Key Points

• It’s an unfortunate truth that siloed work has only become more prevalent in a remote-first world.
• Creating cross-functional teams is the best way to improve the overall customer experience.
• Lean Six Sigma relies heavily on data, which cross-functional teams should be sharing continuously.

When you think about the world of business and how complicated the number of roles can be, it comes as no surprise that silos are a very real concern. In today’s world, it also won’t come as any surprise to learn that businesses need to respond to the changing environment around them, including both their customers’ needs and their team’s. 

It’s an unfortunate truth that silos are a very real issue and that the benefits of breaking them down in a Lean environment can be significant. Between improved communication, increased efficiency, and better problem-solving, there is far more likelihood that Lean Six Sigma methodologies will be more successful in an organization where cross-functional work is the norm and not the exception. 

Why Do Silos Exist? 

In all fairness, silos exist in Lean worlds as well as in general across organizations because they are a part of a natural evolution of people focusing solely on their work. However, it goes a little more beyond that in some cases. 

Conflicted Leadership

If an employee works in an environment where management is encouraging different groups to compete against themselves, it naturally breeds a silo mentality. This is often the result of leaders of various departments engaging in a power struggle for visibility, budget, and the resources of other departments, like moving to the top of the list for marketing efforts. 

Communication Barriers 

This is especially true in a remote world, but communication barriers are very much a real contributor to encouraging a silo world. Email and instant messaging through tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams are only good up to a point. The reality is that these types of tools allow employees to engage with each other, but don’t necessarily encourage them to be more cross-functional. 

Lack of Vision 

In the event an organization’s leadership hasn’t properly articulated the vision for the company, or even the type of work that is being done for Lean Six Sigma, it opens the door to silo activity. It’s the responsibility of leadership to explain their vision to different teams properly and why cross-collaboration is essential to making this vision a reality. 

Poor Geography

While employees worldwide enjoy the improved work-life balance in a remote-first world, it also means that siloed behavior has grown alongside. Whether employees are geographically dispersed around a city or the world, any language, time zone, or even culture barriers can ensure that a silo mentality becomes a reality and if not curtailed, it can fester throughout the ranks. 

How Silos Hurts Lean Six Sigma

Knowing why silos exist immediately means turning attention as to why it can impact an organization. With this knowledge, it’s then on the organization to better understand how Lean Six Sigma can play a role in breaking down these silos and removing or reducing these impacts. 

Slower Decision Making

As soon as teams become isolated or individuals are isolated from larger workgroups, decision-making across the organization slows down. There is no question that information no longer flows as freely, which means groups dependent on information from others now have to wait. There is no check or balance to get that information moving faster. 

Duplicating Efforts

Instead of focusing on improving the customer experience under Lean Six Sigma, in a silo world, there are isolated departments during the same work without realizing it. This ties directly to communication concerns, wasting everyone’s time and resources. Instead of moving ahead and rolling out results, time has been wasted, which means all other projects are also pushed back. 

Limited Innovation 

If teams inside an organization only talk to themselves, they miss out on additional perspectives that might help with problem-solving. Working in a silo means that ideas are not as diverse and that perspectives that might otherwise help improve a process or a customer experience are not being heard or learned. Worst case, companies are missing out on innovation and solutions that might better help them adapt to new market ideas that could increase the bottom line. 

Tactics for Reducing Silos

Leadership Alignment 

In a Lean Six Sigma world, you start by focusing on leadership alignment, which can include explaining to every department why their contribution matters. Leaders should hold regular meetings and provide updates to drive accountability and momentum across any aspect of Lean Six Sigma process improvements. They must also communicate the organization’s common goals top-down to help employees break free of siloed thinking. 

Establish Shared Vision

A shared vision will be essential to cross-functional collaboration in a Lean Six Sigma environment. If the mission is communicated clearly and regularly with tailored messages specific to different departments, clear objectives will help guide departments. Once teams have different objectives, they can look at what resources are needed, allocate them, and track progress. 

Integrated Teams

One more cross-functional opportunity that will immediately strengthen Lean Six Sigma is the idea of integrating teams. Building teams with different but complementary skill sets will allow for better decision-making with plenty of out-of-the-box thinking. While these teams might overlap regarding responsibilities, there is no question that having an integrated team will help streamline work and get things done on time, leading to long-term company success. 

Lean Six Sigma Will Be a Boost For Cross-Functional Collaboration 

When you focus on Lean Six Sigma as a process, you can immediately see the process improvement opportunities that will break down silo walls.

DMAIC 

Among the most important aspects of Lean Six Sigma is the DMAIC process, which forces teams to follow the “Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control ” structure. Each structured problem-solving method encourages teams to collaborate cross-functionally, as each step requires a dependency on different areas of expertise.

In other words, these steps ensure that no department inside an organization is siloed, as everyone has a voice in shaping the solution to improve processes and customer experience. 

Data-Driven Decision Making

A main focal point of Lean Six Sigma is emphasizing data-driven decision-making, which will be especially important in the Measure phase. As teams collect large amounts of data to determine where and how to improve processes, significant sharing between teams is needed. This ensures that any decisions are based on strong data sets and not just subjective opinions of one team over another. 

Communication Barriers

Knowing that communication barriers can be a real chokepoint for silos is one of the exact reasons why Lean Six Sigma can be such a boost toward cross-functional collaboration. Focusing on regular DMAIC reviews across different teams ensures that an open dialogue can exist between these teams. During these meetings, there is an opportunity to share insights around everything from supply chains and inventory control to improving customer satisfaction. 

Of all the things that matter most in Lean Six Sigma, arguably, communication is the most important. Effective communication is the best way to ensure everyone understands the bigger picture and how their role will help deliver results. As groups share information, they can identify any root causes of a problem and come together to develop solutions. 

Example

To bring all of this together, consider a manufacturing firm where Lean Six Sigma has brought together the quality assurance and production teams to examine how to reduce defect rates. As these two teams join, they can better define what quality metrics they need to utilize and analyze the root causes of not hitting these numbers. As both teams collaborate cross-functionally, they can determine process improvement and reduce defects. 

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

If you’re looking to learn more about Lean Six Sigma and how it benefits organizations as a process methodology, you might want to consider learning about how it enhances employee engagement. Some good reading is also available on harnessing big data and the challenges and opportunities it poses in a Lean Six Sigma world. 

Of course, given that much of this topic on empowering cross-functional teams focuses on geographically dispersed workers, you can also read our guide on the remote work trends for 2025 and predictions for the hybrid workforce of the future. 

Conclusion 

It’s an unfortunate truth that there is more silo work being done in big business to this day and it’s something that isn’t likely to go away in the future, at least not entirely. The downsides of allowing this to continue are notable, so companies focused on integrating Lean Six Sigma into process improvement must know precisely how to navigate the challenges of empowering cross-functional teams to be successful. 

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