Why do so many change initiatives fail, even when organisations invest heavily in new systems, training programmes and transformation plans?

In this episode of We Are Powerful, James and Alex are joined by systemic coach Karen Lord to explore a different way of thinking about change. Drawing on more than two decades of experience across sectors, Karen argues that organisations often focus on the visible aspects of change while overlooking the human dynamics that ultimately determine success.

The conversation explores why resistance is rarely about the change itself, how organisations become trapped in optimisation mindsets, and why genuine transformation requires curiosity, experimentation and what Karen calls, "connected autonomy".

Karen shares practical examples from healthcare, charities and large organisations to illustrate how teams can unlock innovation, improve engagement and create lasting change when people are trusted to think, learn and solve problems together.

In this episode we discuss:

• What systemic coaching is and how it differs from traditional executive coaching.
• Why organisations often solve the wrong problem and focus on symptoms rather than causes.
• The difference between the "visible" and "invisible" economies of an organisation.
• How optimisation can unintentionally drive decline when circumstances change.
• Why curiosity is one of the most important leadership capabilities during periods of uncertainty.
• The power of peer-to-peer influence over hierarchical change programmes.
• Why Karen avoids labels such as "change agent" and believes change agency belongs to everyone.
• How boards and leaders can benefit from the "wisdom of crowds".
• Real examples of teams transforming performance through mindset shifts rather than new procedures.
• How systems naturally rebalance and regenerate when people are given the freedom and agency to contribute.

Key Takeaways

✅ Notice what your results are telling you.

✅ When current approaches stop delivering results, more optimisation is rarely the answer.

✅ Curiosity often creates more progress than expertise.

✅ Sustainable change happens through relationships and conversations, not instructions.

✅ Every person in an organisation has the capacity for change agency.

✅ Culture shifts when people understand both the visible and invisible dynamics of the systems they work within.

Memorable Quote

"Connected autonomy. It's peer to peer that does it. It's not the consultant at the front of the room or a directive from the board. It doesn't work that way. It works systemically and humanly." - Karen Lord

Find Out More

You can connect with Karen Lord | LinkedIn, where she regularly shares practical tools and insights on systemic leadership, mindset and organisational transformation.

In this episode we speak to Hannah Oyewole, Author, TEDx speaker and CEO and founder of Young Ladies Club, a social enterprise that has supported over 10,000 young women to raise their aspirations and fulfil their potential.

Hannah shares her journey growing up in Hackney and how she chose a different path, turning adversity into purpose and impact. We explore the role of belief, habits, and personal responsibility play in creating change, alongside practical ways to overcome limiting thinking.

This is a grounded conversation about purpose, forgiveness, and taking action - even when you start with very little.

Key Topics

• Rewriting limiting beliefs
• Finding purpose in a busy world
• The power of daily habits
• Why forgiveness unlocks progress
• Creating opportunity through action

Key Insights

• You can’t control everything — but you can control how you respond. Hannah focuses on attitude, beliefs, habits, and daily actions as the foundation for change.
• Beliefs can be rewritten. Actively identifying negative thoughts and consciously replacing them with more constructive ones is a practical way to shift direction.
• Purpose is discovered through reflection, not busyness. Creating space to step back, think, and ask honest questions is essential for clarity.
• Forgiveness unlocks movement. Letting go of past experiences or self-judgement creates the conditions for change.

Key Takeaway

Change starts with what you can control: your mindset, your habits, and the actions you take next.

Links:

Home - The Young Ladies Club

I Dare You: Roll the Dice of Life: Oyewole, Hannah: 9780957557901: Amazon.com: Books

TEDx https://youtu.be/Fi0Vkoa8fc4?si=6otVtyY4BDnAUuQU

You Win or You Learn: Culture, Space and the Reality of Work.

In this episode James and Alex speak to Steve Henigan, Founder & MD of HCG, about the reality behind workplace culture and transformation.

This conversation goes beyond office design, exploring how leadership behaviour, clarity, and culture shape whether workplaces actually work.

Steve shares his journey from corporate roles to building his own consultancy, along with powerful lessons from swimming the English Channel and applying performance thinking to business.

Key Topics

• Why great offices don’t always create great cultures
• “You win or you learn” – reframing failure
• Lessons from swimming the English Channel
• The importance of leadership visibility in change
• Hybrid working: balancing people, clients, and business reality
• Why behaviour matters more than perks or policies

Key Takeaways

You can design the perfect space on paper. But if people don’t feel safe to be themselves within it, it remains just that - space.

• Culture is created through behaviour, not design
• Leadership visibility is the single biggest driver of change
• Big challenges become possible when broken into small steps
• There is no perfect model, only clarity about what matters
• People don’t need more perks, they need permission

Links

• Steve Henigan: LinkedIn
• HCG: HOME | HCG
• We.Are.Powerful: wearepowerful.org

Guest: Chris Herbert, Founder of Fit for Life Youth

In this episode, James Russell and Alex Sellers are joined by Chris Herbert, founder of Fit for Life Youth, an award‑winning community organisation working with children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in Ladbroke Grove, London.

