S5E2 – How to develop a common vision and break out of organisational silos

Have you ever wondered what happens when the pressure to innovate or succeed collides with organizational silos? Join us as we unravel the intriguing dynamics of invention, high performance and collaboration in this episode of Small Talk with RainKraft. I’m Subha Chandrasekaran, a career growth coach. Can breaking down silos lead to breakthroughs? Discover the keys to fostering collaboration, aligning priorities, and unleashing the true potential of your organization in this episode!

Discussion Topics: How to develop a common vision and break out of organisational silos

• Everyone’s under pressure to invent something
• What do silos at a workplace look like??
• How to develop a common vision amongst all?
• What creates these silos?
• Look at the bigger picture
• How do leaders make decisions
• Being in a hurry to be busy
• The kind of culture you have creates the kind of work style you enjoy

Transcript: How to develop a common vision and break out of organisational silos

Subha Chandrasekaran: So what are you working on lately, Hasita? 

Everyone’s under pressure to invent something 

Hasita Krishna: What am I not working on, Subha? But yeah, just now, I think I had a very interesting call with an AI-ML client that we were working with. We’ve been with them for quite some time and this has been an interesting year for their industry. Suddenly Chat GPT came on board, capturing everyone’s imagination.

And I think everyone is feeling the pressure of having to invent something and not always knowing what is the right thing to invent. And that problem is playing out in some very interesting ways, I must say, because we have now decided, or rather somebody has decided at some point in the system that there exists a proof of concept.

And the funny thing is, We don’t know the proof of what concept, right? The finance team is already making projections and forecasts. The sales team is already selling something. I’m presuming because the marketing team is being asked to sell a product that doesn’t exist.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Wow. And it’s funny that you brought up the context of an AI ML client because I just finished a call with another prospective client, again in a high-tech space, and the story I heard is very similar: I need to create new stuff and I’ve got my teams working in silos. 

Hasita Krishna: Oh, that’s interesting that the word silos got used because here, we are a very geographically diverse team. In India itself, we are spread across three locations. And Every time I feel like we’ve made some progress, And then a week later, we hear feedback.

This is too high level. It’s not working for us. And the problem is that in the one week since we last spoke, a lot has changed, and we have no visibility into this.

Subha Chandrasekaran: I think this problem is very real across organisations and more and more. I have leaders, and founders reaching out saying, how do I break these silos? I’ve got, I’ve hired the best. I’ve got really good folks leading various teams, but they all are on this journey of their own, on a trip of their own. It’s not a question of lack of intent or lack of putting in the effort, but one, whose onus is it to bring it all together?

Hasita Krishna: In fact, I would like to bring it back to a slightly more complex question, which is how do you spot the silo, right? To break it, I need to know this is what it looks like, right? So typically in your experience, what does a silo even look like in an organisation?

What does a silo look like in an organisation?

Subha Chandrasekaran: Like your case of POC is a perfect example to use because here. Somebody heard the client say, so you have an idea. Can we see what it looks like? And I’m sure that was how simply they put it.

Somebody in the room jumped and said yeah, we’ll show you a POC. We’ll show you a proof of concept, which is something in his or her mind. The client is still saying, show me something and they’ve come back and they’ve used this big word now. They’ve thrown it in the meeting saying, we need to have a POC in three days. Now, why did the three days come? Because this person wants to close the deal.

Hasita Krishna: Case of conflicting priorities, right? Like deal closure, which is a big key metric for the sales team versus the product team is now sitting and saying, I don’t even have a vision in my head for what I’m building, like a POC for what, right?

Subha Chandrasekaran: I don’t know enough. I don’t know what will please this client of yours.

Hasita Krishna: And honestly, what have you pitched to the client in the first place? What unicorn dream have you promised?

Subha Chandrasekaran: So that the person who was shouted out, I’ll give you a POC. If they could just take a minute to say, What do I want to show the client? What are they looking for at this stage? POC is just a name, but maybe they just want to know or get comfort in the fact that we know what we are doing. Or we’ve done something like this before, or we can come up with something new and different because they know that we do stuff. I’m just taking an agency example we do great stuff when it comes to social, but can these guys also write well? So they wanna see some variety of the work that you can do, but somebody has now shouted POC.

Hasita Krishna: And it’s quite akin to digging your own grave because the idea behind the POC is very different from a pitch deck because when you’ve said something like that, you essentially increased the expectation. I’m giving you a close to finish product in three days.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And so when they come back, they meet with all sorts of resistance and The leader or the founder is hearing each silo shout out why it can’t be done or what they need for it to get done. Like I need three more people. I need X dollars. And now they come and they say, Hey, I’ve got too many silos. 

