what i’m noticing
Writing on culture, leadership, and the things organisations avoid.
Most of what I do happens in rooms - workshops, leadership conversations, post-incident rebuilding. This is where I write some of it down. Pieces on the eight things that shape culture, the conversations leaders are avoiding, and what staying human under pressure actually looks like.
Pay Is a Culture Signal and FE’s Crisis Is Telling Us Something
The Association of Colleges has warned that a zero pay award may be the only affordable option for 2026-27. That’s a financial headline. But it lands as a culture message and culture doesn’t wait for the funding settlement.
What Does “Suitable” Leadership Actually Mean?
The government wants to legislate against unsuitable FE leaders. But Gallup’s 2026 data shows manager engagement has hit a five-year low worldwide. Amy Fowles asks: are we solving the right end of the problem?
What You Do Is the Culture
Leadership behaviours are the most powerful — and most overlooked — lever for culture change. Leaders in FE and skills providers spend a lot of time talking about culture. They write vision statements, run away days, commission surveys. But when I sit with teams and...
What healthy cultures actually feel like
After the last piece, the question that kept coming back was: “what does the other version look like?” This is it.
What gets ignored becomes the culture
There are eight conversations that decide whether your culture is healthy. Most leaders are avoiding at least three of them right now.
Why I started ELEV8
After twenty years inside the systems most of my clients work in, I started ELEV8 because I’d watched the same patterns repeat and the standard answers fail to fix them.