In this presentation, we'll take a look at how the disciplines of marketing and change management can help us slay the typical silos we encounter in our day-to-day work. Many of us commonly support one communications function or another in our role as professional communicators. Not often are we asked to cross-pollinate our efforts to not only help an organization roll out new initiatives but also help the organization navigate the change management process. In this workshop, we’ll look at how the disciplines of marketing and change management can help us slay the typical silos we encounter at communications professionals.

1. Integrating Marketing and Change Management into All
Aspects of Communication
Presented to the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) on June 18,
2019
Ed Duffy
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3. Provide Service Specialization: They
provide defined work structures for
employees to succeed
Help Maintain Focus: A silo can help
keep employees focused on their areas
of expertise, and keep them from
getting distracted or involved in other
areas of the company
Increase Expertise: Employees level of
expertise can increase over time,
creating industry experts as opposed to
"jacks of all trades”
Create Client Specialization: Silos can
be beneficial when you want a subset
of your employees to become immersed
in one particular client or project in
order to produce the best client
experience, products or services.
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4. Create Belonging: They foster a
deep sense of socialization and
interaction among colleagues
Control Collaboration: Too much
collaboration can slow down the
decision-making process
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7. Often Begins with Upper Management
- Top-Down Competition: A top-down
issue arising from competition
between senior managers (e.g.
politics, and/or power struggle)
- An Attempt to Protect Information:
The protective attitude towards
information begins with
management and is passed down to
individual employees
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8. Then is Passed Down to Employees
- Hoarding Information: Individual
employees may hoard information
for their own benefit
- Competing Interests: May arise
between employees of competing
departments, such as marketing
and sales, where some assigned
duties overlap
- Egoism: Employees may enjoy the
sense of power they get by
protecting their fiefdoms and/or by
holding onto information others
don’t have
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9. Not Always About Egos and Power
- Feel Bogged Down: Employees
may be so bogged down in daily
tasks that they never have the
time or opportunity to see the
big picture
- Feel a Lack of Influence: They
may not see themselves as
having a critical role in that
bigger picture, and that they can
make a difference
- Unaware of Value: Or they may
be utterly unaware of the value
of the information they're sitting
on to others (e.g. more naïve
rather than negligent)
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10. Silos Can Become Comfortable
- Established: Employees are
comfortable following a tried and
true way of doing things
- Easy: Things don’t take a lot of
effort
- Efficient: The approach has
worked before, and will work
again. There’s no reason to stir
things up or make a change
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11. We move in and never leave
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15. Lack of New Ideas: Innovation and
creativity can become stifled
Lack of New Practices: Potential
lack of continuous improvement and
growth in best practices
Lack of Perspective: May be
unaware of what the rest of the
organization is up to - - for good or
bad
Lack of Connection to Customer
Value: The silo can sometimes be
seen as and end in itself (e.g. we’re
all good here)
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16. Can Impact Workflow: A lack of
cross-departmental communication
can negatively impact workflow
Can Impact Accuracy: It can leave
some departments working with
inaccurate or out-of-date information
Can Damage Morale: A silo
mentality inevitably damages
morale, especially when employees
become aware of the problem and are
unable to do anything to change it
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19. National Institute of Information
Technology
Founded: 1981
Headquarters: Gurugram, India
Employees: 2,500
Offices: 40 Countries
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21. Sales
Marketing
HumanResources
LearningDesign
ContentDevelopment
LearningDevelopment
MediaDevelopment
LearningDelivery
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22. - We have our challenges in slaying
silos across different locations,
countries, and cultures
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24. Job Re-Engineering (1998)
- Plant leaders re-engineered the
Jelly Bean packing job, but didn’t
tell the employees how/why/where
- Workers were used to packing and
loading boxes onto pallets on the 3rd
floor to be shipped
- Instead, Brach’s added a conveyor
system that moved boxed product
down to the 2nd floor
- Then boxes were loaded onto pallets
for shipping
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26. New Truck Launch (2000)
"The NGV is the launchpad for a
whole new truck company. It's
everything we've worked on for the
last five or six years.”
- Chairman, President and CEO
John R. Horne.
Scope of Changes
- New truck
- New brand
- New engine
- New sales process
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27. Salesforce Training (2000)
- Rather than holding three separate
sales meetings for each sales force,
the company gathered all three
salesforces at one national sales
meeting
- Trained all three salesforces
together
- Focused on relationship-building
and profiling the customer instead
of their three unique product lines
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28. Company Restructuring (2018)
- Reduced business units from 10 to
6
- Each unit now has its own CEO
- Aim to increase focus, agility, and
accountability
Note: Procter & Gamble sold its
pharmaceutical business in 2009
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29. Global Process Excellence Training
(2016)
- Six Sigma was a well-established
part of Tenneco’s manufacturing
process
- Set a goal to inculturate the Six
Sigma mindset and methodology into
all aspects the organization’s
business
- As a result, all facets of the
organization are now able to speak
the same language related to using
data, solving problems, and making
decisions
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31. Marketing -> What & Why Change Management -> How & Why
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“I’ve got red eyes. Can Visine get the
red out?”
“How does this process work? I’ve
never used eye-drops before.”

