Why Your Executive Team C-Suite Is Operating In Silos

Rahul Karan Sharma: Why do some teams flow while others stall in meetings, miscommunications and turf wars? It's rarely about skills and almost always about silos. In today's episode of the Climb the Confident Leader podcast, we will dive into real reasons collaboration breaks down and what to do when it does. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Climb Confident Leader podcast where we share stories of leaders moving from invisible to becoming an influencer. I'm um, your host Rahul Karan Sharma and I am dedicated to helping leaders become that confident leader that they are destined to be. Our guest today is someone who is coming from a different territory. Uh, she is coming in dialing in from Israel. She is a team architect and executive leader coach and an author of the book Clicking a Team Building Strategy for Overloaded Leaders who want stronger team trust, better results and more time. Our guest work is rooted in helping leaders move beyond coordination and build high trust, self sufficient teams and that collaborate across silos and make decisions together. On that note, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hand together for Daria Rudnick to over Climb leadership development and Cordville Radio podcast. Daria, how are you doing today?

Daria Rudnick: Well, hi Rahul, thanks. First of all, thanks for having me here. I love listening to your podcast and I'm super excited to be here as your guest today.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Awesome. And for our listeners, Daria also happens to be my colleague at the Forbes, uh, Coaches Council. That's how we met and she's really making an impact in her community globally as well as uh, locally. So thank you Daria for doing what you are doing to build that leadership acumen on the client that you serve. So thank you for doing that. With that said, Daria, ah, would you mind sharing your own leadership journey with our audience? How you did things that you did and what made you be here today, uh, on the platform which has been listened by top global 1.5% of uh, listeners. Share your leadership journey with us.

Daria Rudnick: Well, thanks for uh, that question, Raul. I started my career in Deloitte and then like all of my corporate experience, I was working for HR and organization development. I was chief people officer for tech and telecom companies and I've helped companies go through like various disruptions and transformations like cultural transformation, setting up offices in other countries, global financial crisis. As I was working in the bank at that time. So I kind of felt it firsthand how it was like. And um, now helping leaders go through like all the disruptions this world is facing like Covid and military conflicts and um, AI is entering workplace which is a huge game Changer now. And through all my career, I've seen how strong teams can actually make things happen and how dysfunctional, sometimes toxic, sometimes just not. A real team can lead to organizational disappearance. Whether it's the company is acquired by another company and just disappears and dissolves. And in it or it goes, it gets some lawsuits from the angry customers because they made a huge mistake that was made because they didn't have the right teams to manage the process and operations and fulfill their goals.

Rahul Karan Sharma: M. Wow. Uh, the first golden nugget that I just received from Daria is the strong teams can create their own miracles. So focus on building that strong team. Focus on building that team that can deal with any situation, can deal with any circumstances, and can come out as a clear winner. So thank you Daria for uh, bringing that up. And when I was doing my own research, what I found is many teams today operate in silos. And that could be because, uh, there's an M and A has happened, there is a change in leadership or for that reason they are working in different territory, different countries for that matter. Now the functions are isolated from each other and disconnected from purpose. Why does this continue to happen and what's the first step leaders should take to break down those barriers?

Daria Rudnick: Well, it's a super important question about silos. And especially the higher up in the hierarchy we go, the more isolated those functions become. Because like when you're a team of six to eight people, usually you can find ways of working together. But once you start having some team leads or first line managers and then department leads, it all becomes more and more isolated. They kind of drift apart. And I mean there are many reasons on why this is happening. Sometimes it's the way organization is designed, sometimes it's ego of those leaders. What I see often happens is when you have a, let's say an executive team and you have C suite, like you have chief financial officer, chief marketing officer, uh, Chro, CTO and all the other CXO roles. And if you ask them, okay, what's your team? What they say? What they usually say is they say my team is marketing or my team is finance and my team is R, uh and D and a ohr and what it creates, it creates. It shifts their focus from their executive team from solving problems together as an executive team, finding solution that will help each other. They are isolating and focusing on their functional teams and that creates fight for resources, competition, competition for CEOs attention. Because they're seeking attention not as a team leader, but as a function that needs to be protected, that needs to be led, that has their own KPIs. And those KPIs are much more important than KPIs of the whole organization. So the most important shift leaders, well starting from a CEO, they need to make that your team. When you say my team, your team is your team of peers. It's not the team where you are a leader. And it was critical. It was very hard shift for me personally was I was chief people officer because who am I? Am I a leader, a chief people officer leading a huge organization of, I don't know, dozens of people? Or am I one of the peers and listening to them and trying to understand their needs and finding solutions together and giving up my resources and giving up like some of my KPIs because there is a bigger uh, more important goal that we all want to work together and we all want to achieve.

