an otherwise productive company culture. So it has the potential of being disastrous.
Speaker 2:It sounds pretty negative it doesn't sound like something we want sounds ominous, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:it does, and and I, I suppose you know I don't know the history of the term, but we all know silos in agriculture and in grain storage. Right, you keep your rice in one silo, you keep your beans in another one, and if you want to make rice and beans you have to pull from both of them together. But while they are in their silos they will never be rice and beans. I guess. To me that's kind of how I unpacked being from a culture that eats rice and beans just about every day. That's how I unpacked this idea that different departments in an organization can work, can be so focused in what they've got to do, and, for various reasons, that then silos happen where everybody's doing their thing but the thing of the organization isn't being done or the vision of the organization isn't being fulfilled.
Speaker 2:I guess so I wonder then, as I think through this idea of silos, I wonder how much of that term is really more of a, to put it in like medical terms, like a series of symptoms rather than the underlying root cause, right? So I'm curious, if silos are this kind of isolation of information or resources into disparate groups within an organization, right? So let's use a church, for example. Maybe the church has a ministry for, you know, homeless. Well, all of the resources for that are isolated from the resources for the youth ministry, which is isolated from the right, so on and so forth. So if it's information and resources that are kind of being isolated and segmented or segregated from one another, that's a symptom of something else. So what kind of gets us to that point? Right, like I don't think we naturally end up there per se, but what are some of the things that you see that can lead us?
Speaker 3:to that point. Well, actually it's interesting, daniel, because when we were having our consultation with an organization called the Best Christian Workplaces and we were talking about this very subject, I think I've heard him say that the gravity pull is towards silos. Oh, okay, so we have to kind of fight against it to create a culture that does not especially, I believe, especially as an organization grows. So in a way, it's a force that we fight against, that tendency to focus, which you know what it starts as a good thing. You're focused on your job. So I lead the training department at ILI, that's right, I focus on training. So I lead the training department at ILI, that's right, I focus on training. I don't, I'm not interested I'm speaking negatively I'm not interested in what admin and office manager, management, that kind of stuff is doing. I may not be interested in what the advancement, that's, the fundraising part, is doing. So I'm so focused, I've got a job to do. I've got leaders to train, I've got goals.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And so if we're not careful, that can happen in our lives. Now, in companies, one of the things I've read is that a lot of silos stem from competition. Managers feel we talk about a scarcity mentality. There's only so much resources to go around, so I hoard what I have in my department. I don't share information, god forbid. I help that other department and they will then right start pulling resources away from mine.
Speaker 2:I guess that's so I I get the mental image of you know, nehemiah, building the wall right, and everybody built the section of the wall that was right outside of their home. And you know, here's the thing, it doesn't matter how well my section of the wall is built, if the section just down the way isn't built well, then it's still going to be a detriment to me, right? And so I wonder, you know, if some of the to your point earlier, if some of that natural kind of gravity towards siloing is really also a symptom of growth right, as we grow, I increasingly need to do the thing that I'm doing and not all the other things that I'm doing right, and so I need to continue to hyper-focus on this one element because it's growing right. This one thing that I used to be able to do three things is now I can only do this one thing.
Speaker 2:You know, I think of a relatively small church, right, with 30 or 40 people. Well, that one pastor could probably lead it sufficiently. But once you hit 120 or 150 or 200, well, maybe that one pastor can't do that anymore. They can't maintain enough relationships. And so somebody else comes in and maybe helps with youth or helps with seniors or something else. Right and you begin to build out that Well, as you grow, you begin to almost conversely focus your energy and efforts. You know, almost conversely focus your energy and efforts, and that can lead us to beginning to again focus those, focus our attention in time. And so maybe that's a, maybe that kind of explanation of that natural gravity toward siloing.
Speaker 3:Well, and also, you know, as you divide the tasks, it's like the wall that you've described. You've divided the wall. But what if now, Daniel, you build your part of the wall so well, it's beautiful and sturdy. I look at it and say, wait a minute, he's got all of these bricks, so there's only so many bricks. I won't be able to get enough bricks. So I resent you for doing that.
Speaker 3:Now, that is a symptom. What happens next is that in the next thing that we have to do together, I am protective. I want to make sure you don't Now, this is facetious but I make sure you don't get enough bricks. So I kind of hoard the bricks, all the bricks, on this one side of the of the of the wall, so that, so that I know that you're, you're going to pull more, and that's when that competition starts uh, starts come happening, and that's when we're making jokes about bricks. But when that competition happens, I hoard information. Yeah, and I don't share it with you. Now, all of a sudden, you don't have all the pieces of information that you need to make wise decisions.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think you're right to identify that that heart position is that belief in a scarcity. Right, it's that heart position that says, god, your provision won't be sufficient. Therefore, I must be responsible for, I must bear a greater sense of responsibility, or some greater sense of, I guess, control over maybe that's the more clear term. I feel this need to control that circumstance a bit more, or those resources a bit more, or that information a bit more, because oftentimes it's the information and the resources that are tied together. Right, it's well, I know where to get the bricks, or I know how to get a hold of that key relationship or that key individual who actually has the asset, the resources, the knowledge, and so we begin to again kind of squabble over those things. Not realizing a weakness in any part of this wall is going to be a weakness that we all endure.
