Silo Mentality: the "us and them" that is damaging teams
We've seen it many times: sales and operations never understand each other. Each group feels safer defending its part than collaborating on joint solutions.
We've all seen it many times: sales and operations never see eye to eye. Sales promises aggressive delivery times to close deals, while operations defends the resources and processes needed to actually deliver. Instead of seeing each other as allies with a shared goal, each area guards its own territory and blames the other for being an obstacle. The same thing happens between IT and marketing, finance and legal, and plenty of other combinations. Each group feels safer defending its own turf than collaborating on shared solutions.
Michael Diamond and Seth Allcorn call this "silo mentality." It's not just about barriers between departments, but mental constructions that arise from the need to manage everyday anxiety. People take refuge in groups that offer them security, and that sense of belonging becomes part of their identity: "I am Finance," "I am IT."
When we talk about "containing anxiety," we mean the organization's ability to offer stability and clarity in the face of uncertainty, market shifts, and internal pressures. Without this containment, the silo stops being just an external structure and becomes internalized in workers' minds.
Although we usually see them only as a problem, silos serve an important function: they offer security and a sense of belonging. The challenge isn't eliminating them, but keeping them from turning into trenches that block collaboration.
Why do silos form?
The answer lies in the organization's and its leaders' inability to contain anxiety, uncertainty, and external threats. By taking refuge in their silo, people feel protected. But that protection has a cost: the organization becomes fragmented and dysfunctional.
This fragmentation doesn't come out of nowhere: it responds to unconscious dynamics aimed at reducing organizational anxiety.
Consequences of silo mentality
- "Us vs. them" mentality
The other group is perceived as antagonistic, with different interests, which creates resistance to collaborating, sharing information, and accepting change.
- A fragmented company
Silos foster distrust, little exchange of information, and wasted resources. Decisions get made according to the interests of specific groups, not the common good.
- Conflict between hierarchy and silos
Hierarchy seeks to organize rationally, but silos are irrational defensive responses. While hierarchy defines roles, silos build trenches.
- Projection: the "bad" is out there
Silos get reinforced by unconscious mechanisms. The negative gets projected onto the other group, while one's own group gets idealized, perpetuating conflict. For example, when the marketing team blames sales for not executing campaigns well, while sales accuses marketing of creating materials disconnected from the client's reality.
What to do about silo mentality?
Diamond and Allcorn warn that there's no one-size-fits-all recipe; every organization has its own history, culture, and unconscious dynamics. Some key approaches are:
- Diagnose the root of the anxiety:
It's often found in what isn't said, like the lack of space for dialogue, dissatisfaction with policies, or tension between teams.
- Build shared narratives:
Beyond redefining processes, this is about creating a shared story that moves past the blame game and fosters a big-picture view. One tech company achieved this by creating "joint success stories" celebrating projects that required cross-team collaboration, shifting the focus from "whose fault is it" to "what did we achieve together."
- Observe the real impact:
Identifying how silos affect sales, timelines, or resources helps prioritize interventions.
- See the team as people, not technical pieces:
The problem isn't only in the processes, but in containing the team's anxiety. This requires more human leadership, open to dialogue and capable of holding differences.
So now what?
Silo mentality arises from the difficulty of containing organizational anxieties and conflicts. Understanding its logic lets us stop seeing it only as a flaw and start using it as an opportunity to integrate and strengthen teams.
Next time you notice tension between departments in your organization, ask yourself: what organizational anxiety are these silos trying to manage? The answer could be the first step toward more effective collaboration.
Recommended reading
For those who want to know more about silo mentality and other organizational phenomena, I recommend this book: Private Selves in Public Organizations: The Psychodynamics of Organizational Diagnosis and Change.
