Working together means building better relationships across departments.
When the Chicago Bears first began building a girls flag football program in Illinois, the effort was mostly limited to one team.
“There was no marketing, there wasn’t a huge communications integration,” said Micaeh Johnson, director of corporate communications for the Chicago Bears organization. Johnson will speak during Ragan’s PR Daily Conference next month. “They were just driving it forward.”
The NFL team was able to garner some interest in the program. Beyond that, it just didn’t spread, Johnson said.
“We were able to impact about 15 teams from schools across the state,” she said.
This only changed once internal teams decided to collaborate. Communications built a plan. Marketing added amplification. Others assisted with ideas.
“As we started adding in those different components, that’s where we saw the reach become greater,” Johnson said. “People started externally paying attention.”
By 2024, the effort had grown enough to influence policy, she said.
“The state of Illinois said this is big enough that we want to make sure that it’s accessible to all girls across the state,” she said. In its second year, the program established more than 25 clinics and reached 2,600 students statewide.
Collaboration trumps working in silos, Johnson said. When teams communicate across departments, there’s greater impact and improved understanding of an organization’s broader goals.
Silos start earlier than most teams think
Organizations usually try to fix silos by improving workflows or adding processes, but Johnson says that’s too late by that point.
Before a new project, initiative or program, communicators have to determine who is included, she said. This needs to happen before all the ideas are formed.
If teams are left out at the start, they don’t get to help shape the strategy. They might not even understand it completely, Johnson said. They may execute pieces of it, but they don’t see the bigger picture.
“Are we being inclusive? Are all departments represented?” Johnson said. “Some people’s value really comes more towards execution and the end, but it doesn’t mean they should not shadow the process.”
When teams are brought in late, they see tasks. When they’re brought in early, they see goals, she said.
“They may just see it as a tactic,” she said. “But if you’re bringing them in from the very beginning, they can understand the larger strategy and the business goals.”
When teams stay isolated, the damage spreads
Johnson sees the effects of siloed work show up quickly and across the organization. For their flag football program, it was seen through initial reach and impact, or lack thereof. At the time, nobody was effectively communicating.
“Isolation. Bad corporate culture. Work-life balance becomes stressful,” she said. “There’s just a lot of stress when you’re working in isolation.”
The way teams talk about their work shifts too.
“Departments start to talk more about what they’re doing instead of what the group is doing,” she said.
Then there are operational costs to siloed working.
“Maybe you’re paying for the same thing and you don’t know it because no one’s talking to each other,” she said. “Maybe there was a way of working together and using your resources collectively.”
Silos create duplication, tension and unnecessary wasted spend, she said.
Why this problem is getting harder
There’s also larger shifts inside organizations that are reinforcing silos, Johnson said.
“Advertising and marketing historically have always held a lot of dollars and a lot of power,” she said. “Now they don’t necessarily have that same weight.”
Content and digital teams now have more influence, and some marketing responsibilities overlap. Tension can follow this, she said.
“A lot of conflict is industry driven,” she said. “It could just be what is happening around you.”
The absence of communications leadership can make that worse.
“A lot of organizations don’t have chief communications officers,” she said. “It is very hard to be able to advocate for communications without having that chief at the table.”
Collaboration needs structure to work
Getting more people involved doesn’t fix silos on its own. Without clear ownership, work stalls or splinters, leaving teams frustrated.
Johnson points to the need for a defined leader to move work forward.
“There could be a project manager in communications. There could be a project manager in marketing,” she said. “But who’s experienced enough to do that? Identifying that is really important.”
She describes that role as the “engine” behind a campaign.
That person doesn’t necessarily own all the ideas. But they keep them moving forward.
“There should not necessarily be ego in that project management,” she said. “But identifying it is important.”
Without that structure, collaboration turns into confusion. With it, teams can move together even when roles differ.
Communicators already know how to fix this
Communications teams are usually best positioned to break through silos because they already manage complex relationships every day.
“Most of your job is managing relationships externally,” she said. “So then your challenge is, how do I manage this internally?”
The same skills apply there: listening, adapting and building trust.
“You really do have to treat each individual department uniquely, the same way that you would treat any relationship,” she said.
The girls flag football example makes Johnson’s point clear: One team working alone created some initial progress. Multiple teams working together created scale and impact.
“Silos limit efficiency and they limit impact,” she said. “If collaboration starts late, the ceiling stays low. If it starts early, the work has room to grow.”
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at courtneyb@ragan.com.
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