Chris shares his personal journey from growing up on a local estate to creating a charity that supports confidence, resilience, life skills and healthier lifestyles through sport, mentoring and community connection.

In this conversation, we explore:

• How early experiences with youth workers shaped Chris’ sense of purpose and legacy
• Why sport – and boxing in particular – can be a powerful vehicle for confidence, discipline and emotional regulation
• The modern pressures young people face today, including social media, online comparison, and public “slip‑ups” that never disappear
• Challenging the “snowflake” narrative by naming the very real pressures facing today’s youth
• How Fit for Life Youth creates belonging, structure and positive role models at a local, human level
• Stories of young people who have grown from participants into coaches, leaders and role models themselves
• The realities of running a grassroots charity: funding pressures, uncertainty, and navigating the Voluntary sector
• Turning setbacks into opportunities, including building a permanent gym space after losing community facilities
• Why community still matters – for young people and for adults – and how real connection shapes wellbeing
• Advice Chris would give his younger self about self‑belief, starting sooner, and keeping calm through uncertainty

Key themes:

• Belonging before performance
• Community as a foundation for resilience
• Sport as a metaphor for life and leadership under pressure
• Faith, persistence and “keeping calm and carrying on”
• The quiet impact of consistency and care

Quote from the episode:

“The feeling you get from seeing people develop and grow and become happy — that’s why we do this. It’s a feeling you can’t really put into words.”

Find out more:

• Fit for Life Youth: Website FFLY HQ
• Chris Herbert on LinkedIn: Christopher Herbert
• Follow Fit For Life Youth CIO (@fitforlifeyouth) • Instagram photos and videos for updates, stories and community work

If this episode resonated with you, consider how community shows up in your own life and where you might choose to contribute, reconnect, or support others.

www.wearepowerful.org

What if leadership wasn’t about getting more out of people but about designing the conditions where people naturally thrive?

In this episode, James Russell, Alex Sellers, and James Sale explore what truly motivates human behaviour and why understanding motivation is one of the most powerful levers for personal change and organisational effectiveness.

James Sale shares the story behind Motivational Maps, reflecting on his own mid‑life career transition and how decades of reading, curiosity, and experimentation shaped a tool now used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Along the way, the conversation ranges beautifully, from leadership and organisational culture to listening, identity, and what it really means to “become” rather than arrive.

Key themes explored in the episode include:

• Why motivation is not fixed Motivation shifts as our lives, contexts, and circumstances change. Understanding this can unlock energy, clarity, and compassion for ourselves and others.
• From control to design in leadership A powerful reframe: great leaders stop asking “How do I get more out of people?” and start asking “How do I design roles, rewards, and conversations so people’s natural drivers are engaged?”
• Mid‑life transitions and reinvention James reflects on leaving a secure career in education in his forties and why trying things out, rather than over‑planning, is often the only way to discover what truly motivates us.
• The danger of misaligned organisations When mission statements, leadership motivators, and employee drivers don’t align, organisations unintentionally create friction, disengagement, and resistance to change.
• Listening as a leadership discipline Listening isn’t just a communication skill. It may be the closest thing we have to love in organisational life, and a foundation for trust, influence, and change.
• Becoming, not predicting Why trying to define your future self too precisely can limit growth and why life, like an acorn becoming an oak, unfolds in ways we can’t fully foresee.

The episode closes with reflections on perseverance over strength, small steps over big gestures, and the importance of staying curious, present, and human especially in complex leadership roles and times of change.

Motivational Maps

In this episode of We.Are.Powerful, we’re joined by Louise Birritteri, founder and CEO of Pikl, for an open and deeply grounded conversation about what it really takes to build and scale a business.

Louise shares her journey from a career in large insurance organisations to founding an Insurtech from a dining‑room table and growing it into a company of more than 60 people across Norwich, London and New York. Along the way, Louise speaks candidly about fear, uncertainty, resilience and the often‑unspoken loneliness of leadership.

We explore the emotional reality of being a founder, learning to live with ambiguity and why resilience becomes something you build through experience rather than something you’re born with. Louise also reflects on the importance of understanding what you can and can’t control, and how letting anxiety drive decisions can be paralysing.

This conversation goes beyond growth stories and success narratives. It’s about vulnerability, relationships, culture, and knowing when to persist and when to pivot as your organisation evolves.

