It's Time for Change

It's Time for Change Let’s put the human factor back into business. Real change doesn’t come from rigid frameworks. It’s not about ‘fixing’ people.

Helping leaders lead people (not just projects) | Culture, performance, & leadership | Partnerships, strategy, & support | Chartered Psychologist | 🎙 Host of Beyond the Water Cooler It comes from conversations that make space for reflection, connection, and clarity - and from support that meets people where they’re at. I support leaders navigating the more human (& often messier) side of work - the stuff that affects how people feel, how they show up, and how well they perform. In a nutshell: People Strategy = Leadership, Culture, and Performance. Yes, I’m a psychologist, consultant, and coach, but mostly I’m the person organisations come to when something’s simply not working and they don't know what to do about it - whether it’s a team dynamic that’s off, a manager who's overwhelmed, a culture that doesn’t match what’s written on the wall - that’s when I get a call. And it’s certainly not about just ticking boxes. It’s about understanding what’s going on beneath the surface and creating the conditions people need to thrive - so your culture holds strong, even when the pressure’s on. There’s no one-size-fits-all-off-the-shelf-quick-fix. Whether I’m working with you through a retained partnership, facilitating team development, or coaching leaders through complex people challenges, it’s always:

- Bespoke
- Practical
- Psychology-backed
- Human-focused

Oh, and often - quite fun! Because when we get people right, we get business right. Fancy a chat about how we might work together?

📧 lisa@itstimeforchange.co.uk
🌍 www.itstimeforchange.co.uk
☕ https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/contact

🎙 Beyond the Water Cooler is where I chat with brilliant guests about leadership, culture, neurodiversity, burnout, and all the real stuff that affects how we work. Listen here: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/podcast

🖊 Or check out my blog for honest advice and topical takes on people strategy, performance, mental health, and more: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/blog

🌟 Client feedback? Head to Google or check out the testimonials on my site. They’ll tell you what it’s like to work with me - and why my clients tend to stick around. Off-duty you’ll find me hiking, travelling in our motorhome, wrangling children, and definitely enjoying a G&T (or 2).

17/02/2026

The way organisations treat data often says more about company culture than you think.

What I keep noticing: teams work hard to produce reports, track every metric, tick every box. But who is actually paying attention?

Lorna Moles put it plainly - if you stop sharing data and no one asks for it, what does that say about how connected leadership is to the realities of work? I see this a lot with management meetings. Data gets air time, but the real stories or underlying trends rarely do. Headcount, turnover, engagement metrics - a few minutes on the agenda, a cursory glance, then off to the next topic.

It’s easy to assume that collecting and sharing information means we’re running a careful, thoughtful business. In practice, what often matters more is whether leaders actually pause, ask questions, and make space for deeper conversation.

Reporting isn’t pointless, but it does reveal a lot about priorities. Are we performing for the process? Or are we performing for everyone to thrive and to deliver value for the business?

Tune in and hear what happens when you question whether a report is really adding value https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/captivate-podcast/making-people-data-matter-from-reporting-to-real-influence/

Inspiring day last week with Hitachi Energy for the first of 6 development days for their grads. Gemma & I took them thr...
16/02/2026

Inspiring day last week with Hitachi Energy for the first of 6 development days for their grads.

Gemma & I took them through what it means to be a scientist in the workplace, how to hypothesise about challenges & then how to design effective experiments to nudge practice.

When we make time to think about how we show up & engage, how we want to be, & what we need to be, it really shifts the dial on performance.

Afterwards I sat in the train station feeling tired but energised at the same time. This is an impressive group of people & I’m already looking forward to round 2 in March.

Never expected to experience being on a cargo ship! But that’s what happened yesterday… in rural Oxfordshire - who would...
16/02/2026

Never expected to experience being on a cargo ship! But that’s what happened yesterday… in rural Oxfordshire - who would have thought! 🚢

It was fascinating getting a completely different insight to HR Wallingford from my usual view of their leaders. Visiting in a different capacity as part of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce, I was lucky enough to visit the simulation centre… impressive stuff.

Thanks to Claire Madle & Natasha Staines for the HR Forum. Jeff Kong - your suggestion to test alternative approaches resonated with me. Jonathan Matthews & Rosemary McLean - I enjoyed hearing about the Career Deal & am looking forward to talking more about how organisations identify what it is they need in terms of talent. In my experience, many aren’t quite clear enough.

