Shifting the Energy: From Costly Competition to Collective Strength

Breaking down silos isn’t just about fixing structures—it’s about shifting mindsets. Too often, we hear phrases like “Stick to your lane” or “That’s not your area,” which quietly reinforce barriers. The real risk isn’t just inefficiency—it’s that teams stop learning from each other, energy turns inward, and leaders unintentionally model behaviours that hold the whole organisation back. If we want collaboration to thrive, we need to rethink how we channel the natural force of competition.

The next step in this journey is to explore how we move from siloed competition to genuine collaboration. This isn’t about eliminating competition altogether—at its best, competition energises teams, sparks innovation, and raises performance. The challenge is knowing when competition serves the business, and when it comes at a cost.

Healthy Internal Competition

Healthy competition can motivate people and raise performance standards. It works best when:

• It drives innovation – for example, when different teams pitch solutions to a shared business challenge. Each group brings diverse ideas, and the best concepts can be combined to form stronger outcomes.

• It builds capability – a spirit of ‘friendly rivalry’, like sales contests or hackathons, encourages teams to learn, stretch, and celebrate progress.

• It fuels improvement without exclusion – when competition is transparent, fair, and framed as growth-focused, it sharpens execution and lifts organisational energy.

In these cases, competition isn’t about winners and losers; it’s about raising the collective standard.

Costly Internal Competition

Competition turns inward and drains value when:

• Teams duplicate effort because they guard knowledge rather than share it.

• Support areas are sidelined, making it harder for HR, Finance, or IT to provide meaningful help.

• Recognition is hoarded, leaving teams chasing internal approval instead of external results.

• Innovation stalls because no one wants to share their learning in case another group gets the credit.

Here, competition becomes a distraction. Instead of preparing for external threats or market shifts, energy is wasted protecting turf.

Moving Towards Collaboration

Shifting from competition to collaboration requires intentional action from leaders. Practical steps include:

• Creating cross-team learning opportunities – peer sessions where departments share insights to prevent duplication and spread innovation.

• Facilitating joint problem-solving – bringing diverse groups together to solve business challenges and leverage collective intelligence.

• Encouraging informal connections – simple coffee catch-ups or shadowing experiences that help build trust and context.

• Sharing stories openly – talking about what’s working, what’s changing, and where challenges lie.

• Celebrating shared wins – recognition reinforces that collaboration is valued more than competition.

Our Leadership Role

As with silos, collaboration starts with us as leaders. We need to:

• Model transparency—sharing both wins and challenges.

• Invite others into decision-making.

• Challenge the belief that “others don’t understand our business.”

• Hold the mirror up to unhealthy competition and ask: Is this serving us—or costing us?

Final Thought

Competition can light the spark, but collaboration fuels the fire. The real competitors are outside the organisation—not within it. When leaders channel competition towards innovation and remove the costly kind, they unlock a culture where knowledge flows, support areas are valued, and teams achieve more together. Collaboration isn’t just an enabler—it’s the multiplier that turns effort into lasting impact.