From Division to Unity: Human-AI Integration as the Key to Dissolving Organizational Silos

I read a very interesting article by Russ Davis - DBA, MBA, LSSBB ( check it here) , that speaks about the analysis of the organisational silos, which can be compared to invisible walls that slowly rise in an enterprise, mostly without perception until they have appeared. 

Imagine that a company’s branches are on different islands, each focusing on its goals without knowing what another island does. This leads to miscoordination in sharing information most of the time, and duplication of actions is done. This is often pointed out through many symptoms, including poor communication, minimal collaboration, and conflicting cross-department objectives. Working in such an environment can make people feel de-linked and uninspired; the staff sees its tasks as isolated and distinct jobs, not an integral part of the bigger picture, and mostly belonging to the same culture.

I found this article meaningful and compelling to the point I found AI Systems can support breaking silos out, reinforcing the principle of Human and AI systems integration.

Let’s see how this realistically could happen.

Detection of Silos :

AI can understand the patterns of communications, workflow integrations, and collaboration frequencies by using machine learning models to understand potential silos as and when they get created. It can also flag light email traffic, infrequent meeting, and low inter-departmental interaction silos.

Enhanced Communication

AI-driven platforms enhance communication among the silos by recommending links based on project requirements and common skills. For the AI-powered tools that improve collaboration software, they may be used to suggest to the users the most suitable stakeholders from other departments who may need to attend a given meeting or, for that matter, work on a given project to obtain the most varied inputs and, hence, avoid silo thinking.

Sharing Data:

AI systems can regroup all the relevant data from different company areas. Everybody in the company can then access and use diverse information.

When all people have access to the same facts and figures, there’s a high probability they will improve the collaborative approach. Departments are not gatekeepers apart from confidential information ( policies and security)

Decision-making enhanced

Data centralisation can magnify decision-making by using information from the whole company, not just part of it. This also helps the company work as one team, whereby every member works toward realising strategy goals.

Conclusion

The only thing that could be positively affected here is a cultural transformation towards more open and connected forms of operation on which AI and ML will be based. Supporting the strategies suggested by Davis, these technologies will base themselves on metrics and analytics that put a lot more weight on a collaborative approach between the functions than the success of individual departments for organisational success.

AI Systems can enhance what Davis has highlighted in his article. To break silos and help people work better together. They help find problems early, improve how people talk to each other, and make sure everyone has the information they need. By using AI and ML, companies can work more like a single team, which makes them stronger and more successful.