I can also recommend the cafe at Howbery Business Park (the home of HR Wallingford) who do an awesome hot chocolate (thank you Paul Maclennan)!

How often do you give advice?Probably quite a lot.Have you considered the impact of that? Quite likely quick shifts in d...
13/02/2026

How often do you give advice?
Probably quite a lot.

Have you considered the impact of that? Quite likely quick shifts in decision-making. Possibly feeling better having solved someone else's problem. Maybe an inflated sense of status, having demonstrated your expertise.

But what about the long term impact?

Having facilitated a couple of sessions this year about growth mindset and coaching conversations, most people realise that there is a tendency to be pulled into advice mode. Why? Because we like to prove ourselves, get things done fast, and avoid challenge and uncertainty. And we don't like feeling uncomfortable - which curiosity that invites silence, and avoidance of 'getting-it-right', invites.

Yet coaching conversations - the type we can have everyday, in any interaction - allows people to grow. It creates opportunity for taking responsibility, learning, and avoiding perfectionism.

When we remember that coaching is a behaviour rather than a role, it opens up a world of possibility about how we can interact with each other more meaningfully.

Imagine the development potential when we stop trying to fix and instead seek to empower. Imagine a workforce built on confidence and sustainable capability - because people know the questions to ask rather than needing specific knowledge to solve.

That would be an awesome workplace!

Would love to know how you're nudging closer to that.

People don’t actually want certainty - they want clarity, trust, and a sense of belonging.Yet I keep seeing the assumpti...
12/02/2026

People don’t actually want certainty - they want clarity, trust, and a sense of belonging.

Yet I keep seeing the assumption by leaders - if they could only communicate the plans more clearly, manage expectations better, or predict what’s coming next, people would feel safe and perform at their best. But real life doesn’t work like that. Uncertainty is baked in now - AI, economic shifts, constantly evolving roles. There’s always something new and unsettling on the horizon. We need to embrace that and let go of what holds us back.

Talking to Alex Rae (CEO at Wise Investments) for the latest Beyond the Water Cooler made this tangible. Alex told me about her colleague gifting her an old-fashioned awl hole punch – a relic from when paperwork and filing cabinets ruled everything. Now it’s all digital and the punch doesn’t get much use, but for Alex it’s a symbol - you keep certain strengths from the past, but let go of what’s no longer helping you move forward.

Wise Investments is unrecognisable in many ways compared to 25 years ago, yet the heart of the business and certain values have stayed consistent since the day it started. The challenge is knowing what you actually need to hold onto. That’s what makes change manageable, and what lets people keep performing when everything else feels in flux.

How do you create the clarity about what to leave in the past and what to take forward?

Would love to hear how you're navigating this space.

🎧 https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/captivate-podcast/prepared-or-panicked-how-leaders-build-resilient-teams

11/02/2026

Where is technology taking us at work?

I've heard some real concerns about job security but also the constant pressure to be “always on.” Rather than letting tech take over, we need to be intentional about how it supports our wellbeing.

Let’s use tech to free up time for rewarding, creative, and relationship-focused work, AND make it OK to talk about the boundaries we need to protect our mental health.

Are you using technology to enable your wellbeing, or is it blurring the lines too much?


Alliance of Independent Agencies

I see HR teams producing report after report, month after month. Headcount. Leavers. Starters. All technically correct. ...
10/02/2026

I see HR teams producing report after report, month after month.
Headcount.
Leavers.
Starters.
All technically correct. And yet, very little of it shapes meaningful decisions.

In a recent conversation with Lorna Moles, we kept coming back to a simple question that’s often missing: why does this data matter?

Not in theory. But in practice. To the people actually running the business.

It’s easy to keep reporting what’s always been reported. Harder to stop and notice whether anyone is using it. Lorna quietly dropped a regular report. No one noticed. No one asked for it back. That tells you everything.

What makes people data useful isn’t volume or polish.
It’s relevance.
When it’s tied to the questions leaders are already grappling with.
When numbers are paired with context, conversations, and what people are actually experiencing day to day.

