What It Really Takes to Break Silos
It was a pleasure to speak on the panel at the Agile Lean ME Summit 2025 earlier this year, on the topic "Cultural Shifts: From Silos to Synergy."
It was really interesting to hear the expertise and insights from my fellow panelists Sudha Khandelwal Abhishek Prasoon and our gracious mediator and host Mariana Ricardo . I appreciated their honesty as we explored how silos form, how leadership can (or fails to) break them down, and how agility must evolve to reflect real human dynamics.
In this article, I’ve pulled together some of my key reflections from the panel — from leadership stories to failed change efforts, and thoughts on the future of collaboration. I hope these insights resonate with others navigating similar transformation journeys.
Question - Breaking Silos: What are the most common cultural barriers that keep teams working in silos, and how can organisations break them down?
Some of the most common barriers I’ve seen are performance metrics that reward individual or departmental success rather than end-to-end product value. This creates competition rather than collaboration. Another is fear of transparency — teams hoarding knowledge as a form of job security. And often, teams lack a shared purpose, so they don’t see how their work connects to the bigger picture.
To break these silos, I believe in rethinking how we approach people and performance — moving from a process-driven HR model to Agile HR, where employee experience is treated like a product. That means shifting from extrinsic rewards to intrinsic motivation, from secrecy to transparency, and from hierarchy to networks. It also means reframing how we recognise performance and encourage collaboration — whether that’s through cross-functional workshops, communities of practice, or aligning everyone behind a clear vision and purpose.
Misaligned Metrics - Departmental KPIs create competition over collaboration.
Fear of Transparency - Knowledge hoarding as job protection.
Lack of Shared Purpose - Teams don’t see their impact on the big picture.
Break Silos:
Adopt Agile HR principles - Focus on employee experience, intrinsic motivation, and networks over hierarchy.
Redesign incentives - Reward cross-functional success, not just siloed output, encouraging collaboration
Communicate vision with purpose - Make the “why” clear and consistent across teams.
Question - Leadership's Role: How can leadership actively drive a cultural shift toward synergy without resorting to top-down mandates?
I was hired by a Danish company to lead Delivery for clients across the region from their Dubai office. The company had offices across Europe and sat under a Japanese umbrella organisation. As Executive Delivery Director, I was part of a global tech consultancy that had recently unified under one brand after previously operating as separate entities.
In my second year, we had an ambitious goal — to launch a new global brand, create a unified operating model, set up a CIO office, and improve commercial and delivery governance.
What stood out during this transformation was the leadership approach. Our Japanese Founder had no fixed base — he travelled constantly and worked hands-on with teams around the world, openly collaborating with everyone involved. The newly hired Welsh Group COO and American Group Chief People & Culture worked closely with me and other Exec Directors across regions to co-create the new structure.
They were visible, authentic, and genuinely role-modelled agility. They didn’t impose a top-down mandate — they invited input, asked questions, and truly valued our insights. Culture wasn’t handed down — it was built together.
They modelled collaboration and listened with intent. This wasn’t lip service to agility or a transformation project with a defined end — it became part of the organisation’s DNA.
Leadership’s Role: Driving Synergy Without Top-Down Mandates
Danish company to lead Delivery
Role-model collaboration - Our Founder worked globally, side-by-side with teams, no HQ mindset — he lived the values of connection and co-creation.
Be visible and authentic - Group COO and CP&C worked directly with Exec Directors like myself to shape the transformation, not control it.
Invite, don’t impose - Leadership asked for input across regions; we were part of designing the operating model, not just receiving it. Listen with intent → They genuinely wanted our insight, not just endorsement — this made it safe to challenge and contribute.
Co-create the culture - The cultural shift came from shared ownership, not a cascade — synergy was built together, not announced in a memo.
Agility in action, not in slogans - Leaders demonstrated agility by working cross-functionally
Agile Lean ME Summit Dubai 2025
Question - Real-World Challenges: Can you share a case where an attempt to break down silos failed? What were the lessons learned?
I worked briefly as a SAFe Coach for a UK company that was facing major barriers in its scaled agile rollout. A small but critical product team, responsible for legacy SaaS products used by major banks, were highly resistant to the new ways of working. Each team member had been with the company for 8 to 12 years.
