Several years ago, as a CS leader, I met with our CEO about a key client and the issues they were having. I said, “The Product team isn’t attentive to client requests, and they don’t keep the CS team updated on priorities and timelines.” The CEO’s face went grave. “‘They’? What do you mean by ‘they’? We’re one team. Any reason you can’t find a way to work as a team?”
That landed like a bolt. He was right. The “us vs. them” mindset wasn’t just a Product problem. It was my problem, too. If I were drawing a line between teams, I was part of the reason those lines existed. I started digging into why this happens and how to fix it.
Why the “Us vs. Them” mindset takes hold
Misaligned goals and priorities. Teams are measured on their own success, so they optimize locally. Department goals beat company outcomes.
Resource competition. When teams rely on the same resources (e.g., developers for both product work and customer fixes), then sharing information can feel like losing leverage or control.
Ineffective communication. No structure for proactive collaboration, too many top-down updates, too many channels, and limited cross-team flow.
Silo mentality has benefits. Smaller groups form tighter bonds. That comfort is hard to give up, so teams resist change even when it hurts the whole.
What to do instead (a few practical moves that work)
Redesign performance metrics. Reward collaboration and org outcomes, not just departmental outputs. Example: add client satisfaction and revenue impact to Product and Marketing scorecards, add Marketing goals like advocacy to CS.
Make cross-team goals inescapable. Launch projects that require participation across departments and locations. Bake collaboration into OKRs.
Create a healthy meeting + channel cadence. Establish regular cross-department sessions with clear agendas and shared notes. Big tip: audit channels and recurring meetings quarterly. Too many meetings and too much information create noise, not flow.
Actively encourage face-to-face meetings on a cadence for distributed teams. If teams work in different locations, prioritize periodic in-person time to build trust, speed up decisions, and reduce misread intent.
Share roadmaps and timelines (openly). One source of truth, visible to all: priorities, owners, dates, and risks. If it moves, everyone sees it move.
Run post-mortems across teams. When something breaks, analyze it together and document the fix and follow-up. Assign zero blame.
Encourage short shadowing. A week in another team does more to kill “they” than a dozen memos.
Leaders set the tone
Leaders don’t just declare “one team”; they have to design for it. They align incentives, protect shared time, intervene when silo behavior appears, and model the language: replace “they” with “we,” and watch how quickly conversations change.
Quick summary
Silos form when teams optimize locally, compete for resources, and lack real collaboration structures, plus the comfort of tight subcultures keeps silos in place. Fix it by aligning incentives to org outcomes, making cross-team goals unavoidable, tightening comms cadences, bringing distributed teams together face-to-face on a cadence, sharing one roadmap, closing the loop with clients together, and modeling “we” from the top.
Question for you: Where do you still say “they”? What’s one change you can make this week to turn it into “we”?
If this hits a nerve in your org, let’s talk about a simple plan to move your team from “they” to “we.”
Shimon Perry is a leadership & team coach helping org leaders align teams, improve execution, and grow healthy performance cultures. DM at: [email protected]