Spreadsheets don’t change behaviour. Insight does. Especially when managers are supported to notice patterns, not just problems, and to ask better questions of their teams.

I’ve written more about this shift, from reporting to insight, in this piece: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/making-people-data-matter/

Strong teams, strong results. That was the topic of conversation yesterday at the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce Insp...
06/02/2026

Strong teams, strong results.

That was the topic of conversation yesterday at the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce Inspire Leaders Forum.

Thank you Ben Brown for hosting us at Reading Football Club and for sharing your experience of building foundations, shifting culture and the importance of ‘match-day’ in all organisations.

It was also good to hear Stephen Howes talk about the need for future proofing. Some organisations are stuck in the past and some focus only on the where they’re heading. It resonated with where I spend time helping clients to pause to explore the past, present and future.

When we are intentional about how we show up, what to turn the dial up on, what to mute, and where there is no noise because the gaps haven’t been considered, we create clarity and alignment.

3 questions for you to ponder…

1. Have you got your foundations in place (the knowledge, skills and confidence) for people to fulfil their role?

2. When do you create space to explore what’s really going on in your role, team and business, from the perspective of the people involved in your mission - so that you can make things better?

3. What’s your match day experience where you bring everyone together to celebrate a shared moment that people have worked to achieve?

05/02/2026

Most managers spend hours on tasks no one really misses when they disappear.

There’s an unspoken comfort in keeping up certain routines because “that’s what’s expected” or “it’s always been done”, and I keep noticing the ripple effect it has...

Reports no one actually reads.
Meetings that happen for the sake of it.
Activities ticking boxes, quietly draining time - with little impact on what really matters.

The truth is, often, if these actions disappeared, it could be a while before anyone even noticed. Sometimes, not at all.

It’s one of those assumptions that gets baked into cultures, especially in places striving for strong performance. Leaders and managers want to do the right thing, but don’t always ask, “what purpose does this serve - what difference does it make?”

When the link between action and impact blurs, people disengage, and culture drifts from thriving to just functioning.

The ‘Insight to Action’ download below offers ideas for shifting this. It’s about naming what counts, not just what’s expected https://itstimeforchange.activehosted.com/f/41

Interested to hear what you’re noticing.

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to Seattle with this fabulous fella. It's been such a privilege to work with ...
04/02/2026

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to Seattle with this fabulous fella.

It's been such a privilege to work with Duncan Targett on a project developing leaders and managers. His approach really resonates with mine... being all about relationships, uncovering what's really going on, and having the flexibility to change direction in the moment when different needs emerge.

We're pretty aligned on wine too!

Looking forward to developing the programme today in a slightly more rural setting.

For anyone looking for support to develop talent, I ⭐recommend ⭐ you get in touch with Duncan. Or why not chat to both of us for help developing your leadership identity, capability and effectiveness too.

Flat whites also acceptable!

HR data - often gets written off before the conversation has even started. For a lot of people, those two words mean spr...
29/01/2026

HR data - often gets written off before the conversation has even started.

For a lot of people, those two words mean spreadsheets, reporting for the sake of it, or long discussions about numbers that don’t seem to change very much. I see it time and time again.

I sat down recently with Lorna Moles to talk about why so many HR teams and leadership groups struggle to move beyond basic reporting. What we kept coming back to was this: data on its own doesn’t help anyone lead better. It only becomes useful when it helps people understand what’s actually happening in their teams.

What struck me most is how often we forget that people data isn’t just numbers. It’s frustration. It’s effort. It’s ideas that don’t get airtime. It’s patterns that show up in conversations long before they appear in a report.

We talked a lot about curiosity. Not accepting headline figures at face value, but asking what sits underneath them. Who’s missing from the data. What isn’t being said. And why certain patterns keep repeating.

None of this works if the conversation stops at “here’s the report”. The value comes when leaders and HR teams sit together and make sense of what they’re seeing, and then use it to support people, not just measure them.

If you’re trying to make better decisions about performance, culture, or leadership, this episode is a good place to start.

🎧 Listen to the latest episode of Beyond the Water Cooler and join the conversation: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/captivate-podcast/making-people-data-matter-from-reporting-to-real-influence/

Address

Oxford

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when It's Time for Change posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share via Email
Share on WhatsApp Share on Instagram Share on Telegram

Category