Hasita Krishna: And interestingly, there in itself, you begin asking the wrong question, right? The immediate response to that in most boardrooms, I’m sure, including the ones that we’ve been part of. And if I ran it, I’m sure it would be the same thing as well. We start asking, okay, what do you need to make this happen in three days? Which is probably the wrong question.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Because nobody has said, Hey, what do we want to do for this client at this stage, right? What does that all look like? I think that the important question is that it can look like many things.

So there are some that are readily available, some that we can take three days and make, and some which are, we need to buy more time. 

Hasita Krishna: And some which, and correct me if I’m wrong, where the cost of losing that one lead is probably worth. The gain you have in terms of the clarity of asking that question. For this client, you set a POC, you show them a two-minute video. It may not work, but at least you know what you can and cannot deliver. And just the value of having had that conversation and realising it’s not working.

Subha Chandrasekaran: No, in my banking days and since I was in operations, this whole silo bit really used to play out so much. And I, as ops folks our only Dream and desire was that the sales guy didn’t promise something that doesn’t exist today that we can’t deliver and that very standard joke of, promising an ATM and then putting a guy behind it dispenses cash, the number of manuals Processes and found the number of manual processes we’ve set up just because somebody in their silo thought it’s a good idea to say yes to something or to promise something to not even say, let me check and come back.

Hasita Krishna: So my key takeaway from this segment is that if we knew each other in a past life, we would have hated each other.

I get that. But really as an organisation, I think the larger you become and everybody wants, that’s the whole point, right? You want to grow. If you’re attuned to that, seeing sales is always going to promise the moon and stars. Finance is always going to count the pennies.

Ops is always going to have to worry about delivery. How do you begin to develop a common vision around what can be done? And preferably do it as quickly as possible.

How to develop a common vision amongst all?

Subha Chandrasekaran:  I think some organisations try to do that by creating those roles. There’s that one person who’s that project manager, aggregator, who’s bringing people into the room, trying to manage them.

And. Then there are others who say, okay, if we put these people in a room, they’ll find the best way. And that’s what I think most organisations tend to do. Okay, let’s have this kind of cross functional meeting. And where each one is still looking out for their own agenda, but Somebody has to take ownership, take accountability and say, listen, maybe it’s most in most cases, the person who has promised something to the client, it is on you, because you also have to face the client three days later, to say, hey, this is a big picture, the plaque, the client just wants comfort that we’re good at.

All the clients have seen something already, which is really good. Hence we do actually need to give a POC because we are competing with XYZ. They have a product ready, but I’m trying to make inputs here. And so I do need to showcase that not just that we have capabilities and can rise to the challenge. 

Hasita Krishna: Actually, something which in a high-tech context, I think it’s not optional, right? Like the pace at which things are happening today, you better figure it out as quickly as possible. But it’s interesting to just be able to ask that question. I think in most contexts, probably that hurry doesn’t exist. hurry is a manufactured construct of the system.

What creates these silos?

Subha Chandrasekaran: We can think about what creates these silos. One is the general nature of the organisation. Like what you said, hurry, it’s interesting that if you’re always in a state of rush, then people always have, or they feel the pressure to promise something to say three days instead of can we have five and then come back and try to reverse engineer the Yeah. And the silos get stronger because Everyone’s getting defensive.

Hasita Krishna: Or honestly, if hurry is what you want, then you communicate that. It’s okay to be in that space, in that market, in that industry, at that point in time, but just accept that it comes at the cost of something else. 

Subha Chandrasekaran: The silos are very real and they can really Take away from a lot of good work that can happen.

Hasita Krishna: And it’s quite an interesting complexity because of the client. In the case I’m working with, the head of marketing is actually a very restrained individual. And I respect that a lot because in that ecosystem to say, no, I need time to think is quiet, I can only imagine how much anxiety that must be causing him, but. Also, that person exists who’s going against the grain and saying, at this point, literally what we are selling is a Canva creative guy, please chill, right?

Look at the bigger picture

Subha Chandrasekaran: No, I think there’s another firm that I work with and have worked with in the past. And, if you look at, Okay, what’s the bigger picture?

You’re really trying to, as a group, create really strong learning and development programs, and training interventions, and reach a space with a client where if they do a pilot of 20 people, then they want to repeat that for the thousand people that they have, right? So you, if you could see that bigger picture.

And then take it back to the various teams, it would serve them so much better because otherwise, each silo is just bent upon achieving one thing.

Hasita Krishna: Which are all contributing, but not to the thing that you want them to contribute to it? And there’s a great disadvantage to that, right? Because every team feels like they’ve done so much. But the end result is just not visible.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Like I’ve seen in this case the finance guy in the company, he has already burned some bridges with procurement and others in the bigger organisation without the vision that, Hey, this was just batch one and we could do a hundred batches if I keep that in mind, let me tolerate these early inconveniences and build a relationship.

