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Breaking down silos

A Senior Leadership Team (SLT) in the South East of England

Client:

A Senior Leadership Team (SLT) in the South East of England.

The Challenge: Breaking Down Silos

The six-member Senior Leadership Team, though individually competent, struggled with collective leadership and cross-departmental collaboration.

Critical organisational issues—such as improving volunteer retention and managing spectator behaviours—were handled within departmental silos. This fractured approach led to friction, duplicated efforts, and slow progress. The CEO needed an intervention to establish a shared purpose and a unified culture of collective problem-solving.

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The Solution

Flying Iguana's "TeamUp" Intervention

Flying Iguana designed a targeted, one-day “TeamUp” program, supplemented by individual coaching, to drive rapid alignment. The intervention was divided into three strategic phases:

1. The Cohesion Blueprint
The day began with an examination of team dynamics. We utilised Mindflick’s Spotlight performance profiling tool to facilitate a session on the team’s collective behavioural preferences. This highlighted shared strengths (e.g., execution, strategic vision) as well as collective blind spots (e.g., communication gaps). The core outcome was the creation of a Shared Team Charter, where the SLT defined its purpose as a unified leadership body, creating the essential “buy-in” for collaborative work.

2. The Collective Challenge Lab
The afternoon focused on their most critical challenge: streamlining support for grassroots clubs. We introduced a structured methodology that forced leaders to abandon departmental lenses for a whole-system perspective.

  • Problem Framing: The team collectively defined the problem’s scope and root causes, ensuring full agreement on the issue before seeking a solution.
  • Rapid Clean Thinking: Leaders worked in small groups to review past approaches, identify gaps in current thinking, and explore the repeating cycles that perpetuated the problem.
  • Unified Action Plan: The session concluded with a single, clear unified action plan and shared accountability metrics, replacing six separate departmental work streams with three clear, collective SLT objectives.

3. Focused 1:1 Coaching
Each of the six SLT members received a 60-minute virtual coaching session. These sessions were designed to help individuals apply the day’s collective learning to their specific roles, focusing on:

  • Constructive Conflict: Building skills to respectfully challenge peers and engage in productive debate.
  • Active Listening: Shifting focus from preparing to speak to deeply listening to understand colleagues’ departmental realities.
  • Accountability: Defining personal commitments to champion the collective solutions agreed upon by the team.

Impact & Results

Within three months, the results of the Flying Iguana intervention were clear:

  • Improved Collaboration: An internal pulse survey showed a significant increase in leaders feeling consulted on cross-departmental issues, indicating a substantial reduction in “Silo Mentality.”
  • Accelerated Delivery: A key strategic priority initiative moved from planning to pilot phase in half the projected time, directly attributable to the unity and clarity achieved during the Challenge Lab.
  • Enhanced Culture: The CEO confirmed a positive shift in SLT meetings, now characterised by more robust strategic debate and faster consensus on key operational decisions.

The “TeamUp” day successfully transformed six heads of department into a single, cohesive, high-performing collective leadership unit, positioning them for more effective service to its stakeholders.

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