Key themes include:

• The transition from corporate life to founding a business
• Building resilience through uncertainty and repeated challenge
• Separating fear from decision‑making
• The changing role of leadership as organisations scale
• Culture, trust and vulnerability at executive level
• Why “dream big” still matters, especially when things feel hard

Whether you’re a founder, a leader, or navigating change in your own work or life, this episode offers reassurance, perspective and practical wisdom from someone who has lived it.

www.pikl.com

www.wearepowerful.org

What happens when the environment around you makes you shrink — and how do you find the courage to thrive again?

In this deeply honest and uplifting episode of We.Are.Powerful, James Russell is joined by Neelu Agarwal, Executive Director for EMEA Inclusion at the global investment bank, Wells Fargo; happiness coach, and speaker on belonging and psychological safety.

Neelu shares her personal journey from arriving in the UK feeling apologetic, uncertain, and unseen, to becoming a senior leader shaping inclusive cultures. She reflects on how subtle behaviours at work can erode confidence, why rejection can feel so personal, and how small, consistent steps can radically change the trajectory of your career and life.

Together, James and Neelu explore why rejection is not failure, but redirection, how confidence is built through action rather than perfection, and why leaders have a profound responsibility for how people feel when they leave work each day.

This episode is a powerful reminder that everyone we work with is someone’s precious child — carrying dreams, doubts, and dignity into every room.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• 1'46"📍 What it feels like to “shrink” in professional environments — and how to reverse it
• 5’27”📍 Practicing inclusion by acknowledging that we are all someone’s precious child
• 9’32”📍 Not letting some of the put downs and negative words define you
• 19’22”📍 Dealing with rejection
• 24’13”📍 The perils of comparing ourselves to others
• 28’16”📍 How to approach situations where you feel underestimated
•  32’55”📍 What we can do to support others and creating a safe environment for others
• 38’57” 📍 Advice Neelu would give to her younger self!

About the guest

Neelu Agarwal is an Executive Director for EMEA Inclusion at the global investment bank, Wells Fargo and a certified happiness coach and a speaker on belonging, psychological safety, career development, and leadership. Her work focuses on creating environments where people feel safe, valued, and able to bring their full potential to work.

You can find Neelu on LinkedIn at Neelu Agarwal.

If this episode resonated with you:

• Share it with someone who might need encouragement right now
• Reflect on one small step you can take this week to move from shrinking to thriving
• Visit wearepowerful.org for more episodes and resources

In this uplifting episode of We Are Powerful, hosts James Russell and Alex Sellers sit down with Tyler Lowe, Ambassador for The King’s Trust and founder of Loving Life — a wellbeing company dedicated to creating happier, healthier, more connected workplaces.

Tyler shares his personal journey, from growing up in West London to a life‑changing year in Australia where he discovered what it meant to truly love life. These experiences sparked his mission to help others build confidence, overcome fear, and thrive at work and in life.

Together, the trio dive deep into the science and practice of gratitude, exploring how appreciation, giving, and reframing challenges can transform individuals, teams, and organisational culture. Tyler reveals moving stories from his workshops — including one emotional moment that brought an entire team to tears, showing the true human impact of feeling seen, supported and valued.

What We Cover in This Episode

• Tyler’s inspiring journey from sports science student to wellbeing entrepreneur
• How living abroad helped him build confidence and overcome fear
• Why taking small risks prepares us for bigger leaps
• The link between gratitude, resilience, and high‑performing teams
• How reframing negative situations can change our mindset instantly
• Authentic appreciation vs. empty praise — what really lands
• Why giving (without expectation) makes us happier and healthier
• Practical ways leaders can show gratitude and create more connected workplaces
• Real stories from Tyler’s workshops that demonstrate the power of human connection
• Daily practices for building gratitude as a healthy habit
• The overlooked role of recognition in building trust and belonging

Memorable Moments

• 🧡 “When we give, we receive — not always from the person we gave to, but from somewhere else.”
• 📝 The team workshop moment that revealed deep compassion and created a shared emotional breakthrough
• 🚗 Tyler’s example of reframing a dreaded two‑hour drive into a moment of learning and gratitude
• 🔥 Alex’s insight that “everyone is looking for a place to fit — a sense of importance in the world”
• 🎁 The trio’s playful debate about Christmas gifts and what it really means to feel “seen”

Practical Takeaways You Can Use Today

• Start a daily gratitude journal (even 1–2 lines)
• Reframe daily frustrations by asking: “What’s the positive in this?”
• Give two selfless acts a day — and don’t get caught!
• Show appreciation in ways that match individual preferences
• As a leader, give your time, attention, and honest feedback (they’re powerful gifts)

Where to Find Tyler

• Website: lovinglifeco.com
• Search: “Loving Life Wellbeing” or “Tyler Lowe Loving Life”
• LinkedIn: Tyler Lowe — message before connecting!

Useful Links

• Gratitude Journal Prompts (Free Tool) - Loving Life
• Empowering Teams and Cultures Together | We.Are.Powerful