32. “Marketing is the process of
planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion and
distribution of your ideas, goods or
services to satisfy the needs of
individual consumers or
organizations.”
Source: BusinessQueensland.gov
Possible Questions
- Why do you want me to leave my
siloed way of doing and being?
- How will this benefit me?
- Why should I care?
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33. “Marketing is the process of
planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion and
distribution of your ideas, goods or
services to satisfy the needs of
individual consumers or
organizations.”
Source: BusinessQueensland.gov
Possible Questions
- Why do you want me to leave my
siloed way of doing and being?
- How will this benefit me?
- Why should I care?
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34. “Nothing can change without
communication, so this is a
fundamental aspect of successful
change leadership.”
- Henry Mintzberg
Possible Questions:
- Why is this change needed?
- How will this benefit me?
- How long will it take?
- How painful will it be?
- What do I have to give up?
- How soon will I see a benefit?
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35. “Nothing can change without
communication, so this is a
fundamental aspect of successful
change leadership.”
- Henry Mintzberg
Possible Questions:
- Why is this change needed?
- How will this benefit me?
- How long will it take?
- How painful will it be?
- What do I have to give up?
- How soon will I see a benefit?
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36. The Marketing Journey The Change Management Journey
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“Help me make a decision to get
onboard with your solution…”
“Now that I’m onboard, help me
navigate this change …”

37. …and bending the organization in a new direction.
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39. Manageable Chunks: We create divisions
and/or departments in order to break things
down into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Chunking Creates Boundaries: Breaking
things down in this way naturally creates
boundaries which may or may not become
silos. The presence of these boundaries is not
what creates silos, but instead, it is the
absence of relationships between and among
functional areas that create silos.
Boundaries that Breathe: The goal then is not
to abolish the function of boundaries but to
establish boundaries in such a way as to
prevent them from become impermeable,
impenetrable, or siloed.
Relationships Bend Silos: The antidote to silos
is relationships.
Source: Joe Hirsch, The Feedback Fix
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41. 1. Get teams to bump up against
each other
- Find opportunities for creative
collision between teams
- Create intentional interactions
- Offer informal, yet frequent
events like team-building, town
halls, lunch and learns, etc.
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42. 2. Increase people’s capacity for
empathy
- The more people care, the more
they will want to connect
- Cultivate shared self-interests
and activities that are a win/win
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43. 3. Create Channels of Information
Sharing
- Create a culture of information
sharing
- Reduce bottlenecks
- Ensure information continues to
move at a steady pace
throughout the organization
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44. “The antidote to silos is relationships.” – Joe Hirsch
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45. - Bring Humanity: As professional
communicators we bring a sense
of humanity to silos in the
enterprise
- Make Connections: We make
organizational connections (e.g.
process, patterns, and people)
- Build Relationships: We build
relationships with people at all
levels of the organization
- We’re connectors
- We’re communicators
- We’re collaborators
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46. - We see the big picture
- We see the components that make
it up the big picture
- We understand how to
communicate the value of the big
and small picture to unique
audiences to help them move
forward
For Example:
- How will this benefit me?
- How will this benefit my department?
- How will this benefit the company?
- How will this benefit our customers?
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47. - Track Progress: We have the
ability to monitor and measure
progress
- Make Adjustments: We know
how to make adjustments as
needed along the way
- Celebrate Success: We know the
importance of celebrating short-
term successes
- Staying Engaged: We know the
importance of staying engaged
over the long-term, and not
taking our eye off the ball
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48. The Keys to Working Across Silos:
- Cooperation
- Communication
- Collaboration
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50. Don’t Try and Go it Alone
- Build relationships and alliances
across the organization
- Share information
- Share your piece of the big
picture with others
- Help others connect the dots
- Identify shared future
opportunities
- Create an ongoing dialogue
- Partner on mutually beneficial
opportunities
- Rinse and repeat …
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52. 1. What are some of the silos you have
dealt with in your current job/role?
2. How have you ever attempted to bend,
break, or bust silos in your organization?
3. What worked well, and what didn’t?
- Discuss and report back to the
large group
- Select a spokesperson
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53. Ed Duffy
Ed.Duffy@NIIT.COM
773.430.2337
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