Agency Culture Barrier 3: Agency has a competitive and siloed culture that inhibits collaboration
Agencies are less effective when organizational or institutional divisions, competition, and mistrust impede collaboration and teamwork. These barriers may exist within the agency or between agencies. Real or perceived competition for scarce resources may undermine an agency’s ability to effectively and efficiently deliver conservation. A siloed culture can create a positive feedback loop. As an agency becomes more siloed, the degree of mistrust, competition, and miscommunication can increase, reinforcing the siloed culture. Intentionally networking and collaborating across agency and department lines will improve efficiency and help the agency serve broader constituencies. Creating a culture of open communication, transparency and teamwork will help staff at all levels collaborate and work more as a team than as competitors.
Strategy 1: Value and commit to collaboration across internal organization boundaries.
How an agency is organized can affect how staff from various sections, programs, or divisions work together. Organizational boundaries are important for distributing workloads, responsibilities, and accountability across agencies, but they can lead to competition between work units that can inhibit teamwork. In deeply siloed or competitive workplaces, the flow of information can be restricted, which can affect responsiveness and collaboration. It is important for agency staff to develop and maintain relationships across organizational boundaries so there can be shared purpose. Promoting an appreciation of the roles and responsibilities of all agency units and an understanding of how the work of each unit contributes to the agency’s mission can help spur teamwork and collaboration across the organization.
Step 1: Provide staff with a comprehensive understanding of the responsibilities across the entire organization.
Tactic 1: Create opportunities for new and existing employees to develop an understanding of all the work the agency engages in.
When onboarding new employees, it is important that there is an understanding of the comprehensive nature of the agency’s work. Providing an understanding of the role and importance of individual units to the agency’s mission will allow new staff to see their role and contributions as part of a collaborative team. One way to accomplish agencywide cohesion is by encouraging new staff to spend time meeting with staff across jurisdictional boundaries so they can become familiar with their projects and programs. It is equally important to ensure that existing staff are also aware of all the work the agency does and how that work contributes to the whole. As agencies adapt to changing external environments, all staff should be made aware of these changes. An agency could accomplish this by using annual coordination meetings, agency newsletters, training, and internal team communications to inform staff of changes and how those changes affect the agency’s work. Job swaps, job shadowing, work details, and short- term assignments outside of an individual’s usual work duties could help expand staff awareness of agency work, provide new skills, and spur collaboration.
Step 2: Identify and emphasize shared objectives across organizational boundaries.
Tactic 1: Identify areas of collaboration within the agency.
There are many opportunities in which an agency could involve staff from multiple divisions or internal groups to do agency work. Examples include working on a plan for a wildlife management area that includes recreational opportunities for broader constituencies, developing publications and educational programs targeted at new audiences, or involving staff from multiple divisions to work on a project that normally is done by a single division.
Tactic 2: Provide training in effective collaborations and teamwork.
Training may be needed for staff with little experience or understanding of the benefits of collaboration or working as part of a team. Training in effective communication, emotional intelligence, trust-building, conflict resolution, and goal setting could help staff acquire skills necessary to build effective teams and collaborate across jurisdictional boundaries.
Tactic 3: Promote and provide opportunities to collaborate across work units.
Opportunities for collaboration through shared projects or internal working groups or teams can provide personal growth opportunities and skill development and lead to better work products. A supportive environment for cross-collaboration would promote teamwork that could lead to new ideas or approaches that may help the agency expand its reach to broader constituencies.
Step 3: Increase support and expectations for staff to work across all divisions and value the broader purpose of the agency.
Tactic 1: Promote collaborative engagement across all organizational boundaries.
To promote cross-collaboration and teamwork, agency leaders should set high expectations and clear goals, and tie work to performance evaluations. Staff who collaborate should receive recognition or other rewards. Managers and supervisors should regularly reinforce the need for collaboration and celebrate new and successful internal partnerships.
Tactic 2: Prioritize resource allocation decisions that reflect cross-work unit collaborations.
Projects and activities that incorporate multiple work units and use teams should be included as part of the evaluation criteria when making resource allocation decisions. An agency could use interdivisional work groups to seek collaborative opportunities, provide funding recommendations, and provide support for internal partnerships.
Strategy 2: Value and commit to collaborating with other organizations.
Collaborative partnerships can increase the effectiveness of conservation. It can be easy to fall back to regulatory or jurisdictional boundaries that inhibit collaboration with other agencies similarly tasked with conservation work. Two agencies working in silos and competing rather than collaborating can be an obstacle to delivering conservation that benefits broader constituencies.
Step 1: Investigate how the work of other agencies and organizations is relevant to the agency’s mission.
Tactic 1: Identify and understand how other organizations contribute to the agency’s mission and conservation goals.
The agency should identify new potential partners that support and could help the agency achieve its mission and conservation goals. This could be accomplished by engaging with organizations that serve broader constituencies, conducting surveys, holding forums/listening sessions, and soliciting feedback from the public by other means. A key component of this tactic is to be strategic in pursuing partnerships that offer the greatest benefits, since building partnerships may take critical time and resources away from other priorities. Development of a database that lists potential organizations and agencies, their expertise, and alignment with the agency’s mission can help an agency prioritize. Similarly, compiling a history of past partnerships with external organizations, and including case studies illustrating why those partnerships were (or were not) successful can provide learning opportunities and prevent repeat mistakes. Engaging staff at all levels within the agency will help build and sustain collaborations.
Step 2: Establish effective partnerships with other agencies and organizations to accomplish shared conservation goals.
Tactic 1: Set expectations and support staff to work in collaborative conservation partnerships.
Engagement with external organizations should be a clear expectation for staff, and reflected in the agency’s goals, expected outcomes, and work plans. The agency and managers can support staff through funding, access to resources, prioritization of work, and through direct and tacit support from supervisors and leaders. Staff should be rewarded in performance reviews and recognized by their peers for building and maintaining collaborative conservation partnerships with external organizations.
Tactic 2: Create new or support existing collaborative joint working groups with partners.
Creating new steering committees or management groups or supporting existing ones can help an agency develop strong relationships with diverse partners and provide a forum to discuss emerging issues or conservation needs. This approach was used by many states to develop and implement their State Wildlife Action Plan. Durable relationships with diverse partners can greatly increase the ability of an agency to deliver conservation, tackle challenges, and garner support.
Step 3: Maintain and enhance ongoing partnerships and collaborations with external agencies and organizations.
Tactic 1: Using best practices, maintain effective conservation partnerships.
Effective partnerships require commitments of agency and partner time, resources, and application of tested principles and practices. Strong partnerships do not happen by accident, rather, they require hard work and commitment. The U.S. Forest Service has a helpful resource for building and maintaining effective partnerships that includes nine keys to success.
Tactic 2: Evaluate effectiveness of partnerships and adjust as needed.
Partnerships should be regularly evaluated to determine whether goals and expected outcomes are being met. Resources such as One Tam’s Partnership Impact Evaluation Guide, The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Partnership Center, and the World Wildlife Fund’s Partnership Toolbox can be used to set up a process to measure and evaluate partnerships.
© Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Agencies should encourage staff to work across all divisions and value the broader purpose of the agency
