# Sir Cary's biggest lesson on workplace culture - **Episode:** [160](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/160.md) (2025-01-07) - **Type:** other - **Tags:** workplace-culture, lessons, leadership - **Time:** 46:55–51:38 (start 2815s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/160?t=2815](https://truthliesandwork.com/160?t=2815) --- [46:55] Leanne Elliott: Exactly. Exactly [46:58] Al Elliott: So before I ask my final question to ask you, um, ask you where people can find out a bit more about you, I'm guessing they can go into Amazon, type your name in, and with 200+ books comes up [47:09] Leanne Elliott: Don't market me, it's okay [47:13] Al Elliott: I think the question I always wanted to— want to ask people of your experience, you've got You know what, 200 books, probably 10 times more clients, 10 times more clients you've had. Is there a favorite story around workplace culture, perhaps like the strategy, the transformation? Is there something that sticks in your mind as one of your favorite stories across your career? [47:34] Leanne Elliott: Oh, wow. On workplace culture? [47:39] Al Elliott: On workplace culture, on whatever you think. I just, I'd love to hear your story [47:45] Leanne Elliott: Okay. I think, I think, you know, again, it's about, again, it's about people. It's about having the right people in the right place. So I guess when I was talking earlier about this construction company, there was a director of health and wellbeing who I knew, right, in it. And she was really motivated. The, this, what changes cultures, I think, are people who are passionate about what they do. They care. They're really motivated. And I remember when I met this person, this is before my university spinoff company was doing work with this construction company. Before that, I knew this woman who took the role on there and she was so passionate. She was director of health and wellbeing, and she worked with the HR director and with a health and safety director and all sorts of people. But her passion spilled over into everything. She helped change— can you imagine a construction company, very male-dominated, right? Looking at what other people in that sector, and mainly the male-dominated sectors, would call that soft and fuzzy stuff. I.e., wellbeing. I could see how she changed everybody's opinion at the senior management level. I could see her infecting everybody with how this is the right thing to do. Let's really have a go. Let's really try to make— let us be the leaders in this, particularly in that sector. And they were. They were. They just It changed it. It's a sector that never did stuff like this before. Now they do it. And I guess I saw that and I could see a culture change in that organization. But it all sparks from the passion, the commitment, and, you know, not looking after just yourself and thinking, oh, I want to make sure my job's secure. I'm just thinking this is the right thing to do. If I fail, I fail. I don't— if I lose my job, I lose my job, but I, I believe in it. And I think that's what we need more of. And particularly in the context of the UK, for example, with Brexit, boy, do we need more of it. Brexit was the biggest mistake ever, ever, uh, in, in the UK. It's, it's been very, very damaging to business. So we need, we need to reignite the passion. And, and we have a lot of people who are very passionate about what they do, get it out there. But, you know, the insecurity, the financial insecurity, the job insecurity is driving much more conservative behavior. And we need to get rid of that and just let rip. Maybe the next generation will do it. In fact, I think so. The Z generation, the young millennials are a different breed. First of all, they don't have mortgages, so there's no security to worry about. They don't have it. And they call them the snowflakes, that generation. And that's because they flip from one organization to another. You know why they do that? They saw what happened to their parents. Their parents were the 2008 to 2012 financial crisis. They saw how they were dumped by organizations. It was lack of loyalty. These people want good quality of working life. And they're not afraid to ask for it. And that's our future [51:25] Al Elliott: What a fabulous line to leave it on. Thank you so much. If someone is interested in learning a bit more about you, I'm sure they can just Google you because you, you are the first 1,000 results. But is there any particular, anywhere particularly you want them to go?