by Fowles | Jul 14, 2026 | COMMUNIC8, Culture by Design, EVALU8, Leadership Behaviours
I’ve sat in more “you said, we did” meetings than I can count, and here’s what I’ve noticed: most of them should be called “you said, we noted.”There’s a pattern I see walking into almost every provider I work with,...
by Fowles | Jul 9, 2026 | Culture by Design, Leadership Behaviours
For ten years, I heard the same word used to describe the organisation I worked for: FAMILY. It was in speeches, induction packs, leaving cards, the language leaders reached for whenever they wanted people to give more than the job required. I have a family of my own....
by Fowles | Jul 8, 2026 | Culture by Design, EVALU8, Leadership Behaviours
Hear me out: you don’t actually know what your culture is like This is an opinion. Not a study. Not a stat. Just something I’ve been chewing on after enough years in enough organisations to trust my own pattern-spotting over most surveys I’ve seen....
by Fowles | Jun 16, 2026 | CULTIV8, Culture by Design, EVALU8, Leadership Behaviours, Power of 8
The question the Skills White Paper should have asked and what Gallup’s latest data tells us about why it matters. The government’s post-16 Skills White Paper, published last October, included a proposal that turned more than a few heads. Ministers want to...
by Fowles | Jun 12, 2026 | Leadership Behaviours
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...
by Fowles | Jun 9, 2026 | CULTIV8, Leadership Behaviours, Power of 8
The last piece I wrote was about what gets ignored — and how the things leaders walk past quietly become the culture. A few of you got in touch after reading it. The question that kept coming back, in slightly different words each time, was this: Right. So what does...
