Informal power in organisations often has more impact than formal structure. On paper, everything looks clear, with defined roles and reporting lines. It looks structured, orderly and easy to follow. But that is not how work actually happens....
You hear it all the time. Two people are not getting on. There is tension. The issue gets labelled as interpersonal, so the response is usually simple:Keep an eye on it Let them sort it outSeparate them if needed It sounds reasonable. Low intervention. Low risk. But in...
Culture problems are sometimes described as being about “one or two bad apples”. This framing is understandable as leaders notice behaviour first. But when conflict keeps resurfacing, even after people have been managed or moved, it’s often a sign that something broader is at play....
“We’ve tried training, HR processes, OD support… and nothing has changed.” It's something I often hear when organisations get in touch. This post is the first in a short blog series on culture repair....
Before teams can collaborate well, challenge decisions, learn from mistakes or improve performance, psychological safety and trust between colleagues have to be in place... teams perform better when people feel safe to speak up, ask for help and admit uncertainty...
Workplace cliques show up in many organisations, across sectors and industries, yet we rarely talk about them openly, and even less often do we understand how to manage them....
What is one small behaviour you could do today that demonstrates respect and humanity at work? Workplace civility is built one interaction at a time. When we get the small things right, the bigger things become easier....
Flexible working only works when it supports culture and performance. It’s often treated as a perk. But the research is clear: when flexibility is designed around people, not convenience, you improve mental health, job satisfaction and output. Flexible working reshapes: how people...
Role clarity shapes how you work, how you feel and how well your team performs. When roles are unclear, you get confusion, lower performance, and rising stress. This post explains why role ambiguity drains performance and wellbeing, and what you can do to fix it. Role ambiguity shows up when...
Every team has ghosts. Unspoken conflicts. Forgotten promises. Legacies of past leaders that still impact upon behaviour. These hauntings linger in workplace culture, influencing how people think, interact and perform. They don’t appear on engagement surveys, but you can feel them, in low...
Even in “values-based” workplaces, good people can unintentionally enable bad behaviour. Leaders often wonder how teams that talk about respect and inclusion still tolerate incivility, cliques or subtle exclusion. The answer lies in behavioural drift in teams - the slow shift in what’s...
Culture debt builds up when you overlook small issues in how people behave at work. Like financial debt, the longer you leave it, the more interest it accrues. A missed opportunity to address an eye-roll in a meeting, an off-hand comment, or a subtle exclusion can turn into something much bigger:...
A curt interruption in a meeting. An eye-roll when someone speaks. Leaving a colleague out of a decision they should be part of. These behaviours might seem harmless in isolation. But together, they corrode trust. Micro-behaviours are subtle actions that communicate disrespect or exclusion....
It’s one of the questions I get asked most by HR professionals, OD leads, operational managers and leaders who can see the impact of poor culture, low morale, and burnout… but feel like no one at the top is paying attention....
Most people try to handle conflict by staying calm, rational, and solution-focused. It’s a reasonable instinct after all, staying composed should help, right?But in team dynamics, especially when tensions are high, this approach can actually escalate things.During a recent team development...
One issue that comes up repeatedly in team culture work is cyber incivility. Not the obvious kind - no aggressive messages or full-blown arguments. It's the low-level, often unintentional stuff that chips away at trust....