Growth doesn’t stall because of the market hates you so much as it may be stalling because your teams have stopped ...
Growth doesn’t stall because of the market hates you so much as it may be stalling because your teams have stopped talking to each other.
A likely reality: the same “professionalization” that once felt like progress — hiring specialists, creating departments, standard/repeatable process — eventually creates the next problem. What started as “one team, one mission” turns into a collection of tribes within your organization, and then: Sales blames Marketing. Delivery distrusts Sales. Finance obsesses over ratios instead of health. And the soundtrack becomes: “That’s for [insert name of some other function here] to solve.”
83% of organizations admit silos exist. 97% say they hurt performance. Translation: this isn’t a “maybe” issue. It’s happening almost everywhere.
This is the Specialization Trap.
- Departments optimize for their own KPIs while company growth subsides.
- Communication slows, duplication explodes, and customers get inconsistent/mixed signals.
- Morale craters because finger-pointing is more advantageous to the individuals within your internal politics than collaborating to resolve the obstacles to continued growth.
So what’s the way out? Not another re-org, not another dashboard, and definitely not another town-hall pep talk. The only way through is to make the scoreboard all about working together on things that most directly lead to sustained growth.
Choose Your Hard
- Customer experience: Every touchpoint matters. No single team can own it. If the customer isn’t happy, no one gets to declare victory.
- Innovation velocity: Track how much revenue comes from what’s new. If it’s not climbing, the whole place is stuck in yesterday.
- Shared incentives: Want collaboration? Pay for collaboration. Stop rewarding departments that “win” while the company loses.