13/06/2026
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really takes to create sustainable change in organisations.
My worlds of organisational development and running a social enterprise have started to overlap in a powerful way.
Because I keep seeing the same thing:
OD professionals are often brought in to “fix a problem.”
But surface-level fixes rarely deal with what’s really going on underneath.
Real change doesn’t come from policy,processes or frameworks alone.
It comes from getting into the hearts and minds of people. People drive change.
That’s where buy-in lives. And that’s where change becomes real.
When I set up , my goal was simple but bold: to create large-scale behavioural change in young people around healthy relationships. I wanted world domination (in a positive way).
People laughed at me.
“How will a theatre show change behaviour at scale?”
“What do you know about education from a corporate background?”
People! I understand people!
What people didn’t see was the foundation behind it: systems thinking and behaviour change, winning hearts and minds- even when they come in the form of thousands of grumpy teenagers.
Because if you want reach and impact, you can’t work in isolation.
People have to be ready for change.
Part of that is helping them be ready. You need to work with others.
For me, that looks like:
✅ Diagnose what’s really happening? Who else is this a problem for?
✅ Align perspectives across the organisation. What’s important to each group and where are the connecting factors?
✅Build collective agreement so people care and create a ripple effect.
✅Collaborate so change is shared, not imposed. This often means that ego has to be put aside. Collaborating for a greater good than individual gain.
And crucially, it’s not a two-week training programme.
It’s a human process. Built in stages. Built on trust.
Did I achieve what I set out to do?
Yes, in part. Not quite world domination but pretty impressive.
Soundproofbox impacted over 29,000 lives in just 3 years. People are using words they’ve learnt in our session in their normal vocabulary.
Some are calling out bad behaviour amongst their peers.
We’ve scaled up by introducing a licenced trainer network in the UK, we are selling our licenced materials in USA 🇺🇸.
All run through partners, freelancers and a very limited budget.
Heaps of discretional effort from those who care, have passion and a whole lot of seeing the bigger mission is why we’ve achieved what we have.
It’s not perfect but it is success and a master class in creating change programmes that work.
I’m offering my insight from both worlds of 25 years in organisational development and as founder of a social enterprise.
Want to know more about change management?
Want to know how I can support your teams?
Contact me
[email protected]
Soundproof Box
