by Fowles | Sep 10, 2026 | Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours, Power of 8
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve sat across from a senior team and heard the phrase “we’ve got a culture problem.” Said with a sigh, like culture is weather. Something that just happens to an organisation, rather than something...
by Fowles | Sep 2, 2026 | Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours
Last time, I made the case that the away day isn’t the fix, that most wellbeing initiatives treat the symptom while the actual system stays broken underneath. A few people asked, fairly, “okay, so what do I do instead?” That’s the right...
by Fowles | Aug 24, 2026 | COLLABOR8, Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours
I’ve sat in a lot of rooms where a leadership team has just spent a full day and a decent chunk of budget on an away day, a wellbeing week, or a shiny new values poster for the staffroom wall, and everyone leaves feeling like something has genuinely shifted....
by Fowles | Aug 17, 2026 | CULTIV8, Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve sat across from a newly appointed curriculum manager, three months into the job, telling me they feel like they’re drowning and that nobody warned them it would feel like this.They weren’t lying about the...
by Fowles | Aug 3, 2026 | COMMUNIC8, Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours, Power of 8
Ask any leadership team in FE what’s holding their culture back and nine times out of ten, someone in the room will say “communication.” We need better communication. More cascade meetings. A tighter newsletter. A clearer intranet.I’ve sat in...
by Fowles | Jul 20, 2026 | Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours
Here’s a line I say to almost every leadership team I work with in FE and skills: if the only evidence you can point to for your culture is the evidence you’d show an inspector, you don’t have a culture. You have a performance.I don’t say that...
