# When a Hub-and-Spoke Executive Hijacks Your Agile Transformation — And What to Do About It | Peter Merel

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/when-a-hub-and-spoke-executive-hijacks-your-agile-transformation-and-what-to-do-about-it-peter-merel
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/when-a-hub-and-spoke-executive-hijacks-your-agile-transformation-and-what-to-do-about-it-peter-merel.md
Podcast: [Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches](https://stenobird.com/podcast/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588)
Published: 2026-05-05T10:05:00+00:00
Episode link: https://scrummastertoolbox.libsyn.com/when-a-hub-and-spoke-executive-hijacks-your-agile-transformation-and-what-to-do-about-it-peter-merel
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/scrummastertoolbox/20260505_Peter_Merel_Tue.mp3?dest-id=246429
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/scrum-master-toolbox-podcast-agile-storytelling-from-the-trenches-445588/episodes/when-a-hub-and-spoke-executive-hijacks-your-agile-transformation-and-what-to-do-about-it-peter-merel
Duration seconds: 991

## Resource

Peter Merel: When a Hub-and-Spoke Executive Hijacks Your Agile Transformation — And What to Do About It Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes . "Either you're going to do what you know works, or you're going to step away. Either way, you're not going to do damage to your client." - Peter Merel After a successful transformation at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Peter Merel moved to Westpac, another major Australian bank, expecting to replicate the same approach. He found an executive who appeared eager to support an agile transformation — but this executive saw agile as the ideal form of micromanagement. Everything and everyone revolved around this one individual, and as Peter began facilitating conversations that didn't hub on the executive, the executive felt disempowered. Peter was blind to this dynamic — he had never encountered it before. The situation deteriorated because Peter had been hired to run a push-based transformation, when he knew from experience that only pull-based transformation works. At Commonwealth Bank, he had built a thin steel thread from business through to DevOps with a small group, proved it worked, and then grown it organically. At Westpac, he let himself be persuaded to push change into the organization, and it compromised everything. The lesson Peter shares is stark: if you can't do what you know works, and you can't step away, then you are the problem. He also warns that when coaches fail this way, they make life harder for whoever comes next — a responsibility that's easy to overlook in the moment. In this segment, we talk about pull-based transformation and why push-based change programs consiste…

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