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).

12/03/2026

Too often we tell people to be more aware, but rarely say what that actually means in practice.

What I notice, particularly with leaders and managers under pressure, is how easily we overlook the small ways people protect themselves at work. The subtle adjustments that signal caution - changing a route, staying close to colleagues, carrying a conversation differently.

It’s easy to assume that if something doesn’t affect us directly, it isn’t an issue for the team. Yet organisational culture often lives in the moments we don’t talk about.

Workplace harassment remains worryingly prevalent despite policies and procedures. Addressing it requires far more than reactive measures. It asks for honest conversations, active leadership, and clear cultural boundaries - not simply hoping people will speak up.

I’ve pulled together key insights and practical actions in ‘Tackling Workplace Harassment: Leadership Responsibility in Action’ for anyone serious about creating safer, more respectful workplaces.

You can download the resource here: https://itstimeforchange.activehosted.com/f/45

11/03/2026

Trying to explain what you do for a living… in one clear sentence… is surprisingly hard.

Which is exactly what I’ve been wrestling with for the past few months while building my new website.

But it’s finally LIVE.

The process forced me to stop and properly reflect on how the work has evolved over the last few years.

What started as conversations about workplace wellbeing has grown into deeper work with organisations around leadership, culture, psychological safety and the messy, very human realities of work.

The new site captures that much more clearly.

It also includes a few things I’ve been quietly developing in the background that I’m really excited to share more about over the coming months.

A big thank you to the brilliant people who helped bring it to life behind the scenes. Stephanie O'Callaghan, Natali Williams and the team at LIME Marketing, Clark Wiseman.

If you’re curious, the link is in the comments.

And if you’ve ever had to describe what you do in a way that actually makes sense to other people… you’ll know exactly why this took a while.

10/03/2026

Change can feel threatening when it’s done to you. The experience is entirely different for those driving it.

Listening to Alex Rae talk about introducing AI, I keep reflecting on how simple, clear messages and honest conversations help manage those ripples of anxiety. What often happens is leaders get so caught up in the mechanics of the project, they forget how unsettling it can be for those on the receiving end.

Being involved in planning or rolling out change, you see all the moving parts. You know the intention. But if you’re not in that inner circle, it’s easy for imagination to take over - people start to worry about jobs, their place in the team, the future. Uncertainty grows in the silence between updates.

Leadership isn’t just about moving things forward. It’s about noticing where fear or uncertainty might be taking root, and meeting it with clarity, not just another big announcement.

Let me know what you’re noticing in your own teams.

🎧 Listen to the whole conversation here: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/captivate-podcast/prepared-or-panicked-how-leaders-build-resilient-teams/

International Women’s Day surfaces an uncomfortable tension: we celebrate progress, yet often assume harassment and bias...
05/03/2026

International Women’s Day surfaces an uncomfortable tension: we celebrate progress, yet often assume harassment and bias are largely resolved in our workplaces.

Organisations often line up behind statements and policies, yet the day-to-day culture tells a much quieter story. Far too many women still experience harassment at work, and most won’t report it. Sometimes, it's not recognised - harassment is not always about headline-grabbing acts but the small moments that get normalised or brushed off, the kind nobody wants to talk about.

Add to that the reality many leaders assume things are fine unless someone reports otherwise. But if nearly everyone affected stays silent, what does that tell us about the real atmosphere beneath the surface?

Talking with Prisca Bradley, employment and discrimination specialist, left me reflecting on how easily organisations default to compliance, when real change comes from leadership that takes responsibility. Managers who invite honest dialogue, normalise complexity, and create space for people to speak up - not because it’s written in a policy, but because it’s lived in practice.

What would it look like to move from compliance to responsibility in your organisation?

🎧Listen here: https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/captivate-podcast/harassment-at-work-the-leadership-responsibility-we-cant-ignore

Preparedness at work isn’t about predicting what’s coming next.It’s about whether your people are equipped to respond wh...
03/03/2026

Preparedness at work isn’t about predicting what’s coming next.

It’s about whether your people are equipped to respond when things don’t go to plan.

That came through clearly in a recent conversation I had with Alex Rae. We were talking about resilience, and not the kind that’s framed as “just cope and carry on”. What actually makes the difference is whether teams trust their own judgement and feel able to act, rather than freezing or waiting to be told what to do.

I keep seeing how easily leaders slip into feeling they need to have every answer. The unintended consequence is dependency. Pressure builds at the top, confidence drains lower down, and everyone feels more stretched than they need to be.

What helps more than anything is clarity and communication. When leaders stay quiet or vague, uncertainty fills the gaps. People imagine the worst. Simple, timely messages, and space for questions, calm things far more effectively than complex plans ever do.

And we can’t ignore the emotional side of change. When people don’t feel supported or safe, performance suffers. Not because they don’t care, but because they’re human.

Preparedness shows up in everyday moments. How managers listen. How learning is encouraged. How challenge and care sit side by side.

I’ve written more about this way of thinking in the piece below.
I keep seeing different versions of this in teams.
What are you seeing?

https://itstimeforchange.co.uk/preparedness-starts-with-people/

26/02/2026

Caring for people at work is often mistaken for removing challenge altogether.

What keeps coming up in conversations with leaders and managers is this sense that if we’re to support our workforce, it must mean making things easier, less demanding, more comfortable. But that tends to miss something critical. Growth, progress, and - frankly - the work itself should come with challenge built in.

The trick isn’t to eliminate it, but to build capacity - to actually support people as they move through uncertainty or change, rather than simply shielding them from it.

In practice, I watch how this plays out when a team is stretched or a business faces choppy waters. Sometimes we try to take the edge off the pressure too quickly, when real support is about creating enough safety for people to stay engaged with the challenge, without burning out.

It’s a messy, shifting balance. I wouldn’t claim there’s a neat answer. What I am sure of is that the most resilient teams I see aren’t the least challenged – they’re the best supported.

Download my free Insight to Action resource: Preparedness, Possibility, and People - How Leaders Build Resilient Teams - for practical steps for a more human approach to leadership, ready when you are: https://itstimeforchange.activehosted.com/f/43

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?


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