Teams: Knock down silos with teamwork culture

Organizations grow and create divisions, separate functions and multiple locations. These complexities can create the silo mentality in groups of employees. “Them” and “us” attitudes develop. With silos come lack of communication and not enough cross-departmental support. An organizational cul-ture that builds teamwork and team values will help break down the silo mentality.

Related Best Practices

• Building a Team
• Action plan to build a winning team
• Building an Effective Management Team
• Building a High Performance Team
• Changing Your Organization

Resources

• “6 Ways Successful Teams are Built to Last” Forbes, Oct, 2012; Glenn Llopis discusses leadership techniques that build a team.
• wikipedia : Team building Wikipedia page discusses more generally team building in multiple settings.
• “Guide to Managing Human Resources, Chapter 14: Team Building”University of California, San Francisco – review steps to building and effective team and organizational benefits
• “Build a Tower Build a Team”, TED talk by Tom Wujec – lessons learned from teams building a tower from simple materials.

Author

The author of this page is Terry Gardiner

Terry Gardiner is the founder and President of Silver Lining Seafoods and NorQuest Seafoods - a medium-size Alaska seafood processing company; and currently a Board member of the Anvil Corporation, an employee-owned company specializing in oil and gas engineering.

His co-operative experiences include member director of the Commercial Fishermen Co-operative association; creation of legislation for the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank; and advisor to the US Dept of Health and Social Services for the state Health CO-OPs.

Terry served ten years as a member of the Alaska House of Representatives -several legislative committee chairmanships, Speaker of the House, Chairman of the Alaska Criminal Code Commission and board member on various state and federal boards and commissions.

His non-profit experiences include National Policy Director for the Small Business Majority in Washington DC; working with the Herndon Alliance and ForTerra.

Terry authored the leadership book, "Six-Word Lessons to Build Effective Leaders: 100 Lessons to Equip Your People to Create Winning Organizations".

For more check: Terry Gardiner Long bio