While the organisation had co-created the agile rollout across the IT function, this particular team had been left out of that journey. As a result, they began hoarding knowledge and putting up walls. From the outside, their behaviour was seen as arrogant and antagonistic — but in reality, it stemmed from fear: fear of the unknown, of becoming irrelevant, and of losing their jobs after years of dedication.
Unfortunately, no one managed this change effectively. The team was excluded and then had a new way of working imposed on them — and people were surprised when they didn’t want to engage. When I spoke to senior leaders, some admitted they saw SAFe as just a ‘rebadging exercise,’ not a meaningful transformation.
With no real buy-in or change management support, both the team and leadership remained disconnected. In the end, the silos only deepened.
Imposed Change - SAFe rollout mandated without co-creation.
Key Team Excluded - A long-standing, high-knowledge product team wasn’t involved in shaping the change.
Resistance Misunderstood - Their pushback was labelled as arrogance, but it was really fear-based.
Leadership Not Aligned - VPs saw SAFe as a surface-level rebranding, not a meaningful shift.
Lack of Change Management - No one addressed resistance or created a safe space to explore concerns.
Lessons Learned:
Bring people on the journey — especially high-stakes, high-knowledge teams.
Understand resistance as fear, not defiance.
Leadership buy-in must be real, not performative.
Change isn’t a rollout — it’s a conversation.
Don’t scale dysfunction — fix foundations first.
Question - Future of Collaboration: How do emerging technologies, like AI and digital collaboration tools, influence the shift from silos to synergy in Agile organisations?
We’ve all heard the phrase “Agile is dead.” I don’t think it’s dead — I think it’s evolving. Moving away from the Agile Industrial Complex — the commercialisation and rigid dogma that has held teams back — and returns the focus to what truly matters: people, collaboration, adaptability.
Agile 2 emphasises human and leadership diversity. We work with quiet thinkers, deep workers, people from different cultures and communication styles. Not everyone thrives in a face-to-face workshop or speaks up in a loud retro. Emerging technologies, especially AI and digital collaboration tools, have a huge role to play in supporting that diversity — enabling syncing work, real-time insights, and inclusive engagement.
For me, agile has always been about collaborative problem-solving. To do that well, you need: The right tools, Diverse minds, Shared purpose, visualisation systems that help teams stay aligned and adaptive.
Agile is evolving, not dying — Agile 2 brings the focus back to people and collaboration.
Collaboration must reflect human diversity — not everyone works or communicates the same way.
AI and digital tools should enable inclusivity (async work, diverse engagement styles).
Cross-cultural dynamics and leadership diversity are essential for true synergy.
Data-driven decision-making helps align teams around facts, not opinions.
Effective tooling (visualisation, CI/CD, real-time dashboards) is non-negotiable for modern agility.
The future of collaboration is about empowering adaptability, not enforcing process.
Final conclusion
Breaking silos isn’t just about restructuring teams or adding new tools — it’s about reshaping culture, leadership, and trust.
Real transformation happens when we co-create change, not impose it. When we value diverse thinking over conformity. And when we build workplaces where collaboration isn’t a process — it’s a shared purpose.
Whether you’re leading a transformation, coaching a team, or designing the systems that support them — the question to keep asking is: Are we creating conditions for people to truly connect and contribute?
Let’s stop scaling dysfunction and start scaling human-centric agility.
I’d love to hear your thoughts — what are you seeing in your organisation when it comes to breaking silos and fostering synergy?
A Little Disclaimer:
My words are my own. Whilst Chat GPT and other AI tools are amazing resources to check my grammar, suggest better formatting and provide catchy headlines when the brain fog sets it, it cannot provide verifiable data without substantiation. It cannot replace experience or the passions and inspirations which fuel our professional lives. Any data and trends I have included have been substantiated via the sources I provide. The insights given in this article are based on my +21 years professional experience, my +6 years in senior leadership roles in The UAE and my own wide-ranging research. If this article has resonated with you please feel free to comment and share, feedback is always welcome and appreciated.