Rahul Karan Sharma: M. Wow, very well said that you are team of peers and uh, not the team of that function or a department that you represent. And I do understand that when you are working on day to day basis, that function head role will come into play. But as a leader we need to look from a larger perspective. Are we solving the problem of your function or your function exists to solve the problem of the organization and sometimes we forget that bigger picture. So thank you for uh, bringing that up Darya, where we are a team of peers for that one common goal for that one organization who is bringing food on table for us. So thank you. I just want to seek your inputs, Daria. Uh, I know you work with multiple leaders globally across the organization, across the different industry. And I would want to pivot from uh, the thoughts that you just shared to our framework that we have created, Darya. Uh, the climb framework where we believe that every leader has its own journey. So there is no one size fits all framework can work. And what we believe that many leaders, they move from different stages as they are navigating their leadership journey. Right from being an invisible to becoming a potential, uh, and then to becoming an achiever and becoming an influencer. And for each stages they have to navigate their own path. So my question for you is, do you still see that these stages resonate, uh, in the world that you are supporting, in the industries that you are supporting? Are there any names coming to your mind when you hear these terms? An invisible leader, a potential leader, achiever leader, an influencer leader?

Daria Rudnick: Well, totally. I mean I can recognize, recognize that among many of my clients who come to me and say I want to move to the Next role. Or I want to be a better leader or I want to be, I want to lead my team in a more effective way. And a lot of it starts with them being high performers themselves and kind of great individual contributors. Moving to leadership position, trying again, still having and keeping this hat of being high, productive, high performing, doing a lot of things themselves, but without clear focus. Okay. Now my role is different now I need to be more visible. Now I need to build relationship with stakeholders because I'm not responsible for my job on there. I'm responsible for those people who are on my team. And, and the more you grow and like it depends on the organization and on the person, but the more they grow in their role, the more they realize that it's, it's not only about performing, uh, like doing the job well and everybody will see that and recognize that. It's a lot about building the right relationship with the stakeholders. Finding advocates, finding people who will support you, managing relationships with those people who don't support you at the moment and kind of growing through those stages from being invisible to being someone like a go to person in the organization is a very critical path for all leadership. Absolutely.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Wow. So, so, so thank you for commenting on that aspect that these stages still resonate with the clients that you work with and the organization that you work with. Definitely.

Daria Rudnick: I have a story, okay, I have a story about that and it's really an interesting story about like the, the leader who like started as a, uh, as a sort of, we'll say invisible leader and once she thought she wanted to take up a project but she, okay, uh, people don't know me. I'm, I'm too invisible. How do I, can I, can I be like move position? I'm not that kind of person. I'm not playing politics. I'm, I want to like keep like be true to my values. But as soon as she started to talk to those people and, and have reach out to them and trying to understand what is it they need, she realized it's not about politics, it's about how they see her as a leader. What kind of values she bringing to them. Once that become clear, they promoted her to executive position like straight away. I'm sure she'll become a um, very influential lead in her organization. But just going out there having those conversations and understanding like you're afraid of too many things. Don't think beforehand. Go talk to people.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Right. Yeah. I think uh, thank you for bringing that example because it's all about that mindset. You need to cultivate the mindset that everything is not happening to you, it is happening for you. And, uh, when you start cultivating your mindset from a perspective that you are not the victim, you still can make a difference. You still can make an impact. That really changed the trajectory of your leadership journey. So thank you, Daria, for bringing that story up. I really appreciate that. The other aspect I also want to bring your, uh, thoughts on is you talk about in your book about the difference between a working group and a real team. How does this distinction impact trust, decision making and collaboration across departments?

