Speaking the Same Language: The Key to Overcoming Departmental Silos

The silo effect in businesses is crippling.

Even though the department across the hall (or just a Zoom call away) is physically close, it can start to feel like there's an enormous distance between you.

You have different goals.?

You measure success differently and define terms differently.

We’ve all experienced it, and the larger an organization grows, the greater the divides that start to develop.?

Over the past year, I noticed how the language changed between department calls with our team at GPARENCY. We really all had one singular goal, but somehow it didn’t feel that way—it felt like every department was speaking their own language. Let me be clear: it’s not that anyone on the team was trying to be difficult or any one person was slowing us down... it was a communication breakdown across our entire company.?

Let’s say we tried to launch a new ad. The sales team would say, “We want it to go hard on sales and need to get it out as soon as possible. That’s our goal.”

The marketing team would say, “We can’t word it like that, it needs to establish our brand and have the right style. We need to take the time to do it right. That’s our goal.”

The tech team would say, “Creating the logistics to run this promotion is going to take us away from other technology launches, we need to postpone so we can finish those. That’s our goal.”?

“We don’t need that new feature as much as we need this ad!” the sales team would respond.

And we’d circle the mountain again.

So who is in the wrong? No one—they’re all representing the skillset and responsibilities we hired them for—but if we continue like that, we’re not going to get much done! Without a common language or framework, we all have responsibilities, but accountability gets lost in translation.

So why was there a language barrier between each department? And when things got off track, why did it become so hard to push through the “I had success according to my definition” team feedback to figure out what really needed to be done?

One day, during a finance call, it finally hit me. As a startup, we have a “run out of funds” date that we use to measure our cashflow. Basically, it means that if we didn’t generate another dollar, that’s the day we wouldn’t be able to continue operating without needing additional funds. That perspective was always driving our executive team towards our ultimate goal—profit—but our whole organization didn’t have that perspective. Even if they did, I’m not sure every person would be able to translate exactly how their responsibilities would drive a different timely outcome or what they should do differently.

As I sat on that call, I had a lightbulb moment. It became clear that our team didn't have a clear system for measuring our progress towards profitability. We needed a birds-eye view of our mission so everyone knew how to collaborate and measure success together.

That's when I came up with the idea of a point system. I realized we could reverse-engineer our goals—if we needed X number of sales to be profitable, that meant in turn a number of new deal submissions and for those that didn’t have a deal, at least they should be logging into the site. Then, we assigned a certain number of points to each of these steps based on how confident we were that if they reached those checkpoints, they would convert to sale. For example, each new deal submission was worth 5 points and a sale was worth 15 points. It worked perfect because we were converting 1 out of 3 deal submissions. This system would be transparent and easy for everyone to understand, from the newest employee to the most senior manager.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. The originators focused on bringing in the 1-pointers, while the senior brokers worked to convert the deals, and marketing and sales reprioritized their workload to deliver products that helped everyone multiply their efforts and reach their goals even faster. Production and sales took off. We all knew exactly what we were responsible for, and how our work contributed to the company's overall success. We were able to streamline our efforts and prioritize our work across departments more effectively, all because we were speaking the same language.

Now, the expectation is clear that our goal isn’t to meet the basic responsibilities of a job description—we all have ownership over the end result. We now have transparent expectations and a sense of collective responsibility. That means what benefits the marketing team benefits the sales team, and what benefits the sales team benefits the company as a whole.

The key to this point system is that it’s cross-company rather than cross-departmental. As my Muslim partner would say, finally we’re all speaking the same language: points!?

We adopted a universal language that eliminated jargon and simplified terminologies. This straightforward approach has helped departments understand each other's roles, priorities, and impact, leading to faster and better decisions. We've been able to eliminate most misunderstandings by clarifying exactly what specific goals and deadlines mean within our organization.?

The silo effect can rear its ugly head in many ways—missed deadlines, conflict between departments, or even employees feeling like they’re not on the same page when you’re sharing information.?

“I need this done quickly,” can mean two different things to two different people depending on the type of work they do. For a website developer, fast may mean multiple weeks. For an admin, fast may mean today. Leaders can think they're being clear, but in an organization with diverse departments and expertise, it’s easy to develop a language barrier. When you’re focused on points and have a monthly goal, as long as each department is ready to help contribute, you can stay on target.?

You need your team to speak a universal language to scale. You need one team on one mission measuring success in one clear way!