Thoughts on Teamwork and Silos
You know, when you watch a rugby team, especially one with a bit of history or a strong local presence, you see how specialized it is. You got the big guys up front doing the grunt work in the scrum, and then the faster guys out back ready to run. Everyone has a job, and they’re supposed to work together like a well-oiled machine. Supposed to being the key phrase there.
It always reminds me of my time working at a massive chemical company, not gonna name names but yeah, one of the big ones. We had a similar setup, sort of. Different departments, each filled with smart people, experts in their own little areas. We had the research folks in their labs, the engineers figuring out production, the marketing team trying to sell the stuff. Looked great on paper, just like a rugby lineup.
I remember this one project vividly. We were trying to launch a new type of coating. Sounds simple, right? Far from it. The lab guys had cooked up something brilliant, genuinely groundbreaking. They were thrilled. Then they handed it over to the process engineers.
- First hurdle: The engineers took one look and said, “We can’t make this efficiently with our current setup. It’s too tricky, too expensive.”
- Second hurdle: Marketing got wind of the potential delays and costs. They had already drafted campaigns based on the initial optimistic timelines from the lab. Panic started setting in.
- Third hurdle: Production, downstream, just wanted clear, stable instructions. They kept getting conflicting messages – “It’s coming soon!” then “Hold on, major changes!”
We spent weeks, maybe months, in meetings. So many meetings. It felt less like a coordinated team pushing for the same goal and more like different tribes defending their own territory. The lab folks felt the engineers weren’t trying hard enough. The engineers thought the lab guys were unrealistic dreamers living in a bubble. Marketing blamed everyone for messing up their launch plans. And production just threw their hands up, waiting for someone, anyone, to make a final decision.
It was maddening. Everyone was technically on the same “team,” working for the same company, but the communication was just awful. It was like the forwards refusing to pass the ball to the backs because they didn’t trust them to score, or the backs complaining the forwards weren’t winning the ball cleanly enough. Total breakdown.
In the end? The project got massively delayed. What eventually launched was a compromised version of the original idea, and it never quite hit the mark we hoped for. Lots of potential, fizzled out because the different parts couldn’t, or wouldn’t, truly work together. It wasn’t about a lack of skill; it was about the gaps between the specialized groups.
So yeah, whenever I see a team, whether it’s on a sports field or in a corporate structure, I always think back to that experience. Specialization is necessary, sure. But without real communication and a shared goal that everyone buys into, it just creates silos. And silos don’t win games, or launch successful products, for that matter.
