Speaker on Negotiation Skills and Team Building

Negotiation Skills Speaker Mike Hourigan

Motivational Speaker on Negotiation Skills

Mike Hourigan, Inspirational Speaker on Negotiation Skills and Team Building

Using Negotiation Skills to Eliminate Silo Thinking

When I present keynotes and breakout session talks on negotiation skills to eliminate silo thinking, in the Q&A session I am often asked what the relationship is between negotiation skills and team building. The short answer is “Everything!”

Negotiation skills are the ultimate team building exercise because developing negotiation skills eliminates the silo and the “them and us” attitude.

What’s in Your Silo? (Hopefully, Nothing!)

All the way back in October 2013, Forbes magazine presented an inciteful article by business writer Brent Gleason on the silo mentality. Gleason wrote:

“The silo mindset does not appear accidentally nor is it a coincidence that most organizations struggle with interdepartmental turf wars. When we take a deeper a look at the root cause of these issues, we find that more often than not silos are the result of a conflicted leadership team.”

We have recently seen numerous examples of conflicted leadership teams invested in turf wars that have severely damaged organizations in industries as far flung as automobile manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and banking.  Not to mention government at most levels.

Salesforce.com in their article “The Changing Role of the Modern Sales Team” was even more blunt:

“The silo mentality is characterized by individuals or divisions that withhold information from others in the organization for various reasons…Silo mentality destroys trust, cuts off communications, and fosters complacency. A siloed organization can’t act quickly or take advantage of opportunities.”

Experts agree that companies must create a unified vision from department to department where everyone works towards achieving common goals. While that’s all well and good, as a keynote speaker on negotiation skills training, I know that getting people to break down barriers is not going to happen through wishful thinking.

Silos Hate Negotiation Skills

When one department refuses to share information with another department and instead erects barriers, hides vital information and blocks communication channels, it creates mistrust, lethargy and anger.

While conflicted leadership teams at the highest levels of an organization may decide to withhold information, it affects employees down to the very lowest levels of operations. Though the organization may boast of their teamwork, those on the teams become afraid to share (in fact, they’re often instructed to notshare).

Business writer Liza Mock in a 2017 article on the silo mentality talked of three dangerous effects it had on every worker in the business.  Mock writes:

There is an increase in inefficienciesand redundancies between departments, departments begin to fight over responsibilitiesand ownership, and there is a general sense of uneaseand a lack of transparency.

A company fighting to increase market share, to increase sales, to launch a new product or improve the efficiencies of their operations simply cannot afford the cost that silo mentalities create. Yet, this is precisely what is happening in organizations across the country because departments won’t negotiate with one another.

Silo mentalities hate negotiation skills training because negotiation skills training forces organizations to break down barriers, communicate, trust one another and agree to settle their differences for the common good.

Negotiation skills training builds teams, empowers teams,and allows organizations to thrive. Now, more than ever, with multinational organizations, remote workers, contract employees and outsourced functions, to allow silos to exist is an invitation for failure.

 

Mike Hourigan Motivational and Negotiation Skills Speaker to Eliminate Silo Thinking

Contact Mike Hourigan, Motivational Negotiation Skills and Team Building Speaker at: (704) 875-3030 or by filling out the form below.

 

Negotiation Skills Training Speaker Mike Hourigan

Negotiation Skills Training Speaker Mike Hourigan

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    Mike does much more than present one-of-a-kind keynote speeches - he provides fun and fact filled breakout sessions as well as dynamic training programs for numerous organizations like Marriott, Disney, Harley-Davidson and even the U.S. Army.

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