Using IMPACT Awareness to Remove Silos

Before agreeing to provide leadership development sessions, I spend time asking questions to understand the pain points an organization is experiencing and how I can tailor the session to provide the most value.
 
One of the most frequent issues brought up is the conflict between teams or team members that gets described as silos.
 
Silos
Often, what I find is that silos are built unintentionally due to a lack of awareness as to the role others play to the overall success. People may know the role they play, but don’t know the roles others play and therefore don’t respect the roles.
 
I created a simple tool to help create awareness and to force some self-reflection that has been successful in helping to tear down silos at its best and at the least, creating awareness that they are also part of the reason the silo exists. 
 
The Impact Awareness Tool
This tool was initially a discussion topic in my session to get attendees thinking about who impacts them and how they impact others. 
 
However, when I created the IMPACT Legacy Tool I realized that taking the same focus but instead turning it onto the work relationships will have a much greater impact within the work teams.
 
The tool really has two parts. The first is uncovering who does work that impacts you and your work, identifying what their activity/role is and then consider the ways it can impact your work positively and negatively.
 
The 2nd part is where we look at who is downstream from us and how our work impacts them. The power comes when we have to consider how our actions could negatively impact the work of others.
 
You know the tool is working when people start on the 2nd part and the room gets quieter. The realization that the work they do, that they are so confident in, could negatively impact others slowly comes to the surface. They start to reflect on past conflicts that they tended to blame on others but now are not so sure.
 
How Others Impact You
The first part is to identify the people who are upstream from you, that do a job that impacts you. We identify the person and the specific role or activity that directly connects to your work. (i.e., they provide data analysis on market trends you use for your product plans.)
 
Once you have the people and activities identified, reflect on how the activity impacts you. Consider how that activity can positively impact you and your role as well as how it could negatively impact your work. 
 
By looking at both the positive and negative potential it can open your mind to why things may have a negative impact.
 
Putting it All on the Table
Self-reflection is wonderful and is the start of bringing growth. When we take the small discussion and turn it into a large conversation is where the eyes get wide, the heads start to nod, and others jump into the conversation.
 
It’s the moment of transparency and vulnerability when people stand up and share with the group how others impact them and how their work impacts others.
 
They listen to people who are both upstream and downstream share their perspectives and experiences. Fostering a brotherhood, if you will, that they are all in this together. That everyone has challenges in their work and people are not malicious and evil, but unaware of how what they do could negatively impact others. 
 
Awareness Creates IMPACT
We always break after this part of the session, and you see people in the room start to search out others and share their thoughts. 
 
There might be apologies or words of appreciation for what others do, but always you see greater awareness that they are not alone. Not stuck in a silo. That awareness of your impact on others, energizes a team Beyond Today.

Download the IMPACT Awareness Tool

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