Hasita Krishna: Because again, you’ve not seen that or at least I think also sometimes nobody has shown you that. And I think as leaders and founders, some of the things that we talk about, which is, do you have a vision? Do you think these things seem so abstract, this is what we are asking for.

Subha Chandrasekaran: It’s just one statement to unify him. What’s our end goal here? So if someone could say, hey, our end goal is we deliver a really good program that they want to replicate. And for us, that makes sense because the program is done and ready. So the incremental effort is also lower, right? So the project management team knows that. And so they work well with the external team of facilitators and content creators and marketing folks and everybody is aligned on that.

Hasita Krishna: And I think in the leader’s position in cases where this has worked and everyone has had that unified vision somewhat rare, but exists. The leaders themselves are very cognizant of the fact that this particular vision is coming at the cost of four others, and they’re willing to make that trade. So what do you have to say to someone who, is in a leadership capacity and needs to bring that unification into the picture, right?

Whether it’s to build a product, whether it’s to take a chance on X versus Y, or whether it’s to invest upfront a certain amount of capital in exchange for something. How do you go about making these decisions?

How do leaders make decisions?

Subha Chandrasekaran: I think there are two parts to it. One, which we’ve been talking about. If you’re the person in the room who can give the group the big picture, then please. Please open your mouth and I think that’s very important that you don’t have to be the CEO, the leader, or the founder, but it’s maybe something that you’ve brought to the table and it’s a project you’re running and the outcome matters to you call out that vision and ask, are you clear on why we’re doing it this way?

Are you clear on your role in this? Do you have any questions to ask? Do you know why I’m asking procurement to build this at 20% because there is the hope of X, Y, Z, whatever that may be, I think that if you have the opportunity to be that unifying force then please embrace that role, I was let me just say, overhearing a conversation today and it was really about.

Trying to give a sales team an incentive. For let’s say the last quarter of the year, and we had someone in, and so it’s already been decided that you’re going to give a certain incentive. And then there was, finance saying, Oh, it’ll take me two days to issue that PO and raise this work order, etc.

There was somebody in marketing saying, but, if we run this scheme, this will happen, that will happen, et cetera, et cetera. And there was somebody in HR saying, how do we make sure A is included and B is not and C is this?

And finally, one voice had to say, listen, if we’re going to give a sales incentive, one, once we promised it, It has to go out ASAP because otherwise There’s no point in promising something and then taking two weeks to iron out the details where everybody’s lost any into momentum joy that they had. Second, keep it simple. Don’t complicate it so much that everybody has to read the fine print to qualify. And thirdly, which I thought was very interesting is that. Make sure that people can win it.

Hasita Krishna: Running the program is not the end goal, right? It’s inspiring people.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Correct. So it’s making sure that they feel happy to put in a few extra hours and reach slightly elevated targets and benefit themselves and the business and feel good about it. And that’s the end goal. So the goal is not to say I ran an incentive and only 20% of them were good enough and then I saved 80% of everybody of the budget.

Hasita Krishna: See, but there’s a very real possibility to look at it that way. It depends on which department you’re from.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Cause you saved 80% of the budget and four people quit and now you’re sitting and hiring. 

Hasita Krishna: But that’s a different problem. I saved 80%.

Subha Chandrasekaran: So I think one is that unifying voice. If it’s your voice, then please use it. The second aspect.

And so once you have that vision, outcome, everything articulated, it’s then how do you empower people to take that and run? How are you giving them the time and space? How are you letting them voice even a dissenting view? That, hey, this can’t be done in three days. By now, the vision that you’ve stated is not that we have to have a POC in three days.

We need to go back to the client with something that will reassure them that, yeah, take us to the next round of decision-making.

Hasita Krishna: Absolutely. And that’s a much simpler problem to solve.

Subha Chandrasekaran: So somebody may say, Hey, we already did this for X, Y, Z. I can put together a video. I can put together a demo.

Hasita Krishna: And then everyone can just forget about the POC. 

Subha Chandrasekaran: So I think empowering them is another crucial piece like and keep checking with, do you know what you guys need to do?

Do you know what you guys need to contribute to this bigger picture? And the third piece which we’ve been talking about is like that organisation. What is driving the organisation, right? What kind of people are we?

Hasita Krishna: It’s quite interesting because as an organism, it’s performing in a certain way. It’s not 10 people doing the same thing. It’s somehow that one amoeba, which is behaving in very similar patterns here. In fact, in this example, I can see that There is a lot to be perfect, perhaps, and not a lot to get things done, right?