Daria Rudnick: Well, thanks for bringing that up because, like the word team is overused. We're using it way too much. If a group of people have one manager, that doesn't make them a team. The only way, uh, you can call a group of people a team is when they have shared purpose, when there is a goal that they're reaching, that they can only reach together by collaboration and not by summing up their individual contributions. If they have that goal, then they need to have interconnections. It means they need to work together, they need to collaborate, they need to understand how to support each other. And that's when one to one equals more than two. It could be three, four, five, et cetera. And then finally you need to have a structure. So you need to be very clear about who is that on the team and who is not part of the team. Why? Because it influences decision making process. Who's making decision, what are the roles, who's doing what, how do we collaborate? And I, uh, used to work with the company and they, I mean that it was crazy on this executive team, they had from five up to 30 people. And um, when someone was calling an executive meeting, no one was like kind of um, understood, okay, who's going to be on that meeting. And then CEO always, okay, it's going to be this, this, this, this and this person. There was a closed circle, a more expanded circle, the biggest circle, and what's what no one knew, like what's the role of each of those circles, why those people joining one meetings and um, the others are not. How do we make decision? What it created is that every single individual went to CEO for approval. And even when someone got approval from the CEO, the other one could go to the CEO and get those approval reversed and like in their favor. And that happened all the time. And it was absolutely unproductive. It was destroying trust between team members. They didn't trust each other because all they had to do is they had to build strong relationship with The CEO to get what they wanted.

Rahul Karan Sharma: M. Wow. I think uh, you dropped another golden nugget on the definition of team. So the team is just not a group of individuals working together. They need to have a uh, shared goal, shared purpose, the accountability piece as well as the aspect of the clarity in structure. When do you meet, how do you meet, how do you communicate the accountability aspect and who is responsible for what aspect of the job. So thank you for bringing that clarity of what team is and what is not can be called as a team. Thank you Daria. Now I want to pivot from uh, the concepts of the team to your book clicking. And uh, what I learned is one pillar in your team click framework. So you talk about that click framework in your book. And one of the pillar is linking connection. How can leaders intentionally strengthen their relationship across roles, functions and geographies to build that real connection? Share your thoughts please.

Daria Rudnick: I love that question. It's so important, especially in the remote setting. Yes. In my book I have those Qlik framework which consists of five pillars. One we talked about that's clear purpose, then linking connection, then integrated work. Those work rules and norms and accountability that you mentioned. Then collaborative decisions and knowledge sharing. Those five pillars, you have them. This makes your team click. And linking connections is one of the critical ones. And there are two aspects of those. The first aspect is how you connect your team members to each other. The problem of current today leaders is that they overloaded. I mean they overloaded with multiple demands from their stakeholders, from their bosses, from their customers, from their teams. Bosses want, uh, performance, clients want excellent service, team wants engage us, uh, motivate us, bring clarity to us, help us succeed. And everybody wants something from those managers and what they do. Especially those who want to be good leaders, who want to be there for their team members. They, they, they communicate a lot with their team members, which is great. So they have lots of one to ones. The problem with a lot of one to ones is that you have those connections with your team members and team members can reach out to you with any question. But what they're lacking is they're lacking connections with each other. So you as a leader have, I don't know, five or six connections on your team. Your team members have one, you as a leader and that creates huge workload for the leader. But it also creates an isolation for those team remote ones. So for any leader leading remote teams or maybe on site, teams also make sure that people on the team are connected through micro collaborations, through project mini projects, mentoring, buddy groups, whatever it Is so if they have a problem or question, they're working on some idea, they reach out to their team members first and then to you as a leader for approval or, I don't know, suggestion or whatever it is. But first they talk to each other. They have those connections and that makes it feel like they feel better because they have lots of people they can reach out to for help and advice. And it makes easier, it makes life easy for you as a manager because now you have free time. And I was working with a leader who, who did that on the team and he created those buddy groups where more senior employees were coaching and mentoring junior employees. And like so many questions were just delegated to those buddy groups. Instead of him as a manager solving all the problems, they were fully capable of solving those problems on their own.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Wow. And as I was hearing your response, uh, what was coming to my mind, Arya, was this response of yours is busting another myth, which is as a leader you have to have all answers and your response around linking connection, really enlighten on that aspect, that you don't need to have the all the answer as a leader. You need to create that environment within your group, within your team, within your organizations so that people get their responses, people get their answers. And what a better way to do it by giving those micro projects, by creating that buddy system as well as a platform where people are not hesitant in asking questions with other leaders. In my experience I have observed that the uh, groups, their people become so territorial that they don't even engage with leaders from other groups. I've also observed that their own leaders, they discourage them to interact with people on the other teams or other groups. So if you are part of an organization where your leaders are discouraging you to interact with others, you know what to do. I don't need to put words in your mouth.

