"If my top talent walked out tomorrow, or AI shook things up overnight, would I still know how to win with people ?"

This is the question Kate and I discuss - the urgent need to rewire work and change the way we view talent, skills and the workplace. One of the shifts is moving from viewing individuals as mere “employees” to recognising them as “contributors.” This change fosters a sense of agency within any organizational system.

The topic of agency highlights a crucial shift: workers have agency to choose and the long time loyalty contracts are gone. People, particularly the younger generations now prioritize health benefits, time off, and flexible working over pay raises. This signifies a deeper desire for lifestyle integration and genuine care from employers. It’s about feeling valued for one’s skills from day one, having a voice, and ensuring long-term employability, especially with AI on the horizon. If our identity is tied to what we know, how do we adapt when AI “knows more”?

Historically, the more people got used to new tech, the less anxious they became. But with AI, it’s the opposite! The closer people get, the more nervous they feel. This isn’t just about understanding the tech; it’s about our identity and status tied to what we know versus what we’re willing to learn. This paradox calls for a fundamental shift: from being “know-it-alls” to “learn-it-alls.” Leaders must foster environments where learning and adaptability are paramount, rather than relying solely on existing expertise.

If you had the opportunity to redesign work in this department how would you do it differently ?

The insights you'll get from this episode are :

- It is people, not technology, who breathe life into businesses and keep them competitive; the pressure businesses are under puts a premium on talent and GenAI is increasing the gap between average and high-performing employees.

- Hiring, development and promotion must be right for a business to unlock opportunities, but workers have more options than ever before - Gen Z feel work is broken and the lift provided by augmented AI does not fix what is broken.

- The proximity paradox, i.e. the nearer people get to AI, the more nervous they are about it, is the opposite of past experiences with tech – if people are worried about losing their jobs and using AI, they will not innovate and look forward.

- This paradox is also a human paradox – GenAI provides no reassurance as it is always changing and learning, which is at odds with a system that values knowing over learning: know-it-all v learn-it-all is a threat to identity and status.

- Companies must care about guiding employees so that they stay relevant, and managers must have honest conversations with employees about how AI will change their jobs – this may well involve not having all the answers.

- The employee turnover rate is driven by the labour market and HR must know what the company’s reputation is externally to prevent the top talent from leaving in a flexible and fluid talent supply – motivation is key here.

- More agility in the workforce requires intentional work redesign - fixed v flex v fully flow roles - to solve real human problems and supply gaps through e.g. offshoring, right-shoring, making use of global capacity centres.

- Leaders must be able to work across temporal, digital, cultural and behavioural boundaries, and across generations, i.e. manage paradox, sense markets and people, have a global mindset, and embrace DE&I.

- Upskilling is crucial, as skills are the real

“Most organisations don’t fail through lack of strategy, but because the strategy never reaches the front line.”

How do we ensure that our organisational strategy truly reaches the front line of operations, preventing it from remaining solely at the board level?

Matt & I delve into this critical challenge facing leaders today. We uncover how to bridge this gap, ensuring your strategic vision translates into frontline execution and sustained growth.

The tension between “explore” (innovation) and “exploit” (business as usual) is a constant balancing act for organisations. and we need to inherently foster both. But how ?

The Square management system provides an architecture for leaders to scale their culture without stifling innovation, a critical balance for companies. Matt shares his journey, from transforming underperforming sports franchises to investment banking and corporate development, where he observed how different companies created or captured value. He realised the importance of intentional organisational design when asked how to maintain culture across multiple offices and states, leading to the development of his book and approach.

“square” does not imply a rigid, binary system but represents a dynamic space for culture. He defines good culture as the alignment between an individual’s perceptions, beliefs, and values and the company’s systems and procedures. The “square” changes in size and shape depending on the company’s needs. Discover the four "I"s—Identity, Instruction, Intercommunication, and Information Feedback—that form the foundation of an effective organizational design. We discuss how leaders can utilize this system not just as a culture tool, but as a comprehensive operating framework, especially vital during M&A integrations or major reorganizations.

