Overview
Silo working happens when departments focus on their own goals instead of the organisation’s shared outcomes. Even competent people can unintentionally reduce performance if they are pulling in different directions. In this article, you’ll learn how to break down silos in the workplace using a practical team-alignment framework called Vectorship.
Introduction
Silo working has been the quiet killer of performance in organisations for decades. Ask a group of executives what slows progress most, and you will usually hear some version of:
- “We can’t get departments to collaborate.”
- “Everyone is doing their own thing.”
- “It takes months to ship anything because alignment is impossible.”
On the surface, silo working looks like a simple collaboration issue. People are not talking. Departments are not sharing. Teams are not coordinating.
But in reality, silo working is rarely caused by laziness or incompetence.
It is usually caused by misalignment.
Teams and individuals are moving in different directions, often with good intentions, but with outcomes that compete rather than combine. The result is a strange kind of organisational friction where everyone works hard, but minimal progress is made.
This article introduces a simple model to explain why silos happen and how leaders can fix them: Vectorship.
What Is Silo Working?
Most people describe silo working as a situation where a person or team carries out tasks independently, without collaboration or support from others.
That definition is accurate, but incomplete.
In most real organisations, silo working emerges when:
- Teams pursue separate agendas
- Departmental goals become more important than organisational outcomes
- People optimise locally rather than collectively
- Collaboration becomes difficult, political, slow, or unsafe
In other words, silo working is not merely “working alone”.
It is working in a way that unintentionally undermines shared results.
Why Silo Working Matters (And Why It Gets Worse In High-Performing Teams)
Every team aims for performance. But performance is not only about talent, skill, or capability.
Performance depends on two forces working together:
- Capability (how much impact people can make)
- Alignment (whether that capability is directed toward the same outcome)
When people are misaligned, their capabilities do not help. It can actually make things worse.
The higher the capability, the stronger the impact of misalignment. A competent team pulling in opposite directions can create faster confusion, more conflict, and greater wasted effort than a low-skilled team.
This is why silo problems often intensify in organisations with:
- strong experts
- strong personalities
- ambitious leaders
- multiple competing priorities
- unclear decision rights
The Vectorship Model: Every Person Is A Vector
A “vector” in physics is a quantity with:
- magnitude (strength/impact)
- direction (orientation)
People are vectors too.
In teams:
- magnitude = capability (knowledge, skill, diligence, ideas, experience)
- direction = alignment (shared purpose, commitment, cooperation, team mindset)
So, every person contributes not only through what they can do, but also through whether what they do supports the shared goal.
The Hidden Maths Of Team Performance (And Why Silos Crush Results)
Let’s use a simple example.
Step 1: measure capability (magnitude)
Imagine a team of five people, each rated out of 10 for capability:
7, 8, 8, 9, 9
Total capability score = 41 out of 50 (82%)
That looks like a high-performing team.
Step 2: measure alignment (direction)
Now rate each person out of 10 for alignment to shared goals.
Use a scale from +10 to -10 because misalignment can become actively harmful.
Direction scores:
7, 3, 8, 1, -3
Total direction score = 17 out of 50 (34%)
Step 3: calculate performance
Now multiply:
41 × 17 = 697
Out of a possible:
50 × 50 = 2,500
So the performance rating becomes:
697 / 2,500 = 28%
This is the real cost of silo working.
Even with great people, misalignment causes the organisation to operate at a fraction of its potential.
What Aligned Teams Achieve (With The Same Capability)
Now imagine the identical team capability scores:
7, 8, 8, 9, 9 = 41
But direction becomes:
10, 10, 10, 9, 9 = 48
Performance:
41 × 48 = 1,968
1,968 / 2,500 = 79%
Same team. Same talent.
51% improvement purely through alignment.
This is why alignment is not “soft stuff”.
Alignment is performance.
So, How Do You Break Down Silos In The Workplace?
Silos break down when leaders build Vectorship:
- shared direction
- shared ownership
- shared decision-making
- shared purpose
And importantly, they do this without requiring a painful restructure.
Restructures often fail because they change boxes on a chart, while leaving:
- goals
- behaviours
- trust
- incentives
- decision rights
The same.
If you want to break silos, you need to change the directional forces first.
The Vectorship Model: How To Create Alignment Without Losing Autonomy
- Vectorship is created through a balance of leadership (pull) and management (push).
- Leadership is the pull.
- Leadership creates alignment by making people want to move in the same direction.
- Management is the push.
- Management sustains alignment through structure, clarity, feedback, tools, and execution discipline.
- When you only push without pulling, people comply but disengage.
When you only pull without push, people feel inspired but drift.
You need both.
Leadership (Pull): 4 Behaviours That Create Alignment
Vision
People cannot align with what they cannot see.
A compelling vision creates shared meaning and direction, especially across functions. HR, tech, finance, operations and customer-facing teams all need a version of the vision that makes sense in their context.
Encourage
Alignment collapses under pressure if people feel unsupported.
Encouragement reinforces resilience, confidence and commitment, especially during change, ambiguity, or high workload seasons.
Empower
Empowerment reduces silos because it removes dependency chains.
When teams have safe decision rights, they move faster and collaborate better. Trust increases. Bottlenecks reduce. Frustration drops.
Enable
Enablement means removing obstacles:
- conflicting priorities
- unclear ownership
- bad processes
- lack of resources
- slow decision-making
Great leaders clear the path so teams can deliver.
Management (Push): 4 Systems That Stop Silo Behaviour
Goals
Clear goals create focus.
They help teams stop optimising departmental wins and start contributing to organisational outcomes.
Feedback
Feedback is how you correct the course.
It must include performance feedback and alignment feedback. If someone drifts into silo behaviour, it needs to be addressed quickly and calmly.
Systems & processes
Misalignment often comes from operational friction:
- unclear handovers
- duplicated effort
- poor workflows
- unclear documentation
- slow approvals
When you improve systems, silos shrink.
Tools & resources
The best teams still fail if they lack:
- time
- tech
- capacity
- training
- decision support
Vectorship requires an environment where people can succeed together.
The Benefits Of Breaking Down Silos (What Changes When Vectorship Is in Place)
When teams are aligned:
- productivity increases
- Innovation speeds up
- conflict reduces
- trust increases
- toxicity drops
- “busy work” decreases
- Accountability rises naturally
Most importantly:
People feel proud again.
Aligned teams enjoy work more because progress feels real. They stop working against one another and start building something together.
Conclusion: Alignment Beats Talent Every Time
Silo working is not just frustrating. It is expensive. And the tragedy is this: organisations often think the problem is capability when the issue is direction.
Vectorship reminds us of a simple truth: A team of average performers aligned will often beat a team of brilliant performers in conflict.
If you want to break down silos in the workplace, the aim is not more control. It is not another restructure. It is alignment. And once alignment becomes the standard, performance becomes inevitable.
