The Most Overlooked Opportunity For Cultural Change

There’s a moment in every business lifecycle that offers rare, transformational potential. It usually doesn’t arrive with fanfare.  

In fact, it often shows up in the form of a lease expiry. 

At first glance, it looks logistical — a decision about how much space, the right location, how much is it going to cost, and the style and furniture. But if you pause long enough, you’ll see it’s something far more powerful: a once-in-a-decade opportunity to reset your culture, reconnect with your purpose, and reimagine the way your people work together. 

The workplace isn’t just where work gets done. 
It’s where your values are felt. 
Where leadership is either embodied or eroded. 
Where culture becomes a lived experience — or falls flat against glass partitions. 

The Opportunity Beneath the Surface 

Too often, workplace transitions are treated as operational checklists. A project manager is appointed. A budget is approved. A space is found.  

But what gets missed is the conversation about why the workplace exists in the first place, and what it could make possible. 

This is the moment to ask: 

• Who are we becoming as an organisation? 

• What kind of behaviours, culture, and energy do we want to cultivate? 

• How do we create a place where people choose to be… not out of obligation, but because it fuels their best work? 

Most organisations wait until something is broken; morale, retention, leadership, trust, before they begin to ask these questions. But a workplace change gives you a built-in excuse to ask them now. Proactively. Creatively. Boldly. 

The reality is that the office is never just an office. 
It’s a mirror of your organisation’s clarity, or its confusion. 

A Physical Expression of Culture 

Every aspect of your workspace speaks. 
It communicates what you care about. What you prioritise. What you expect from your people, and what they can expect from you. 

A new workplace can spark collaboration, reinforce trust, and create rhythms that make hybrid work truly work. It can become a destination for connection and innovation, not just a location to clock in. 

But only if you let it. 

That requires intention. It requires asking not just “what do we need?” but “what do we want to make possible?” And it means involving your people in that vision. When they’re invited to shape the space, they’re far more likely to shape the culture within it. 

I’ve seen this firsthand. Most recently at Northrop with Stephen Fryer. Stephen led his organisation through a deeply intentional workplace transformation. What could have been a typical relocation became a cultural reset. By engaging their team early, gathering real data about how the space was used (and not used), and communicating in truly human ways, they created more than just a new office. 

They created a new way of working, leading, and connecting. 

This Is Your Moment 

If you’re on the cusp of a workplace change, I urge you: don’t waste the moment. 

Yes, let’s make the smart decisions around budget and space. But don’t stop there. See it for what it is — a pivotal chance to realign your people, your purpose, and your place of work. 

This isn’t just about furniture and floorplans. 
It’s about designing the future of your organisation. 

And if you’re ready to lean into that, to ask the deeper questions and embrace the potential of this moment, I’d love to help you make the most of it. 

Let’s turn your next move into more than a move. Let’s make it a shift forward.