How to build a communication culture that kills silos for good

Silos aren’t just a structural problem. You can redraw the org chart, shuffle reporting lines, or create new cross-functional roles, but if your culture rewards secrecy, tribalism, or us vs. them thinking, the silos will just reappear.

The real fix starts with communication. Not more meetings or internal newsletters, but a deliberate culture that rewards openness, shared learning, and collaboration across teams.

This can drive measurable results. Deloitte research found that 73% of employees who collaborate reported improved performance, while 60% say collaboration sparks innovation.

In this article, we’ll look into the cultural cues that reinforce silos, as well as practical ways to improve cross-team visibility.

Cultural cues you may be missing

Silos are often shaped by subtle cultural cues; the way people speak, the habits they form, and the behaviours leaders model.

Some of the most common silo-reinforcing cues are: 

• Language that divides. Phrases like ‘their team’ or ‘our department' signal separation.
• Information gatekeeping. Leaders hoarding updates undermines transparency.
• Private problem-solving. If tough issues are handled in private, others don’t learn from the process.
• Praise for department wins over company wins. Recognition focused on internal targets can deepen divisions.

These divides are bad for business. 64% of employees waste at least three hours weekly due to poor collaboration and 20% lose up to six hours. That’s nearly a full working day lost every week.

The quickest way to reinforce silos is to let divisive language, secretive habits, or insular recognition go unchecked.

Make work visible to everyone

You can’t collaborate on work you can’t see. Teams that operate in isolation often do so because their work simply isn’t visible outside their immediate group.

To break that pattern, teams can use open channels. For example, by posting updates in shared Slack channels or project boards instead of private chats.

Shared documentation on roadmaps, project notes, and decision logs can be made more accessible. 

It’s also good to share work in progress, so the whole company can see the challenges and offer input. 

One example of this comes from Atlassian, which uses ‘Team Central’ to share weekly updates across all teams, making priorities, blockers, and achievements visible in one place.

When work is visible, context improves and this can lead to better decisions. That’s why 73% of sales teams say cross-department collaboration is critical to their success.

Recognise and reward collaboration

If your recognition systems only celebrate department-specific wins, you’re training teams to think in silos. 

Instead, make cross-department collaboration a celebrated part of your culture.

Ways to do it:

• Highlight collaborative wins in company meetings. Share not just what was achieved but how different teams made it happen.
• Nominate ‘collaboration champions’. People who went out of their way to support another team’s success.
• Tell the full story. In internal comms, credit all contributors, not just the project lead’s department.

For example, Spotify spotlights cross-squad projects in its internal comms to reinforce that collaboration is as valued as technical skill.

What you reward, you repeat. So if you want collaboration, make it visible and valued.

One powerful way to reinforce this is by linking recognition to long-term incentives like employee share schemes.

When people share in the company’s success, it shifts the mindset from ‘my team’ to ‘our company’, aligning everyone’s efforts towards the same big-picture goals.

Build intentional opportunities to learn from each other

Cross-functional understanding doesn’t happen by accident. It needs structured, intentional opportunities.

These could be lunch and learn sessions, project shadowing where employees spend a day with another team to see how they work, or shared reviews of major projects. 

HubSpot runs demo days, where different teams showcase recent projects to the whole company, encouraging questions and sparking future collaborations.

These exchanges can produce a range of positive outcomes. Employees in highly collaborative roles see a 30% increase in job satisfaction, a 20% drop in turnover intent, and are 50% more likely to complete tasks successfully.

Create feedback loops that cross boundaries

Without strong feedback loops, silos creep back in. 

Teams can retreat into their own processes, unaware of how their work impacts others.

Some ideas to avoid this: 

• Cross-functional retrospectives. Include all teams affected by a project in the review.
• Company-wide surveys. Ask how effectively teams are working together, not just about job satisfaction.
• Rotating facilitators. Have people from different teams run meetings to diversify perspectives.

Feedback that flows in all directions helps teams correct course before silos creep back in. 

Summary

Killing silos for good is more about the signals sent by leadership. 

When leaders model openness, teams share work visibly, and collaboration is publicly rewarded, silos don’t stand a chance.

The tools to improve communication and collaboration are simple. The key is to maintain the discipline to apply them every day, and this is where most companies fall short.