Three stories from the ground.

UCLPartners — Practical Culture Support, NHS

Culture change that fits around running a maternity ward.

UCLPartners had been thinking about culture change for a while. Their people do incredible, and incredibly stressful, work: running maternity and neonatal wards. The cultural issues around hierarchies, communication, and conflict were well documented, but giving people the time and space to think and work on these was almost impossible. "Overstretched" is an understatement.

What we did: Designed a series of short, to-the-point, and practical videos on culture change that busy staff could watch on their own time, as part of team meetings, or as part of wider training events. The feedback was fantastic — "engaging," "insightful," "genuinely useful — I've already started trying the techniques."

What changed: The videos started conversations about culture, introducing changes at the level of individuals and teams: managers improving their handling of difficult conversations, nurses creating inclusivity across job roles, leaders increasing the amount of debriefs and learning exercises, and more. We were honoured the videos were nominated for a patient safety award. More than that, we were delighted that these conversations and practices around culture could have this impact in such an important space, for people who work so hard.

Individual Coaching — Financial Sector

From "nightmare collaborator" to someone everyone wanted to work with.

Not many people liked working with Katherine. They referenced her defensiveness, her over-competitiveness, her stress-fuelled aggression. She was smart, and she was excellent at the technical aspects of her work — but at this point she was a nightmare collaborator.

But we liked working with Katherine. Katherine was up for learning, and that is enough for us.

What we did: Did the work to understand how and why people experienced her as they did. Spoke to people across hierarchies. Collated examples of strengths and challenges, of events that demonstrated both, and — vitally — unpacked what happened in those spaces to create such a negative response.

Carefully, we shared our learning with Katherine in a way that was clear, safe, and constructive. Katherine was surprised, and a little defensive at first. But the feedback "was framed really well, everything felt like something I could work on. Sam asked good questions, listened properly, and made it relevant to me."

Over six weeks, we worked with Katherine to reflect, act, and measure those aspects she wanted to change. We experimented with new practices, brought in new ways of understanding her work through evidence from psychology and neuroscience, and let her lead in setting new markers for success.

What changed: When we went back to those people afterwards, every single one of them noticed the change. Every single one of them was happier to work with her. Improving relationships is complex, delicate, and difficult, so some people still had their challenges with Katherine. But given the three years that preceded this intervention, the changes that had taken place were hugely impactful.

We don't work miracles. We do make people feel safe, and make people better at making others feel safe; we do create meaningful learning and change; and we know what works when it comes to safer, kinder, stronger workplace culture.

International medtech company — Management Transformation

From scepticism to a multi-year management shift.

"On my way there, I said to my wife: this is going to be a pile of sh*t. But it wasn't. In fact, it's probably been the best management training I've had."

— Senior manager, international medtech company

An international medtech company was desperate to scale, but their management was struggling: lacking confidence, holding back on the important but difficult conversations, falling into unnecessary conflict. They reached out for 4 days of training to kick-start management improvement.

We did what we always do — undertook research within the organisation to directly target the most impactful causes. The result, as always, pointed to a much more complex issue than initially presented.

The Director had grown the business from a handful of people to a company employing hundreds, but hadn't significantly altered the way he operated. His habits of being in the details, using informal conversations rather than process, and focussing on rapid reaction to client needs had worked well when they were small. As they grew, those habits were being replicated by other managers and causing issues — manager autonomy, clarity of process, and strategic consistency were lacking.

Four days was never going to fix those problems. But it could start a process.

This, though, depended on winning them over. Enthusiasm for four days with what one attendee described as "a long haired hippy who doesn't know our sector" was not exactly raging.

What we did: Designed a programme tightly tailored to their context, one that resonated both individually and across the company. It covered everything from creating psychological safety to healthy accountability, introducing practices that enhanced cross-system relationships; from navigating difficult conversations with new techniques (HEAR models, non-violent communication) to hot-seating C-Suite Execs and naming long-unspoken elephants.

Beyond skill development, we facilitated conversations that had been brewing for years; created space for alliances and collaborations that weren't previously possible; and co-created a shared understanding of what was needed.

What changed: The workshops didn't end in themselves — they kickstarted new management standards. The "old" ways started to become taboo, and everyone was expected to step up into better management practice, including the Director. We provided ongoing management coaching to both C-Suite and non-exec managers, and co-developed a Management Competency Framework that became central to accountability and onboarding.

"We're moving in the right direction, having the difficult conversations and communicating in a way that we didn't do before — you've played a key role in that."

— C-Suite executive

The result: an organisation growing year on year, competing with companies far bigger, with staff who feel more supported and managers who are, simply, better.

Of course, it hasn't all been smooth sailing. There's plenty of mess, plenty of room for improvement, plenty of wicked problems. There were disagreements and frustrations on both ends — because if there aren't, change probably isn't happening. Working with us is about getting in the mud, digging deeper, and making changes that actually work for your organisation.