And because of that, there’s a certain inherent value that’s been attached to thinking. You might be articulating it as, Hey, guys, we need to move quickly. But no one’s moving quickly because that’s not the organism.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Because anywhere when you want perfection, you need time. Because you need to iterate multiple times and you need to feel that you’ve reached the end state that you want. And that can’t happen in three days. There are some organisations where you feel like they are. 

Being in a hurry to be busy

Hasita Krishna: Being in a hurry to be busy, I think is also something we value a lot. 

Subha Chandrasekaran: I could have promised you three days. I promised you two and a half. It actually happened to me two days ago. Somebody came with a requirement and I need to work on it for them. And then I assumed that they needed it very quickly. Okay. Because of the nature of what I was working on, I assumed that they needed that very quickly and I spent all of yesterday putting aside some other things I worked on all of yesterday.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And then when I had a conversation with the person in the evening, he said, I’m just catching a flight to the US and will reach on Wednesday, shall we catch up on Thursday? I’m like, but I prepared yesterday.

Hasita Krishna: I had no idea.

Subha Chandrasekaran: But I think we both noticed a huge component saying, are we happy doing it?

Hasita Krishna: Very big.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And it has helped them say no to certain projects, which would have messed with that equilibrium, right?

Subha Chandrasekaran: And I think they’re better off for it. 

Hasita Krishna: They definitely are. So understanding your own DNA a bit, what kind of organisation are we working for? Is that serving us well? Have we created this culture that everything should be ready yesterday? And we don’t need to. You consciously, you might be saying, this is what I want. Yeah, but then this is who I am, right? Dichotomy does exist in quite a few.

Subha Chandrasekaran: It works the other way also, when over a sustained period, if you demand everything as of yesterday, then, I don’t know, I feel as a team member, I’ll say, okay, tomorrow something else will come up, which was wanted as of yesterday,

Hasita Krishna: So let me just chill.

The kind of culture you have creates the kind of work style you enjoy

Hasita Krishna: Because knowing what kind of culture you have. Created or a part of what kind of work style that you like or enjoy.

Subha Chandrasekaran: How is that working goes a long way in trying to break some of these silos, because if I’m leading a team where we’re always trying to beat a deadline, but I need to now collaborate with another team where. Because of the nature of their work, they have to get it right. There’s a, it’s not perfection for the sake of perfection, but it matters.

So knowing that, okay, this is when we work together, the silos can break when I can articulate my vision why I need it. Not as of yesterday, but at least two days from now what, how can we have a conversation to say, what can you do best in that time frame?

And then agree on that. I think if we try and summarise now, there are some clear stages in this. One is somebody. I Have a need, right? And they’re coming back to the larger group and saying, Hey, these various five teams, we now have to fulfill this need. And this is why we’re doing it.

This is the vision. This is the outcome I’m hoping for. So really, being the voice that articulates it. And then checking in on each team saying for us to achieve this, what do you need? Because you as a group may function differently. And your priorities, the way you work, the way you need to work may be slightly different.

So what can, what do you need? And hence as a group, what can we agree on? Yeah, because once you’ve agreed, then I think most people would then tend towards sticking to whatever they’ve committed. Fair enough. Yeah. So what can we agree on? Okay. In three days time. We’re going to stop calling it a POC, first of all, but this is what we’re going to have ready for the client because we want to give them comfort.

And I think one of the key points that I’m also picking up on is don’t wait for somebody else to do it. Yeah, if the lack of communication is affecting you every day.

Hasita Krishna: Work or just how you feel about the work that you’re doing, then speak up and take charge, at least in the locus that you can control.

Subha Chandrasekaran: And something that we both like to hear about is giving people time to also do other things. Maybe it’s a well-known Google story, but that concept of giving an employee 20 percent of their time to do other things. I feel it gives you a lot of clarity on what you want to be doing in the 80% that you’re here.

How you want to do it, what you want to do, how important that is. To you and the organisation and just gives you more awareness about your way of working and why something could be important to someone else. Like in that 20%, I’m also interacting with another group, I’m seeing what they’re doing, etc. It gives me a lot of insight into how I need to reframe some of it. My commitments and expectations as well.

Hasita Krishna: So essentially, if someone says I needed this yesterday, ask why? Yeah. And then with all the time that you’ve therefore freed up, do something worthwhile.

Subha Chandrasekaran: No, I think silos are a big organisational challenge. They really take away a lot of energy because you’re simply creating conflict zones, you’re not creating productive outcomes, but any effort at chipping away at those silos, I think, gives huge benefit to the group. Yeah.

Hasita Krishna: The energy itself.

Subha Chandrasekaran: Yeah. It does become a lot more positive and productive, one of our favourite words.

Hasita Krishna: So try that and let us know if you were able to break some of those little mountains or hills, whatever size they may be.

See you guys next time. Bye.