Silo-Busting Networking Welcomes You
Providing the skills to drive collaboration, corporate alignment, and communication
Silo-Busting Networking is a Philadelphia-based firm whose mission is to ignite your employees' ability to create strategic networks that break down obstacles to growth, productivity, communication, and collaboration. We are successful networkers who've built a share-able set of tools to connect people and get things done in your organization. And we're skilled facilitators who can teach your people to apply these tools. Get in touch with us today.
Discover Our Expertise
Committed to the Art of Building Trusted Relationships
When you engage the Silo-Busting Networking team, you're working with the firm's founders, two experienced internal networking experts. Both Barbara Taylor and Pat Schaeffer have successfully navigated corporate politics and culture, crossing functional boundaries to work through business challenges quickly with few redundancies and little resistance. Both have built solid networks based on credibility, authenticity, and trust.
Barbara and Pat are also leaders in Beacon, the mid-Atlantic region's premier executive networking organization. They combine their unique experiences to help others network more effectively. They bring their expertise to companies to deal with serious gaps in corporate alignment, intra-business knowledge, and cross-company collaboration and communication.
Pat and Barbara have learned that silos kill companies. And they know how to inspire your people to build bridges between silos to get things done!
Barbara Taylor
Co-founder
Barbara is a networking guru. She has used her networking skills to implement cross-business unit and corporate programs at Lincoln Financial. She's also relied on her networking expertise to found and grow her own small businesses. She is Membership Committee Chair of Beacon, the mid-Atlantic region's premier executive networking organization. She is also a certified Contacts Count trainer. Contacts Count is a company founded 20+ years ago to help organizations and individuals develop professional competency in networking skills and strategies that get the job done and bring in the business.
Silo-Busting Networking Services
Discover Our Expertise
Networking Skills Assessment
Our Silo-Busting Networking Assessment measures how effectively your people work with others within their functions and across your company. The 46-item assessment covers the six Silo-Busting Networking Competencies. These are the behaviors and actions your people need to collaborate across functions, business units, and locations.
Regardless of industry or job level, these skills are relevant. It's a 180-degree assessment that takes you and your direct report about 20 minutes each to complete.
And the results are remarkable! Each person receives a comprehensive report showing strengths and development needs in all six competencies. Companies also receive an assessment report showing, in aggregate, the group's Silo-Busting Networking skill strengths and weaknesses.
Skill Development Workshops
Our workshop series focuses on building networking skills. Participants begin to make cross-company connections immediately, right there in the sessions!
We encourage bringing together participants – many of whom may not know one another – from different functions, business units, and locations of your company. Our workshops will help them get to know one another and to understand each others' job responsibilities as well as the key business focus and challenges of their areas. This will be the beginning of solid internal connections that participants will be encouraged to continue after the workshop series ends.
But our program doesn't stop there! We challenge all participants to identify and meet with other employees across your company, with the intent of removing barriers and enhancing collaboration. As participants' internal networks expand, your organization's strategic and operational capabilities will increase exponentially. Your employees will think and act with a broader sense of purpose – working together to ensure your company's ongoing success.
Making Networking Part of the Job
Workshop Structure
The workshop structure consists of a series of sessions delivered online, in-person, or a combination of virtual and live across several months. The workshops are intended to help your people develop strong connections, and this is best done through face-to-face interactions.
Participants don't sit through mind-numbing lectures and lethal PowerPoint presentations. They learn the Six Silo-Busting Networking Competencies and the behaviors associated with them by participating in group discussions, presenting to one another, and taking part in skill-building activities.
Between workshops, participants engage in on-the-job assignments such as creating a "power map" that forces them to think about the groups and/or individuals with whom they need to establish relationships in order to work more effectively.
The entire structure is aimed at showing your people how to make networking a part of their normal work routine.
Participant Resources
Adult learning must be reinforced through application. The tools we provide to participants ensure this.
We provide an action planning worksheet to help every participant complete a strategy for leveraging their assessment results. They set two to three goals for developing the networking skills that were identified in the assessment as development needs. For each goal they create a plan, stating how the needs will be addressed through specific actions. They also identify, for each goal, the resources they will need, such as support from key influencers, collaboration with colleagues, and/or a mentor or coach.
A key resource for participants' plans is our Silo-Busting Networking Development Action Guide. The Guide
covers each of the Six Silo-Busting Networking Competencies, suggesting on-the-job development actions and readings.
We also provide other worksheets and templates to facilitate both workshop activities and between-workshop on-the-job assignments.
Introductory Workshop
If silos are preventing your employees from working together to accomplish important business goals, but you aren't quite ready to invest in the entire workshop series, get a taste of Silo-Busting Networking with our two-hour introductory workshop.
During this interactive workshop, your employees will learn about the six Silo-Busting Networking Skills that matter most. And they'll have the opportunity to use two practical strategies for creating networks of relationships that can improve cross-company communication and collaboration, leading to better results for your employees and for your company.
This workshop won't instantly change behaviors, but it can create momentum toward strong internal networks that break down organizational barriers.
Contact Us
Learn how our facilitated networking learning can benefit your company.
(215) 275-7430
