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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!
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3 Ways to Lead the Emotional Side of Change
Photo from Wix Images We often treat change as a rational process: plans, milestones, communications. But the reality is far messier — and far more human. In recent research shared by Paul Emberlin, one theme stood out clearly: leaders aren’t just managing change — they’re absorbing it. As Paul described, many feel like “emotional sponges,” carrying the weight of uncertainty, resistance, and pressure from all directions. At the same time, many organisations unintentionall
Make It Human
May 43 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
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
Hopes and fears for workplace culture in 2026
Image created using AI The start of a new year sparks reflection. A blend of anxieties, doubts and hopeful thoughts — often lacking any grounding to turn them into reality. Perhaps that’s the point of reflections… But this year, I do feel more hope than doubt. And I want to help as many leaders as possible make workplace cultures that sustain growth for people and businesses, an everyday reality. Three things give me hope: 1. There are leaders out there choosin
Sarah McLellan
Jan 14 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
Culture Stories: From “Know-It-All” to “Learn-It-All”: How Microsoft Rewired Its Culture for Growth
Sources: Microsoft website. Correct as of Nov 2025. If you ask people to name a culture transformation that actually worked, Microsoft is almost always on the list. And for good reason. What Satya Nadella and his leadership team did after 2014 wasn’t a rebrand, a reset or a series of workshops — it was a full rewiring of how 200,000 people listened, learned, collaborated and led. Before the shift, Microsoft was a giant with undeniable technical strength, but internally it w
Make It Human
Nov 20, 20253 min read
Culture Stories: How Japan Airlines Rebuilt Performance through Trust, Purpose, and Service
Sources: Japan Airlines website. Correct as of Nov 2025. From Collapse to Comeback and it all Started with Culture In 2010, Japan Airlines filed for bankruptcy — a national symbol brought to its knees. Tens of thousands of jobs were at risk. Trust was broken. Morale was gone. And yet, within just three years, the company didn’t just recover — it became a model for cultural transformation. At the centre of this turnaround was an unlikely leader: Kazuo Inamori, a 77-year-
Make It Human
Nov 6, 20254 min read
Capture Your Culture on a Page: Download Guide to Completing the Growth Culture Canvas
Image: Extracts from MIH Capture Your Culture on a Page Guide & Growth Culture Canvas Turn your culture from something you feel into something you can see, shape, and strengthen. Culture can often feel fuzzy — invisible, complex, and hard to get a grip on. But when you make it visible, you can start to lead it. That’s exactly what the Growth Culture Canvas helps you do. Grounded in the proven Make It Human Growth Culture model, this simple, practical framework helps you
Make It Human
Nov 6, 20252 min read
Fuzzy to Fuel: Make Culture Your Growth Engine 🚀
Image created by Make It Human Emma’s start to the week follows a similar pattern. Every Monday morning, she opens her laptop determined to “do something about culture.” As the CPO of a fast-scaling tech company, she can feel the invisible drag setting in. The organisation is growing fast — but something beneath the surface is starting to fray. The team is talented. The product is strong. But conversations feel heavier. Decisions take longer. That early buzz of energy and
Sarah McLellan
Nov 3, 20254 min read
Culture Stories: The Octopus Energy Way — Autonomy in Service of Customers
Source: Octopus Energy website , September 2025. At Make It Human, our Culture Stories series takes a closer look at organisations that have cracked the code on culture. This time, we zoomed in on Octopus Energy—a company that has not only shaken up the energy industry but also built a culture that fuels both people and performance. Founded in 2015 by Greg Jackson, Octopus now has 11,000 employees worldwide and revenues of $12bn. They’re profitable, fast-growing, and well
Make It Human
Sep 25, 20253 min read
Culture Stories: The Inside Story of Airbnb’s Growth Culture
Sources: AirBnB website, information correct as of September 2025. When you think of Airbnb, you probably think of unique places to stay. But behind the listings and the app is something that’s fuelled its journey from two airbeds in a San Francisco apartment to a $11bn+ global travel company: culture. Airbnb’s story shows us that culture isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s the foundation for resilience, growth, and belonging — even through the toughest times. This blog kic
Make It Human
Sep 11, 20254 min read
Purpose Isn’t a Slogan. It’s a Foundation.