How do you balance freedom for innovation with the need for operational consistency in your organization ?

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- Regardless of sector, there are commonalities in terms of workplace cultures and thriving, i.e. understanding where value lies and how to create or capture it - the square management system is an architecture for leaders to scale culture without suffocating innovation.

- The Culture of Alignment is a philosophical exercise around how to run a company, a model for operationalising strategies into tactics, as strategy often stays at the top, without penetrating the front line.

- Rather than copying what others have done, it offers a way to intentionally structure a high-performing organisation, with direct tools to provide for growth and scale - not a blueprint, but an invitation to create a bespoke model.

- The system factors in both alignment and flexibility by understanding what the culture is and intentionally designing for it: the culture is the square, but the size of the square and the walls can change.

- The square comprises: identity (do customers and staff know what we stand for), instruction (expectation for performance standard across the organisation), intercommunication (flow of information across the company), information feedback (data and information on the company and employees).

- The fifth i in the middle of the square is constrained independence (the known degree to which an employee can action their own ideas) = culture; a lack of constraint leads to mini squares = chaos.

- Most companies fall short in one area: identity deviation erodes trust; instruction deviation leads to a varying standard of...

"Think about how stretchy you are and what you accept. Where are your breaking points?"

One particularly striking data point: 70% of people face obstacles asking questions at work.

This statistic underscores a core issue. Curiosity is often cited as a value, yet many environments make it unsafe to ask for clarification or challenge ideas. Fear of looking incompetent, challenging authority, or slowing down progress often silences valuable input.

Julie and I discuss how curiosity, respect, and self-awareness can transform organisational life. We explore practical strategies for leaders to foster psychological safety and inclusive collaboration, using Julie's own unique journey and the powerful “Seven Forms of Respect” framework for guidance.

We often talk about “soft skills” in organisations, but as teams become more global and complexity increases, these skills are anything but soft. They’re foundational. We discover a refreshing perspective to curiosity, respect, and self-awareness, showing us how to make these invisible dynamics tangible and actionable. This in turn allows leaders to shift from just “knowing” to truly “learning” — a real leadership superpower in our changing world.

Recognising your “rubber band” stretchiness - Understand personal boundaries and breaking points, and communicate them to others is also key as it prevents snapping and strengthens relationships. This episode offers key insights into navigating complex team dynamics and maintaining a learning mindset in high-pressure environments.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- Being a self-taught organisational development consultant taught the critical value of sharing resources and building communities in times of crisis; there is tension and friction in any community but making the invisible relational dynamics tangible helps to understand them.

- When it comes to learning from other people, curiosity and self-assessment are required for the shift from knowing to learning, and to decode the different dynamics; curiosity requires questions, but do people feel safe enough to ask questions?

- Internal narrative and cultural formatting influence communication - we are all members of multiple cultures, communities and identities simultaneously, and inward curiosity is a prerequisite: What matters to me?

- Our multiple identities mean that we must slow down and reflect to enable good decisions to be made from a place of curiosity; leadership rituals (e.g. meeting facilitator rotation) can help teams maintain curiosity when under pressure, create empathy and force listening.

- Using the seven forms of respect as a framework for collaboration helps understand how respect is relative, dynamic, subjective and contradictory: Procedure, Punctuality, Information, Candor, Consideration, Acknowledgement, Attention.

- A useful analogy here is with language: the organisational level represents the national language; departments represent dialects; and the individual is represented by their own language – we all need to be multilingual.

- Intercultural working results in unclear messages, which lead to perpetuated actions and unmet expectations that were never made explicit - a team must understand what respect means to them, not by guessing, but by asking others.

- Inward curiosity is about self-reflection and admitting what challenges us and what our expectations are – this can be difficult to acknowledge given that it can be perceived as a challenge to our identity.

- Curiosity in practice means approaching...