The power of technology and cross-organisational collaborative working

Bridging teams and sparking innovation in collaborative working

How can technology bridge the gap between teams and drive innovation in the hybrid work environment? In this exclusive panel, executive leaders discussed their strategies for enhancing collaborative working.

In today’s hybrid work landscape, effective organisation-wide collaboration has become essential to driving efficiency and growth. The days of siloed teams, systems and data are over – instead there’s a move towards greater cross-functional collaboration, interdisciplinary teams and shared goals in search of business alignment and speed.

In this panel discussion at The Studio Nashville, C-level technology executives discuss how innovative technologies can help to bridge the gaps between teams, departments, and organisations - building cohesive, productive and innovative collaborative working environments which help drive talent attraction, retention, and high-performing teams.

Meet the panellists

• Robin Hamerlinck Lane, CIO, Shure Incorporated
• Laine Hiera, VP Data and Analytics, Bridgestone Americas
• Robert Sheesley, former CIO, Wrench Group
• Francis Chiu, Vice President, BDO Unibank
• Gernette Wright, IT Security Officer, Americas, Schneider Electric

Collaborative working: overview

• The centrality of clarity
• Bridging the gap between technology and business
• Balancing demands and preventing burnout
• Building digital dexterity and resilience
• Managing expectations across generations

Watch the roundtable highlights here:

The centrality of clarity

One of the key points raised in the panel centred around the importance of clarity in today’s business environment. As Robert Sheesley shared, “The biggest challenge that business has today is clarity of expectation.” 

This underscores the need for leaders to establish a shared understanding of expectations between the organisation and its employees—in a multi-generational workforce, this becomes even more essential. Each generation brings different values, experiences and approaches to the workplace.

In the context of modern IT roles, Robert argued that clarity of expectation also ties into emerging positions like prompt engineers. These roles, commanding significant salaries, illustrate the evolving nature of work and career paths. He remarked, “We’re in a very interesting time in our history of commerce and business.” This requires organisations to rethink traditional assumptions about work, roles, and career progression.

Bridging the gap between technology and business

Another discussion point revolved around the alignment—or lack thereof—between IT and business. 

Francis Chiu commented: “If you want this result and you want to get to that endpoint...you have to have the ability to adopt or adapt to whatever technology that’s available.” Resistance to this type of change often stems from fixed methods and mindsets, where teams may want technological advancements but are unwilling to adjust their workflows.

This resistance, he argued, highlights a broader challenge for IT leaders—bridging the gap between technological capabilities and business needs. Francis explained, “How do we get the folks from business to rethink the destination from point A to point B, and how can they accept that new destination?”

Balancing demands and preventing burnout

The demands on IT teams and organisations as a whole are growing. Gernette noted, “There are demands from the board...from your user population...to make things easier, to make things frictionless, if you will, on the security side.” Managing these demands requires careful prioritisation and resource allocation, especially in the context of limited capacity.

The challenge is exacerbated by the many different expectations of a multi-generational workforce. As Robin Hamerlinck observed, “We do have a very long type of population, and people have different appetites for how much they want to work now and what they want to put into it.” Balancing these expectations while ensuring employee well-being is essential. Burnout, particularly in IT teams, poses a significant risk if workloads are not carefully managed. “It does worry me that we could burn out that team.”

Building digital dexterity and resilience

One of the key areas for growth is fostering digital dexterity within the workforce. 

Laine Hiera noted, “The biggest failure in IT that I’ve seen in my experience is user adoption.” For organisations to thrive, employees at all levels must be able to adapt to new technologies and workflows—this requires not only training but also a cultural shift toward embracing change.

Digital dexterity also involves fostering data literacy—by empowering employees to take greater ownership of their technological tools, organisations can reduce the strain on IT teams and improve overall efficiency. Hiera explained, “The demands on IT and on data and on security are not going down, so we’ve got to do something different. We’ve got to work differently.”

Gernette pointed out that this year, resilience has been a recurring buzzword and theme in conversations about the future of work. It applies not only to business operations but also to teams, ensuring they can adapt to challenges and maintain their well-being over the long term. “It's not just on your business resilience also your team as well… that fits right in with your conversation.”

Managing expectations across generations

Managing expectations remains a central challenge in today’s multi-generational workforce. Robert Sheesley shared, “Understanding the expectations of that multi-generational workforce, I think, is extremely important.” This requires leaders to navigate their priorities, demands, and preferences, ensuring alignment across generations while also fostering collaboration.

One common approach is to maintain open lines of communication—this is particularly important when dealing with competing priorities in collaborative working environments. As Gernette put it, “Within our teams, realising that there’s always going to be several, if not hundreds, of priority ones...what are the most important ones, not just for business...but also for us to maintain our humanity?”

This roundtable discussion was made in partnership with Shure.

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