Image source: by TheDigitalArtist from pixabay Without purpose, we fade. With purpose, we thrive. I learned this the hard way. Years ago, I led a team through a major organisational shake-up. Structures changed. Roles shifted. The work continued — but the why disappeared. Morale dipped. People started asking: “Do we still matter?” “What difference are we really making?” We’d lost our North Star. The turnaround only came when we re-anchored in a shared purpose — on
Sarah McLellan
Aug 26, 20253 min read
What Leaders Really Want to Know About Culture
For the final Coffee & Culture session before the summer break, we did things a little differently. No slides, no set agenda — just a space to surface the real questions leaders are grappling with around culture. In the session, we asked our community to vote on the top topics they wanted to explore. Here’s how they ranked: How can we get the balance right between flexibility and connection? How do I turn vague values into real behaviours people live every day? How can we
Sarah McLellan
Jul 17, 20253 min read
Unconscious Bias, Unchecked Systems, Untapped Potential
How unchecked biases block growth We like to think we’re good at spotting potential. That we reward performance, promote fairly, and know who’s going to be a great leader. But here’s the hard truth: we’re wired to be biased. Unchecked, our very human tendencies shape decisions in ways that limit opportunity, stunt innovation, and ultimately drive our best people out the door. The image above shows how it happens — step by seemingly logical step. The Hidden Biases That
Make It Human
Jul 13, 20253 min read
Making Sense of Leadership
Having shared the 5 elements in growth cultures, I am left reflecting on the key themes in our emerging world of work and what this means for leadership. To make work human we need to find fulfilling and sustainable opportunities. In this quest, we are increasingly encountering dichotomies where we need to impact both outcomes: For leaders - navigating these paradoxes and leading businesses through novel and changing times - demands new priorities. Recent research reveals
Sarah McLellan
Jul 11, 20254 min read
Introducing the Make It Human HABIT Model: A Practical Way to Build a Growth Culture
Let’s be honest: most culture work doesn’t stick. It lives in slide decks, posters, or one-off workshops. Meanwhile, the real culture – how people behave, make decisions, and collaborate every day – keeps ticking along, unchanged. At Make It Human, we do things differently. We treat culture as a habit – something shaped daily, deliberately, and with impact. Our five-step HABIT model is built on behavioural science and years of hands-on experience helping organisations tur
Make It Human
Jul 8, 20254 min read
Start the Flywheel: The Make It Human Approach to Sustainable Growth
The data-backed approach to turning culture into competitive advantage A few years ago, I worked with a fast-scaling company that...
Make It Human
Jul 4, 20253 min read
Want to fuel growth? Start with habits
When you look at the world’s most successful companies, from Google to Shopify, there’s a pattern that shows up again and again. They all shape great culture habits. Not once. Not as a campaign. But consistently, intentionally, and with purpose. Because here’s the truth: growth doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built daily, in the micro-behaviours and habits that shape how people work, learn, connect and lead. And without intentional focus and targeted nudging, we slip towar
Make It Human
Jul 3, 20253 min read
Why every business needs a Chief Culture Officer
We’re entering a new era of work — faster, more complex, and increasingly powered by AI. But as machines take over the command-and-control tasks — standardised, repetitive, and rule-bound — the real value in organisations is shifting to what only humans can do: Build trust Solve problems creatively Lead through ambiguity Learn and adapt Inspire, empathise, and collaborate This is the human side of performance. And yet, most organisations are still structured for a world t
Sarah McLellan
Jul 1, 20254 min read
Resetting Your Operating System for Growth
The Four Shifts Every Business Leader Needs to Make In today’s volatile business landscape, culture is no longer a ‘nice to have’. It’s the operating system that determines whether your people — and your performance — can adapt, sustain and grow. Yet many organisations are still running outdated systems. We rely on inherited behaviours, fragmented tools, and episodic efforts to drive culture. It’s time for an upgrade — one that enables people and business to grow together
Make It Human
Jun 20, 20255 min read
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