Speaker 3:What do they say? A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, right? But here's another aspect of it, daniel, that I want to throw to you to kind of reflect upon, because on the building of the wall and it's cool that we're using Nehemiah in the building of the wall because he's such a great mobilizer and such a great leader and vision caster and I guess one of the reasons where maybe you and I wouldn't compete for resources or feel like we were competing for resources is because there was a leader at the top who was casting vision and remember he said our God will fight for us. He has, he is the one who've ordained this, and a lot of times on silos, poor leadership, poor leadership or will cause that insecurity, that's right.
Speaker 2:I think about it this way. I think sometimes that poor leadership can lead to decentralized planning. So it's, I'm starting to plan my wall and I'm using again to use this of bricks. I'm turning the bricks this direction, right. And maybe, you know, instead of placing my bricks, you know, kind of long way on top of long way, maybe I do it short way on top of short way because, well, maybe I think that's more aesthetically pleasing, or I have some other reason that I think it's better. Right, maybe it's more structurally rigid, but you come along and you go hey, man, we don't have enough bricks for you to do it that way, I need you to do it this way, right?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a shared vision, a shared understanding of the resources at play. And, to put it in some practical terms, maybe that's hey, I have money to purchase food. I can use that for the food bank at my church or the student ministry at my church. Which group gets that resource? Well, it might be that they both get it One. You know, whatever's used by the one group gets passed down. Or whatever gets used, you know doesn't get used by the one group gets passed over. But both groups need to be a part of that conversation, rather than doing that in a decentralized way. For the vision to be shared that communication and planning has to be done in a communal way, yes, and again I keep coming back to an important lesson.
Speaker 3:I call it the most important leadership lesson that I learned during the pandemic because it's something I heard during the pandemic. Well, it does have to do with the pandemic. It was by Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Church. He says in a moment of crisis and I would even expand that in general, he says moment of crises and I would even expand that in general it says what people need from leadership more than anything is clarity.
Speaker 3:And for a long time we got a white board at the training department and I think it was Sandra Hiltz that works for us there that wrote clarity is kindness. There that wrote clarity is kindness, um, and it is. And so that clarity about. Again to go back to the bricks funny example um, that clarifies how the bricks are going to be laid, because of the leader has studied and measured and took inventory of all the stones and bricks that we have to build the wall of Jerusalem and you couldn't build them this way, but you can build them this way. That clarity hey, this is what we're going to do, this is how we're going to do this, and then that would clarify a lot of things for the lower levels of leadership.
Speaker 2:So, as I'm listening, if I'm in this third chair and they're listening in on this, I'm thinking, okay, if I'm experiencing growth, I might have a tendency towards silos. Silos because as the expansiveness of our vision and mission grows, my tendency is to grow more specific in task right. Or if I'm looking at our team and we're planning and we're thinking through things in a segregated or separated fashion, I'm feeling that what do you think is the? You know, as we talk through these resources, do you think that silos are a natural consequence of changing in resources? I mean, I look at the economy right now and I think to myself okay, not super strong economic circumstances globally, right, there's certainly some uncertainty, a couple of pretty significant regional wars going on, some global uncertainty taking place that could lead to a position where there are resource cuts that have to take place. Is that a context where silos would naturally begin to form?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a good question that I don't think I have an answer for it. Okay, but going back to what you said in the beginning, I think it has more to do with the perception of scarcity than an actual scarcity. That's a really good point, I guess. If we're really, sometimes I have this post-apocalyptic imagination scenario where society collapse, right, and and all of a sudden I no longer can afford the luxury of working for an organization that travels around the world and trains leaders, and I have and, and and I I played this scenario in my mind that I had to turn the back of my house, you know, cut down the forest and start growing something. That is real scarcity right there, and in moments like that you move into a survival mode.
