A Fresh Perspective on Collaboration in Complex Organizations
By Andy Friedman
In our previous article, we explored the Silo Effect — one of the most common leadership and organizational challenges faced by matrixed and multi-layered organizations.
We identified several types of silos: systemic, territorial, elitist, and defensive, and offered practical solutions such as aligning goals, creating cross-unit incentives, and building collaboration infrastructures. In this article, we take you one step deeper — offering a complementary lens that looks at organizations not just as structural systems, but as living psychological entities, complete with fears, defense mechanisms, and identity dynamics.
In other words, we invite you to dive beneath the surface — into the emotional spaces where collaboration is not just about performance metrics, but about identity, anxiety, and the need to belong.
The Psychological Split That Feeds the Silo
We recently spoke with the Chief Technology Officer of a large global organization who shared a familiar sense of frustration:
“Every time we try to push forward a cross-unit project, it gets stuck.
In the end, everyone retreats to their own tribe.
They simply don’t trust anyone else.”
What we found, when we looked closer, was not a technical or operational problem — but a deeply human one.
Beneath the misaligned objectives and endless disagreements, we encountered anxiety:
- Fear of losing control
- The need to protect one’s separate identity
- A basic lack of trust in others
These aren’t just management issues — they are the emotional defense mechanisms of organizational life.
And if we hope to resolve them, we first need to understand how they work.
Four Psychological Mechanisms That Make Silos So Resilient
We offer four psychological lenses that reveal the hidden dynamics keeping silos in place — often outside of leaders’ awareness:
- Projection (Freud):
The instinct to project inner fears, frustrations, and aggression onto others in order to preserve an inner sense of control. - Splitting (Klein):
The tendency to divide the world into “good” and “bad” as a defense against overwhelming emotional complexity. - Transitional Space (Winnicott):
The capacity to hold differences and tension without collapsing into conflict or disconnection — creating a space for meaningful collaboration without losing individual identity. - Basic Assumptions (Bion):
Bion showed that teams often operate based on unconscious emotional drives — such as anxiety, dependency, or avoidance of leadership.
When this happens, teams create external enemies to avoid facing their own internal fears.
The result?
Irrational behaviors disguised as rational organizational decisions.
Together, these perspectives point to a simple but powerful truth:
If you want to solve tensions between teams, you first need to listento the fears no one is saying out loud.
Four Emotional Patterns That Keep Silos Alive — And How to Break Them
1. To Feel Like “Us”, We Need a “Them”
According to Freud, groups often form their identity by creating an external enemy — someone to blame, someone to project frustrations and anger onto.
In organizations, this enemy is often another team: Marketing, Finance, or IT — any group that helps a team feel more unified and morally justified in its own position.
For example:
In one of the largest healthcare organizations, the Customer Service team had defined the Data team as “the enemy”.
“They sit up there in their ivory tower. They have no idea what’s really going on here,”
they claimed.
Meanwhile, the Data team shot back:
“They don’t even know what to ask for. They’re not professional.”
Both sides were feeding their identity through this contrast:
“We are the real ones — they’re just theoretical.”
The breakthrough didn’t come through another task alignment session.
It came through a human conversation, where each side heard — for the first time — the fears of the other:
- Fear of making mistakes
- Fear of being abandoned
- Fear of losing relevance
Only when those fears were named did real collaboration begin to emerge.
2. Splitting the World Into Good and Bad
Klein described how, when the world feels too threatening or complex, we split it into “good” and “bad”.
Organizations do this too.
For example:
In an Israeli-international fintech company, Development teams refused to collaborate with Operations.
They described them as “holding us back”, “bureaucratic”, and “visionless”.
But when we paused and asked them to articulate what exactly frustrated them, the real fear emerged:
They were afraid of losing control over the processes they had designed and nurtured.
They were blaming the “others”, but the anxiety was their own.
Only when that fear was named and brought into the open did the silo begin to dissolve.
3. Creating “Transitional Spaces” Between Connection and Separation
Winnicott taught us the value of “transitional spaces” — places where groups can meet, collaborate, and play, without losing themselves or merging completely.
This is exactly what organizations need:
Spaces where teams can work together while maintaining their distinct identities.
For example:
In a global consumer goods company, Marketing and Operations were tasked with launching a new product line under tight timelines.
Instead of starting with KPIs and deadlines, we asked them to begin with a personal round:
“Can you recall a moment when your collaboration with the other team actually worked really well?”
The conversation became personal, unexpectedly soft, and human.
Only after this moment of connection did they move to KPIs and timelines.
Their shared journey began not with targets, but with memories.
4. Groups Are Driven by Emotion — Not Just by Task
Bion reminds us that we shouldn’t judge a group by what it says it’s doing, but by how it feels to be in it.
A team may look task-focused, but underneath, it might be driven by anxiety, dependency, or emotional disconnection.
When this happens, the silo becomes a defense mechanism — a way to avoid dealing with those uncomfortable emotions.
Recognizing these emotions is the first, essential step before any meaningful behavioral change can happen.
Our Solution: A Shared Journey Beneath the Surface
Based on these real-world insights, we’ve designed a unique journey for leadership teams — not as a one-time workshop, but as an ongoing human process.
A journey that invites participants to explore the emotional dynamics that block collaboration and keep silos alive.
This journey unfolds in three key stages:
The Three Stages of the Journey
Stage 1: Discovery
We begin by mapping the “emotional landscape” of the teams involved:
- What do we feel, think, and fear?
- What stories do we tell ourselves about the other team?
At this stage, the focus is not on business targets, but on imagination, identity, and the need for control.
Stage 2: Dialogue
Much like relationship therapy, we create a safe and structured space where the teams speak directly to one another — not about tasks, but about emotions:
- What angers us?
- What unsettles us?
- What do we secretly appreciate about the other, but often forget to say?
The goal here is not agreement, but the ability to hold the complexity without splitting, blaming, or retreating.
Stage 3: Building
With a stronger human foundation, the teams are ready to start building new agreements:
- A psychological contract
- Ongoing communication routines
- A shared code of engagement
- Conflict resolution mechanisms
These aren’t generic checklists — they are deep commitments grounded in real human connection.
The Silo Is Not the Enemy — It’s a Symptom
When we stop seeing silos as just structural barriers, and start recognizing them as emotional responses to fear, anxiety, and complexity,
new possibilities open up.
Instead of trying to break silos by force, we invite leaders and teams to listen to them — to understand what they are trying to protect, and then to offer meaningful alternatives.
Instead of demanding collaboration, we help build the psychological safety that allows true collaboration to emerge naturally.
Ready to Take Your Team on This Journey?
If you’d like to bring this process into your organization, or explore how to integrate these tools into your everyday leadership practice,
we’d love to walk this journey with you.
