silo mentality
Organizational tunnel vision
Silo mentality is a reluctance to share information or resources across departments or divisions within an organization.
The term borrows from agricultural silos—separate storage structures that don't connect.
When teams operate in silos, they protect their own interests rather than collaborating: The silo mentality between engineering and marketing delayed the product launch.
The phenomenon breeds inefficiency and internal competition.
- turfGrass-covered earth surface
- turf warStruggle over claimed ground
- wallsVertical enclosing structures
- isolatedSeparated from others
- departmentalOf a unit within organization
hoarding · territorial · fragmented · barriers · closed doors · cliques · insular · protectionism · fiefdom · compartmentalized · gatekeeping · need to know · disconnect · tribal · myopic · bottleneck · bureaucracy · empire-building
- bureaucracybureaucracy, bureaucrat, bureaucrats, red tape, civil service
- antipatternsspaghetti code, dead code, code smell, technical debt, cargo cult
- farm idiomsmake hay while the sun shines, cream of the crop, put the cart before the horse, till the cows come home, buy the farm
- narrow-mindednessnarrow-mindedness, narrowness, close-mindedness, closed-mindedness, close-minded
silo mentalityteam collaboration
Joint effort among colleagues
team spirit · systems thinking · boundary-spanning · collective ownership · holistic approach
silo mentalitytransparency
State of being see-through
knowledge sharing · open communication · open-door policy · cross-pollination
silo, silos, siloed, siloing, mental, mentality, mentalities, mentally