Steven Gaffney Company
Breaking SilosSelf-check
stevengaffney.comEmail us
A resource for anyone who leads a team.

Everyone owns their part.Who owns the whole?

Silos start when leaders represent their departments instead of the team. Changing the org chart won't change that.

Take the self-check
Twelve leaders. One team. Until it isn't.A dimensional circular leadership system with twelve blocks, signal paths to one shared center and rising barriers. As leaders protect separate areas, cross-team connections disappear.

How silos actually form

A committee, not a team.Twelve leadership functions around a shared table turn outward, lose their connections and become separated by walls. Sales, Operations, Engineering, Product, Finance, People, Marketing, Technology, Legal, Customer success, Support, Strategy.The teamSalesOperationsEngineeringProductFinancePeopleMarketingTechnologyLegalCustomer successSupportStrategy

A committee, not a team.

Sales shows up for Sales. Operations shows up for Operations. Each leader protects a part of the business. Nobody is accountable for the work between them. That's a committee, not a team. A different reporting line won't change how they show up.

The fix is not another request to communicate better. It's changing what leaders owe each other.

Accountability points up, not across.

When two teams get stuck, the decision climbs to your desk. Everyone answers to you. Nobody answers to each other.

Things aren't getting said.

People know things they won't say in the room. Decisions get made on part of the picture. Getting the Unsaid Said® is where the work starts.

People are guessing instead of checking.

A late report is a fact. 'They don't care' is an explanation nobody checked. Separate what you notice from what you imagine before you decide.

What to do this week

In your next leadership meeting, say this:

What's one thing about how we work together that nobody is saying? Everyone answers. No fixing it, no defending it. We're just getting it on the table.

What happens next

You'll hear things you half knew and a couple you didn't. Most leaders learn more in those ten minutes than they did all quarter, because the problems were already known. They just weren't known out loud.

Where it goes wrong

Someone responds to the first hard thing that's said, and the room learns it isn't safe. Your only job in this exercise is to say "thank you" and move to the next person. The fixing comes later.

Twelve closed thoughts open one at a time into shared information at the center of the leadership table.The team

The other two moves are below.

Accountability

In your next leadership meeting, say this:

I'm not asking who owns this. I'm asking what you two owe each other on it. Both of you, in the room, right now.

What happens next

The conversation stops pointing at you and starts pointing across the table. The two leaders have to make a commitment to each other with everyone watching, and that's a different kind of commitment than the one they'd make to you in private.

Where it goes wrong

You answer for them. If either leader hesitates and you fill the silence, you've just confirmed that accountability still runs through your desk. Wait it out.

Two leaders stop directing accountability up to the leader and instead make a commitment to each other.The leaderLeader 1Leader 2

Assumptions

In your next leadership meeting, say this:

Before we decide, two columns. What do we know for sure about their position, and what are we assuming? Facts on the left, everything else on the right.

What happens next

Most of what's blocking the decision lands in the right column. Once a group sees how much of their position is built on things they never checked, the next step is usually obvious: go ask.

Where it goes wrong

Treating the right column as wrong. Assumptions aren't lies, they're just unverified. The point isn't to shame people for having them. It's to stop deciding as if they were facts.

Take this to your team

Which pattern is yours?

Find the behavior to address first. Ten questions. No email gate.

TEAM SELF-CHECK01 / 10

Question 01 of 10

When something slips, does your team look to you to sort it out rather than to each other?

Choose the answer that fits your team.

Your answers stay in this browser.

Put a cost on the friction.

Repeated decisions. Duplicated work. Cross-team issues that land on your desk. Silos cost more than meeting time.

Team Cost Calculator

Open the Team Cost Calculator

Trusted where precision matters.

We work with some of the most skeptical organizations.

Aerospace & defense

  • BAE Systems
  • Lockheed Martin
  • Northrop Grumman

Engineering & technology

  • Texas Instruments
  • Honeywell
  • Jacobs Engineering

Science & research

  • NASA
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Idaho National Laboratory
Our negotiation time has reduced by more than 75%.
Pedar JungckVice President, BAE Systems
Read more testimonials

Client-reported experience. Results depend on the team and engagement.

Stop being the team's workaround.

Tell us one cross-team issue you keep having to resolve. We will tell you whether this work is a fit.

info@stevengaffney.com
Not ready to talk? Take the free CHAT Assessment.

Calculator link to be supplied.