Speaker 3:But what we're talking here is about leadership in growing organizations. Of course we're on the we're talking here is about leadership in growing organizations. That's right. Of course we're a nonprofit, and nonprofits deal with limited resources are limited and a scarcity mentality, where scarcity mentality generates that sense of competition, whereas we're all in this together, the resources are not enough. Right, let's talk about it, let's discuss it. Which brings me to another issue in silos, which is silos happen because of poor communication. Yeah, so resources might be limited, but I wonder if a good horizontal communication between departments which is lack of horizontal communication between departments is one of the causes of silos. If that communication is good, if we're all collaborating truly, the true scarcity can be overcome.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think you make an incredible point there, because it's actually in the context of genuine scarcity that sometimes the most creative solutions are developed. Genuine scarcity that sometimes the most creative solutions are developed right. That's sometimes when those you know those most again, scarcity is a birthing place for innovation, right, and new ideas and contexts just take place. And so I think you're right. I think it's the heart position of am I operating from a resource, poor context, or am I operating from a scarcity mindset? And I think, as leaders, we carry a responsibility to communicate in such a way that communicates clearly which context we want to live in. And then it's the co-accountability of all the people in that horizontal communication pipeline to say hey guys, no, no, no, like that's a scarcity mindset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our resources are small, okay, they're limited, but you know what the reality is. They're limited everywhere. Everyone's resources are limited in some way, shape or form, but that doesn't mean that they're leading and living from a position of scarcity that requires them to begin hoarding for themselves, right, or their own pet projects or initiatives. Rather, it's again my wall can be 10 bricks deep, but if your wall is only one layer deep and that's not enough, then that's not enough. We're all in danger. We're all in danger, and so it's recognizing the collaborative nature of that, and I think you're right. I think a lot of that comes down to clear communication from the leader, but I think it's incumbent upon the leader and all of the members to communicate with each other those same messages, right To repeat and replay hey, no, no, no. This is how we operate, this is what we're doing. Remember, this is our goal right now, and sharing and setting some of those things together. What are some of the other contexts where you think your C siloing could be that symptom of some?
Speaker 3:other issue. Well, some of the people that study this a lot more than we do talk about the way and I think we've seen this with us at ILI, at our organization the way the organization or I guess the org chart Okay, the way the organization or I guess the org chart OK, the, the way the organizational structure is designed, can contribute to this, and so that's one thing. Another another thing that we face is that that some articles point out is just geographical distance OK, one department is in New York, the other department is in San Francisco.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well it's natural, they have to be very intentional at communicating. At ILI we span the entire globe. That's right. Just to give our listeners an idea, we are led by a global executive team that encompasses 12 global regions.
Speaker 3:There is one time of the day that we can meet with significant sacrifice to the leaders, to our leaders who are in the Western United States, who have to get up at six in the morning. For us here it's at nine in the morning, and for our leaders in Asia they have to wait to go to sleep after 11, because it's from 10 to 11 in the night, and so that in and of itself requires a lot of intentional effort. Otherwise it will encourage silos, and one of the silos that we are trying to break in our organization is to encourage this horizontal communication between our international global leaders to avoid one of the things that happened with silos, this horizontal communication between our international global leaders. To avoid, um, one of the things that happened with silos, which is the, the duplication of efforts, where two teams are doing the same thing, maybe in different ways, whereas if they had collaborated they would find a way to, uh to do it better.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And one, one, rather, you know uh kind of public example of this for a company, google. Right, google has two different assets. One is called Google Assistant and the other is called Gemini, and there are two different ways that they're going about having a, you know, a virtual personal assistant for their customers. Well, those two teams, at least at this moment in history, don't appear to be doing a lot of working together because they're developing them on two parallel paths rather than on a unified path working together. And I think I offer that only as an example of ways that, as we begin to look, we'll see those silos.
Speaker 2:And I think to your point, sometimes that is an org chart thing, sometimes that's an accountability piece.
Speaker 2:Where and how does accountability work in the structure of the organization such that there is accountability for collaboration and cross-communication? But I think also there can be perceived or experienced siloing because of the introduction of a new product and the end of an old product. Right, the introduction of a new product and the end of an old product, right, you know, when they start making a new car and so now everybody's working on that one, but well, eventually that car is going to die off and nobody's going to make that model anymore and somebody has to be working on it while it goes away. And that doesn't necessarily mean they're out of a job, it just means they maybe are moving to a new role or new position and so well. So if these are some of the context for silos Norval and we've hit on it in some general ways in your reading what were some of the ways you saw that, as a leader, I can avoid those and what are some of the ways that I can correct them?
Speaker 3:I read something very interesting that works well for bigger organizations, but I think it works for even an organization as ours, with, you know, 20, some employees and and um a few hundred volunteers worldwide that are leading. We have thousands of volunteers, but we have probably a couple hundred that are that are leading our teams um around the world. They call world, they call it finding connectors.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Finding in every organization. There are these people that are naturally connected to more than one of the groups that are siloing, and so a good manager, a good leader, will tap into these people and, I don't know, maybe appoint them, you know, give them a special task to start working in this consensus. That communication, that this horizontal communication, lateral communication between departments is a thing that can help develop or change the scenario where there's more collaboration, less isolation, which then increases productivity, and all of that.
