Silo Mentality vs. Collaboration in Health Care

An organization’s success majorly depends on its strategic management strategies. “Silo mentality” is a mindset that happens in the organization, which is selfish and restricts sharing resources and information with departments and other individuals within the healthcare organization (Alves & Meneses, 2018). It happens when individuals often conclude that it is not their duty to coordinate their events with colleagues or other groups, which hinders collaboration. With this attitude, workers have minimal interest in understanding their responsibility for the success of the organization. The mentality is a critical challenge of people’s nature, and Alves and Meneses (2018) argue that managers should monitor it more closely. As a leader, I can reduce this “silo mentality” and improve collaboration across teams by setting common goals, creating an attitude of shared vision, communicating regularly, adopting collaborative software, and evaluating compensation strategies.

The first approach I will use to reduce the silo mentality in the healthcare organizational department is creating a unified team collaboration vision. This attitude starts with the management since departments in a healthcare organization usually establish objectives that advantage their group but clash with those of the other. In most cases, every leader is concentrated on attaining their specific targets, indirectly propagating the silo attitude and sharing it among groups. To reduce the silo mindset and promote collaboration, I will embrace a free circulation of ideas, which will benefit the entire healthcare organization. Having established a healthcare organizational goal or vision, I will then emphasize the incorporated vision and the goals I usually set for their subordinates in order to drift from the silo goals to backing the unified dream.

Additionally, I will be at the forefront in acknowledging and recognizing the healthcare organization’s long-term objectives, departmental goals, and essential inventiveness before authenticating the incorporated dream down to the groups. As a part of the integrated management group, I will inspire confidence, build empowerment, and discourage fellow leaders from what Alves and Meneses (2018) call the “my department” thought and into “our organization” perception. This strategy will help managers in a healthcare organization to reduce the silo mentality.

Another strategy I will adopt to reduce the silo mindset and improve collaboration is working towards a common objective using collaboration tools. A similar challenge to silo thought is that individuals look at things from their viewpoint, and they are bound to options that guard their department rather than the entire healthcare organization. To eliminate this problem, every individual in the organization is expected to work toward a similar objective (Alves & Meneses, 2018). When an individual within the organization focuses on a common goal, the outcome is to communicate better. Therefore, I will outline these collective targets more often to become a substantial part of the organization’s culture, as Cavicchi et al. (2019) argue. Every department’s split-specific target must depict the shared purpose of the healthcare organization. Working together reduces barriers to teamwork, collaboration, and communication. When the organization upholds collaboration, it becomes easier to meet its targets. When workers have efficient collaboration tools, they will share information and execute tasks more effectively towards a common purpose, thereby reducing the silo mentality.

Moreover, I will lead the educating, working, and training in cross-departmental activities helps reduce the silo mentality and propagate teamwork and collaboration. Because healthcare organizations already consider training expenses in their budgets, collaborative training across the department is an approach to provide needed training with joint silo-reduction exercises (Gum et al., 2020). Additionally, silo attitude can be eliminated through intra-organization interactions. Therefore, I will foster interdepartmental interactions as they are a practical way to reduce the silo mentality and promote collaboration.

I will also evaluate compensation strategies to tackle the issue of silo mentality. With inspiration deviating through people and teams, it is essential to find a better approach to get everybody operating together to the same dream. To stress the incorporated objective, I will suggest to the healthcare organization to examine its reward strategies. If reimbursement is structured to support silo objectives, the incorporated vision will not develop buy-in from workers. Reimbursement must show the goals that each individual must be occupied to attain, and everyone will be inspired to concentrate on those objectives (McCulloch & Dunn, 2018). Thus, people will be motivated to share information, cooperate, and work together when their take-home gets involved.

Another important way I will counteract the silo mentality is by implementing collaboration software. Resistance to sharing information in the healthcare organization happens due to organizational management gaps or because individuals do not bother to update shared information (McCulloch & Dunn, 2018). An integral approach to improving team collaboration will be offering fundamental collaboration tools. Therefore, I will combat the silo attitude and enhance cooperation by using technology tools that help groups work together. These instruments comprehensively combine information allowing the teams with the current information source as the binder that holds them together (McCulloch & Dunn, 2018). For example, better customer relationship management (CRM) must integrate well with various applications that facilitate employees’ collaboration. Each team has a specific role that they need to attain; therefore, they utilize particular applications designed for their requirements. Thus, I may combine those several applications with CRM to reduce the silo mentality and improve collaboration.

In conclusion, when departments cooperate, the entire organization meets its targets easily. Therefore, the practical strategies that reduce the silo mindset and improve collaboration among teams are forming a unified vision, establishing a good CRM strategy, working towards common objectives, cross-departmental education, work and training, and evaluating compensation strategy. Therefore, as a leader, I can use these strategies to turn the destructive silo mentality into an environment where there is a division of tasks but not information, thereby improving collaboration across teams.

References

Alves, J., & Meneses, R. (2018). Silos mentality in healthcare services. In E. Vrontis, Y. Weber & E. Tsoukatos (Eds.), 11th Annual Conference of the EuroMed Academy of Business (pp. 65-77). EuroMed Press.

Cavicchi, C., Oppi, C., & Vagnoni, E. (2019). On the feasibility of integrated reporting in healthcare: A context analysis starting from a management commentary. Journal of Management and Governance, 23(2), 345-371. Web.

Gum, L. F., Sweet, L., Greenhill, J., & Prideaux, D. (2020). Exploring interprofessional education and collaborative practice in Australian rural health services. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 34(2), 173-183. Web.

McCulloch, K. L., & Dunn, M. J. (2018). Breaking down walls through collaboration. American Journal of Infection Control, 46(6), S116. Web.