Daria Rudnick: Okay, I have a story about that too.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Yes, absolutely. Please share.

Daria Rudnick: I'm sorry for interrupting you, but it's like illustration of what you just said, how it is important for uh, team members to be connected to like the wide organization. So there was this and there still is the cybersecurity team. And the leader, she, she was very, well, intentional. She wanted to protect her team, she want team members, she wanted to support them. And what she did, she became the go to person on cybersecurity for the whole organization. So everyone reached out to her. She was um, answering to all the responses, handling all the feedback, positive and negative, and then sharing some with team members that she thought would be like good for them to know. When she saw the engagement results for team, she was paralyzed because, wow, the engagement score was very low. And she didn't understand why. Um, I'm there to protect them, I'm there to help them. But it actually happened that they felt isolated from the organization. They didn't have those connections with the wider organization. They didn't know their stakeholders. They, I mean they, they were losing motivation and meaning in their work. So she shifted, changed her behavior and what she did instead, she paired her team members with various stakeholders. So they reach out to them themselves, different leaders, different teams. And they asked questions about their needs. They got their feedback, positive and negative. They learned from their mistakes. They became connected not only within the team, but also with the wider organization. And that created a sense of understanding. Okay, now I know the people I'm helping. Now I know more about organizational goals and purpose. Now I can meaningfully contribute to them. And they became more engaged, they became more motivated, and things changed for the leader. And she, uh, finally had some time to breathe because she was overwhelmed.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Yeah. Uh, what a great story to resonate that every question or everything should not stop at you. If you are a leader, you should be involved at a very crucial stage. You need to create that environment or create that or probably empower your people so they are able to find the responses of their challenges. So thank you for sharing that story. Now, Daria, I wanted to switch gears on, um, something in today's world we are talking a whole lot about is AI, artificial intelligence. And I do have my workshops around AI for leaders in this AI driven world. How does AI impact collaboration across silos? And what practices would you recommend that can help teams to stay human centric even with hybrid intelligence?

Daria Rudnick: And I love that you mentioned that AI for leaders, because AI is not a technological. Well, it's not only a technological shift. It influences the way we think, the way we work, the way we collaborate. It has a huge influence on workplace dynamics. And again, I'll tell you a story about this collaboration, breaking up the silos and bringing people together. In AI, we know that things are changing very fast. And what organizations do is they try to experiment with AI a lot. So different teams have different units working on AI and bringing their own tools and bringing their own kind of frameworks that they like using. And, um, I was working with a leader who wanted to be an, um, AI leader for the whole organization. And you thought, okay, we're wasting too much, too many resources on using different tools, different methodologies, and we also have different KPIs so how can we unify that? But it was very hard to do because from the beginning, all of those teams, they felt like they owned their own tools, that they owned those projects that they found, that they created, and that made it hard for them to actually let them go and create something that's unified for all of them. So while working with AI, it is very critical if you implement that, uh, be very clear about that. It is an experimental stage where you try, you fail, you test. But then at some point we'll have to find the better solution. How we move forward with AI. What is it we are using, what is it we are not using? And in this particular case, it was very important to understand the metrics because, I mean, there's always the next better thing in AI. So the question is, should we chase those this next better thing, or if this thing is helping us with our needs and we should stick to it for now? Monitor environment, yes, but not chasing the new technology because they pop up just like crazy. So being very clear about how you implement AI in your organization and what are the next steps is a critical part of AI transformation.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Very well said. And, uh, the way I look at it is AI is not about technology. AI is more about enabling people to, to do better. And it is so important for our leaders to make sure that people are very much clear when it comes to the strategy you as an organization are using to implement AI. Uh, don't just focus on that bandwagon of AI. Make sure that you do your own check and balances to ensure that people are truly making the AI to its best use rather than just using AI because everyone else is using AI. So thank you for, uh, bringing that up and how AI can help in this hybrid, uh, environment and how AI can really make a difference. I always say that it's not that AI that will replace people. It will be those people who are leveraging AI will replace people who are not leveraging AI. Now, before, uh, we move to our fun rapid fire round, Darya, uh, I wanted for our listeners or people who are watching us on YouTube, if they want to get collaborated with you and your work, how can they connect with you and how can they explore working with you and the Qlik framework?

