For forward-thinking senior leaders who want to strengthen their leadership and build teams that thrive. We explore what shapes culture, how teams can think and work better together and the real challenges that show up inside organisations.
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A Curious Space: Psychological Safety Season finale In this episode, Kate and Maddie explore psychological safety: what it actually means, why most people get it wrong, and the specific leadership behaviours that create it. Drawing on Amy Edmondson's book The Fearless Organisation, they make the case that psychological safety is not about comfort, being nice, or avoiding conflict. It is the belief that your work environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. And it lives at team level, which means any leader can create it, regardless of what the wider organisation is doing. What you'll hea
Culture Room 101: Four Things We're Banishing From Workplace Culture Episode Summary In this bridge episode between seasons, Kate and Maddie borrow the format from the BBC show Room 101 (itself borrowed from Orwell's 1984) to make the case for banishing pieces of organisational culture orthodoxy for good. One host argues for getting rid of something, the other plays devil's advocate, and together they decide whether it goes in the room. Up for debate this episode: the feedback sandwich, describing your organisational culture as a family, using an annual away day as a substitute for the deeper
In this episode of A Curious Space, Kate and Maddy open up the Culture Clinic for the first time, responding to a letter from a listener we are calling Rowan. Rowan runs a business where two years of deliberate culture-building is being undermined by one person: a commercial director who brings in more revenue than anyone else and makes working life harder for almost everyone around them. The question Rowan is sitting with is one that will be familiar to many leaders: can I afford to lose this person? Kate and Maddy turn that question around. Have you properly costed what it is to keep them? W
Throughout season one of A Curious Space, one name kept coming up: Nancy Kline. Whether we were talking about culture, trust, conflict or storytelling, her framework, the Thinking Environment, kept appearing in the background. So in this post-season deep dive, we decided to give it the conversation it has always deserved. This episode is a proper exploration of Kline's work: where it comes from, what the ten principles actually are, and how both of us use them in our day-to-day work with teams and individuals. What is the Thinking Environment? The Thinking Environment is built on a simple but
Season one comes to a close with perhaps the most timely question we have explored this series: what actually happens to organisations when the pressure is on? In this episode, Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox look at the research behind threat rigidity, a well-documented pattern where individuals and systems under stress narrow their thinking, restrict communication, and default to familiar behaviour at precisely the moment when more expansive responses are needed. It is predictable, it is biological, and it is entirely possible to prepare for. Drawing on real examples from the COVID era and bey
Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox dig into one of the most persistent frustrations in organisational life: why culture change programmes so often fail to deliver, and what leaders can do differently. They explore the gap between change as an event and transition as an internal process, why the leadership team is always further ahead than the people hearing the news, and why culture does not live in the big moments. It lives in what happens every day in between. Why 70% of organisational transformations fail, and why the announcement is rarely the problem The Bridges Transition Model: change versus
Not One Weather System: Why Your Organisation Has Many Cultures, and What to Do About It If you have ever moved between departments and felt like you had walked into a completely different organisation, this episode is for you. This week, Kate and Maddie are exploring organisational subcultures: what they are, why they form, how they can help or hinder the change you are trying to make, and why understanding power between subcultures is one of the most overlooked skills in organisational life. What we cover in this episode: Kate opens with a surprising detour into the world of bees (specifical
Conflict is not the problem. Avoiding it is. In this episode, Kate and Maddie get into one of the most misunderstood dynamics in workplace culture: conflict. Not the dramatic kind, but the everyday kind. The disagreement that goes unspoken in a meeting. The tension that surfaces as gossip rather than conversation. The team that looks cohesive on the surface but is quietly stuck. They explore how we are each shaped around conflict before we even walk into a room, what leaders can do to manage themselves through difficult conversations, and how to build team cultures where productive, generative
Trust is one of those words that gets used a lot in organisations and examined rarely. In this episode, Kate and Maddie get into what trust actually means in the context of teams, why low trust is so costly, and what you can do to build and repair it in practice.They explore a framework for understanding trust not as a single thing but as a set of distinct components, and why that distinction matters enormously when something has gone wrong. What We CoverWhy trust matters more than most organisations realiseLow trust has a measurable cost. When people don't feel safe, they stop collaborating o
In this episode, Kate and Maddie dive into belonging: why it matters so much to individuals and organisations, what it actually looks and feels like in practice, and how you can start building it in your team today. Spoiler: it's not about writing a policy. It's about the small stuff. What We Cover 1. Belonging beyond a slogan We talk about why belonging is so fundamental, to individuals and to organisations. Kate shares insights from Helen Beedham's new book People Glue, which looks at what makes organisations sticky: the kind that people want to join, stay in, and bring their best selves to.
What if the narratives running through your organization are shaping performance in ways you've never noticed? In this episode, Maddie and Kate explore the power of storytelling at three critical levels: the stories we tell ourselves, the stories around us, and the stories organizations tell. From growth mindset to system traps, from medieval fairs to Patagonia's environmental activism, we unpack how deliberate storytelling can transform individual performance, team dynamics, and organizational culture. Plus, we share why appreciation matters more than you think, and what a housekeeper's trip
How individuals influence culture (and what Zorro can teach us about it) Culture often gets talked about as something set by leaders, strategies and values decks. In this episode of A Curious Space, we zoom in somewhere else. We explore the role individuals play in shaping culture day to day, through small choices, habits and behaviours that quietly ripple out across teams and organisations. We unpack a simple but powerful idea: we all have the power to significantly shape the cultures we are part of, especially when we do it together. In this episode, Kate and Maddie discuss: Why culture is m
In this episode of A Curious Space, Kate and Maddie explore one of the biggest (and most underestimated) forces shaping organisational culture: leaders and founders. From emotional “weather systems” to decision-making habits and unexamined assumptions, this conversation looks at how culture is created every day — often unintentionally — through how leaders show up, decide, and relate to others. Along the way, we share practical reflections, coaching insights, and one simple thing you can try immediately if you lead (or influence) others. What we explore 1. Leaders and founders set the emotiona
In the opening episode of A Curious Space, Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox explore what organisational culture really is, why it forms whether leaders intend it or not, and how it shapes behaviour, performance and decision-making beneath the surface. Drawing on practical models and real-world examples, they offer clear insights for leaders who want to work with culture intentionally rather than leaving it to chance.
Senior leaders face unprecedented pressure to deliver results while keeping their people engaged, resilient, and innovative. In this episode, Kate Nicholroy and Maddy Fox introduce A Curious Space, sharing their insights on why curiosity and culture are critical levers for building high-performing, sustainable organisations—and what to expect from Season 1.