Speaker 2:I love the thought of identifying the people that God has gifted as connectors, as relators, and using that element of the body of Christ to their strength to build bridges, to build connection. Right, I think of key leaders. You know, tony is one where he's a connector. That's what he does, right. I think of another on our board he's just a does, right. I think of another on our board he's just a connector.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a leader we should be looking to say okay, who are the peacemakers on our team? Right, I've got a dear friend, justin. He's an incredible peacemaker because he he yearns for peace and he's good at making, establishing and developing peace between people. And and as I reflect on that, I think you're right it's finding those people within the, within the organization that God has placed on our team, and mobilizing them with those special gifts and tasks. Hey, will you help to build a bridge between these people? Right, if that means maybe you go to lunch with them, or maybe you sit down and have a cup of tea with them or whatever. But help to build some of these bridges is. I think that's a beautiful way and a Christlike way of helping to reconcile the siloing.
Speaker 3:that can happen in any organization. And another thing that I read it was interesting because I had a little bit of an Eureka moment on this. I don't know about you, but I'm one of those people that are half believer, half skeptical about team building exercises that we do when we go to organizational retreats and places like that. You know you all get together and you pull the rope and you play. You know you play tug of war or you play some sort of game that kind of occurs. You go on a hike together to build team and then there are the extreme ones that you know climb up on poles and things.
Speaker 3:But here's the thing One way to combat silos, to correct silos or to avoid them, is to develop relationships. And so those exercises though a lot of times they don't seem to produce any immediate result, but they produce a camaraderie that is going to go from, you know, this outdoors place to the boardroom, to the workstation, to the office, to the floor plant, whatever your business is, or to the church, to the Sunday school, when I was a youth pastor, I used to tell my small group leaders or my Sunday school class teachers right, I would tell them, your goal is to build an inside joke.
Speaker 2:Right, is to build some kind of a shared memory or experience that, when you refer back to it, everyone remembers, everyone feels united around that thing. And I think your point is valid. One of the ways that we can naturally go about that is the relational way that Christ gave us of helping to walk in relationship with someone and say, hey, we have all of these shared experiences. Let's look at these things and out of that shared experience and relationship, now let's talk about this sense of isolation that we're feeling, whether that's intentional or unintentional, whether that's over information or resources, whatever it is that's causing that sense of siloing, that sense of division. Let's come together so that you know it's not a silo of rice and beans, but it's rice and beans, right?
Speaker 3:together. Daniel, we talked about we heard a a team of leaders ILI leaders in a country where severe restriction to the gospel exists by basically going to visit them around Christmas for several years and just being there with them. Years and just being there with them, and then, after many years, those visits turned into trust, which turned into a deepened relationship, which turned into collaboration, and the result was that recently they were able to do a very successful training event for leaders, you know, in a place where not only there's a lot of hardship and difficulty, but they had not been able to do anything because that group was isolated, siloed in their geography and in their struggles. So the power I think we cannot underestimate the power of just friendships into fostering that collaboration that does away with silos.
Speaker 2:And I think how sweet that Christ would give us those relationships and those opportunities to establish that and then to overcome some of those obstacles that come. Any other kind of closing thoughts for us as we wrap up this particular topic and looking at silos and how to overcome them and anything like that?
Speaker 3:No new thought. It just occurred to me that, when asked what was the greatest commandment, jesus said love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. That's right and, like a lot of stuff that we talk about, it comes down to love your neighbor as yourself. Or, as Jesus said, love your brother, love each other as I have loved you, and it is about leading with love. It's sometimes interesting and awkward to talk about love in the context of a corporate leadership, but hey, we serve a God who loved us and gave himself for us. We are called to be loving in all of our relationships. Loving in all of our relationships, and I think, if love covers a multitude of sins, maybe it's the perfect healing for the sin of siloing.
Speaker 2:There you go. There you go. Well, norval, I love that, and look if you're a leader out there and you're reflecting on these things and maybe your heart was just pricked a little. I want to encourage you. The International Leadership Institute, we're here to help navigate those kinds of things. We want to connect you to resources to help you grow in your intimacy with God, understand servant leadership, learn about things like the power of vision and how to clearly or compellingly communicate the vision that God has given you so that your teams can experience the success that God desires for you as you accomplish the vision and mission he's given you. I want to point you to the iliteamorg website. There you're going to be able to find different resources and assets that can help you navigate those things, and you'll discover the eight core values of leaders who are genuinely shaping the course of history. So thank you so much for being part of this. Norval. Thank you for helping us to see silos and to bring it back to that core message love God and love others.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's been a joy to talk about this. The great thing about those who are watching or listening to us and the resource that you've just pointed out, is that we are in multiple languages.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:And in pretty much every continent in the world. We're not in Antarctica, so if you live in the South Pole, we probably will challenge you to start your own team, but you don't have one there. But we do have activities and training going on all over the world and we would love to equip and partner with folks that are participating with us in this conversation. Amen, thanks for joining.