Daria Rudnick: Well, thanks for that question. I'm very open to connections on LinkedIn. Reach out to me, send me a message. Let's keep this conversation going. You can also find more about, like me and my work and my book. Clicking on my website darierrudnik.com I particularly publish lots of interesting materials and, like, uh, workshop scenarios and templates and checklists for managers if your team is overusing AI or not is one of them, for example. But reach out to me. I'd be happy to continue this conversation.

Rahul Karan Sharma: All right, and we will include her LinkedIn profile and website on the show notes so that it's easy for you to reach out to Daria. Now we are moving to the fun rapid fire round. Uh, there will be five questions coming to you, and we would want to hear your responses instantly. All right, you ready, Daria?

Daria Rudnick: Okay, let's go.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Okay, so, uh, what is one leadership skill you wish someone had taught you earlier?

Daria Rudnick: Networking. I mean, networking is critical.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Okay, what is one daily routine you never skip, no matter how your hectic day is?

Daria Rudnick: I go to bed early on time. I mean, I go to bed on time all the time. It's critical for me to have enough sleep.

Rahul Karan Sharma: All right, so the next question is probably easier for you to respond is, are, ah, you a morning person or a night owl?

Daria Rudnick: I'm my morning person.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Yep. Yep. I could figure that out the moment you mentioned that you go to bed early. Uh, as a leadership coach, what is your preference? What is your ideal leadership retreat? Is it indoors or outdoors?

Daria Rudnick: It's on the job. The best learning always happens on the job.

Rahul Karan Sharma: Very good. And then, uh, the final one. If your career were a Netflix series, what would be the title of season one be?

Daria Rudnick: How could that happen?

Rahul Karan Sharma: Ooh, how could that happen? Very well said. So thank you for being so, uh, friendly and so sportingly taking these questions. Really appreciate that. And now, uh, team, we are moving to the final segment where we want you to mention your biggest takeaway from our episode today. It is time for me to share my learnings from the episode and for you as well. So put it in the comments on YouTube or on Apple or Spotify. So there have been many golden nuggets that were dropped in by Duria, uh, today. A strong team can create their own miracles. They are so powerful, they are so practical that they can do any wonders in the world. Your team is not the function that you are representing. It is not the department that you are representing. It is not the territory that you are representing. Your team is a team of peers to make sure that we are focusing on that one goal, that one objective for the larger organization. Another aspect that Daria mentioned is the definition of the team. So team is one that it has a shared purpose, shared goal, can collaborate together. And when that collaboration happen, that's when one plus one does not equal to two, but one plus one equals to 11. So it's not on the clarity on the structure that matters to make the team successful. Her Qlik Framework C stands for clear purpose, L stands for linking connection, I stands for integrated work, C stands for collaborative decisions and K stands for knowledge sharing. Qlik Framework, which is part of our book clicking can definitely help you to make your team Click. Finally, if as a leader, if everything is stopping at you, that means there is something wrong. Do not make an environment that everything comes to you. Create an environment in the way that people are empowered to find the answers for their questions by allowing them to work on micro projects, by allowing them to work with other teams, by allowing them to have that buddy system so that they can get answers for their day to day challenges. With that said, we are uh, closing down on this uh, episode of ours. So thank you Dario for unpacking such a compelling and practical approach to breaking down silos and building teams that truly click. Your insights remind us that collaboration isn't accidental, it is intentional. For leaders ready to move beyond firefighting and towards shared leadership, the Qlik Framework offers roadmap to trust, alignment and sustainable performance. As we wrap up, I want to leave you with this thought. Leadership can be lonely, but it does not have to be lonely journey. I invite you to join our leadership uh LinkedIn group which is leadership sounding board where we have group of leaders sharing different perspective because ultimately it is not about more knowledge, more training, more workshop. It is about different perspective. So join that group of hours and get different perspective on your day to day leadership issues and challenges. With that said, thank you again Daria and listeners. I would invite you to follow us on Apple Podcast, the client leadership developer and confident leader podcast. Thank you once again and have a great rest of the day.

Daria Rudnick: Thank you. Uh, thank you.