top of page
Blogs & insights
You can now find our library of culture tools & session playbacks inside the
Explore our latest blogs and articles using the categories below:
Simplifying Culture
Move culture from fuzzy to focused with tools to simplify.
Hear how people feel (HABIT step 1)
Learn how to evaluate your culture & win stakeholder support.
Integrate it daily (HABIT step 4)
Pinpoint moments & skills to ensure leaders & managers bring culture to life.
Culture Stories
Insights & inspiration from workplaces around the world.
Align on the future (HABIT step 2)
Pick the best direction to fuel sustainable growth for your culture & business.
Trust & evolve
(HABIT step 5)
Culture is never done! Tools to help measure & improve your culture.
Culture Habits
Small practices with BIG impact. Pick-up & use habits to nudge towards growth.
Build the behaviours (HABIT step 3)
Clearly define and turn desired behaviours into everyday reality.
Culture Skills
Resources and practices to keep your culture skills sharp!
Search
Culture is a team sport: how HR, Leaders and Managers create a system for growth
Image by Roddy Corona, via Canva Watch a high-performing rowing crew and, from the riverbank, it can look almost effortless. Eight people move as one. Every stroke is timed. The boat gathers speed. No single rower appears to be working independently, yet each person is making a distinct contribution. Look more closely, however, and you see the system behind the performance. There is a coach building capability and creating the conditions for success. A cox helps the crew navi
Sarah McLellan
Aug 314 min read
What Happens When Five Organisations Become One? Lessons in Building Culture Through Change
Image by Alan Aprilio via Unsplash Mergers and acquisitions are usually measured through financial performance, operational integration and the delivery of commercial targets. Yet, long after systems have been combined and structures redesigned, one question often determines whether integration succeeds: Do people trust the organisation they're now part of? That question sat at the centre of our recent Coffee & Culture conversation with Jonny Friedman, SVP People & Talent
Make It Human
Jul 144 min read
Culture Stories: Why connection doesn't happen by accident – shaping a Growth Culture at MoveUp Media
Working remotely, image by Wix When Fleur Vialatte joined MoveUp Media as Head of People, she wasn't just helping to shape a growing organisation, she was helping to answer a question that many organisations are still grappling with today. How do you create a genuine sense of connection when your people may never share the same office? MoveUp Media had grown rapidly in just a few years to a team of around 160 people spread across multiple countries. It was fast-moving, ambiti
Make It Human
Jul 105 min read
Watch Back: Make Growth a HABIT and start shaping a Growth Culture where you are
Almost every leader we speak to believes culture matters. They know it holds the key to engagement, performance, innovation, retention and wellbeing. So why does it still feel so difficult to improve? That was the question at the heart of our recent Make Growth a HABIT webinar, where more than 250 leaders registered to explore a simpler, more practical way to shape culture. The challenge isn't usually a lack of motivation. It's a lack of clarity. Culture feels hug
Make It Human
Jul 32 min read
When Success Becomes the Ceiling: Understanding the Optimised Culture
Image of a team working by Yan Krukau from Pexels Some cultures don’t struggle. They succeed. Performance is steady. Teams collaborate smoothly. There’s capability, pride and a clear identity. People can articulate what the organisation stands for and success stories are regularly shared. If you walked in or joined a call, you’d instantly get a sense of, “we know what we’re doing here.” And yet, there’s something missing… The confidence in how we work and sharing of
Sarah McLellan
Mar 235 min read
The Hidden Cost of a “Nice” Culture
Photo by Mikhail Nilov via Pexels A leadership team invited me in because, whilst on paper, everything looked strong, they knew something wasn’t right. Engagement scores were healthy. Attrition wasn’t concerning. People described the culture as supportive, collaborative, kind. “It’s a nice place to work,” they said. And it was. There was no toxicity. No ego battles. No fear. In meetings, people built on each other’s ideas. They genuinely wanted colleagues to succeed.
Sarah McLellan
Feb 234 min read
How to Restore Momentum in a Permission-Based Culture
Image from Canva The second most common culture archetype emerging from the Growth Cultures Insight Report is "Permission-Based". When workplaces get stuck in permission loops. This pattern showed up repeatedly across 4,000+ employee reviews from top-rated UK organisations — particularly in highly regulated, hierarchical and service-led environments On the surface, these organisations look healthy. They’re professional. Measured. Respectful. Clear about roles and stand
Make It Human
Feb 134 min read
The Insights Are Clear. What You Do Next Is What Matters.
Image from Wix Images Over the past few weeks, many of you have explored the Growth Cultures Insight Report and joined the conversation in our webinar. What emerged from analysing 4,000+ real employee experiences wasn’t just a list of challenges — it was a clear contrast. Across workplaces today many are experiencing: Rising workload and pressure Slower decisions and blurred ownership Creeping confusion around priorities and fairness But the best workplaces stand out be
Make It Human
Feb 61 min read
Why the Best Workplaces Don’t Treat People as Resources
Image by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash One of the clearest messages from the Growth Cultures Insight Report is this: The best workplaces don’t treat people as resources to be optimised. They intentionally design and nurture the conditions for human growth. As the world we work in and how work gets done continues to increase in complexity and ambiguity, many organisations are reaching for familiar, more ‘certain’ levers for growth. We measure what’s easy to count — utilisation
Sarah McLellan
Jan 294 min read
From fuzzy to focused: a simple way to start shaping your culture
Image created with AI by Make It Human Most leaders know culture matters. They can feel it in how meetings run, how decisions get made, and how people show up. When culture works, energy flows. When it doesn’t, progress slows — even when the strategy is sound. And yet, culture often feels too big, too fuzzy, and too hard to influence deliberately. So it stays in the “important but unclear” category. Culture doesn’t need fixing — it needs focusing One of the biggest
Make It Human
Jan 12 min read
See the Real Impact of Your Culture — with the Culture Cost Calculator (Premium Content)
Image of Make It Human Culture Cost Calculator + Guide Every leader knows culture matters. But when budgets are tight and priorities compete, it’s hard to prove its impact, illustrate the need for change, or win support for investment. That’s why we created the Make It Human Culture Cost Calculator — a simple, research-backed tool that quantifies how your culture is influencing performance today, and the value you could unlock by improving it. What is it? A practical to
Make It Human
Nov 26, 20252 min read
How Leaders Shape Growth Cultures (One Small Habit at a Time)
Image from Make It Human Webinar Nov 2025: From Fuzzy to Fuel: A Practical Formula for Culture-Driven Growth If you ask most leaders what they want, the answer is simple: better culture, clearer alignment, stronger performance. But ask what they’re doing to get there… and the answers get vague. It was a pleasure to host our recent “From Fuzzy to Fuel” webinar, where participants shared the same sentiment, no matter their role or industry: Culture matters deeply — yet it
Sarah McLellan
Nov 13, 20253 min read
How to make culture a growth asset (not a side project)
Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash In fast-growing companies, culture often starts strong — built on passion, purpose, and proximity. But as teams scale, merge, or shift under pressure from funding or acquisition, the culture that once felt natural can start to fray. The casual dress-code, office ping-pong and regular socials that once created a tight-knit community now feel clumsy and forced. And too often, culture is treated as a side project — something to revisit once the n
Sarah McLellan
May 15, 20253 min read
bottom of page