Evidence of thinking,
not a polished CV.
Three pieces of learning design, each told the same way: the brief and the question underneath it, the thinking that shaped the design, and the journey people actually travelled. All three were built on the same conviction. Learning is not content. It is an experience that changes what people notice, how they think, and what becomes normal around them.
Read as a single page: IGNITE · The Collective
Twenty senior leaders. Ten countries. One question underneath the brief.
What happens to a leader's good intention when something is at stake?
A programme designed for one of the world's largest technology companies. The brief centred on how leaders genuinely welcome and use different perspectives, particularly when pressure, hierarchy and decision authority enter the room. This case study shows how the work was thought about, and why it was never going to be a series of workshops.
Reframing the brief
This was never a communication-skills programme.It was a programme about the psychology underneath the behaviour.
A different perspective is rarely heard as information. Under pressure it lands as a question about who the leader is, and that is what the body responds to first.
Every voice in the room runs a quiet cost-benefit on candour. The design had to change the maths, not just invite honesty.
Decision rights alter the conversation before anyone speaks. Leaders learned to see the effect their position has on the room, and to design around it.
The same strengths that earned the seat can quietly block the culture the leader is trying to create. Naming that pattern without shame was central to the work.
The lens behind the design
The Intention Gap
The space between how a leader intends to respond and what actually happens when something is at stake. The framework behind all of Sope's leadership work treats the moment of challenge as an identity moment rather than a skills moment. The programme therefore examined what leaders did under pressure, not what they knew about listening.
Five connected sessions. One direction of travel: from practitioners to architects of the environment around them.
Between the sessions, in real work
What the experience was built from
- 01Behavioural science
- 02Workplace psychology
- 03Live experimentation
- 04Peer feedback
- 05Case studies
- 06Manager involvement
- 07Digital learning resources
- 08Individual coaching
The goal was never 20 better individuals, it was a changed environment: what leaders make visible, what they make routine, and which stories travel across the organisation.
Client
Global technology company
150,000+ staff worldwide
Participants reported
Participants reported using the work with their teams and with external partners.
Participant ratings and self-reported application.
This is for you if
- Your leaders are capable and experienced, but under pressure their intentions and their impact have drifted apart.
- Your people have 360 fatigue, and you need feedback that is quick to give and useful to receive.
- You want development that shows up in how decisions get made, not just in a workbook.
- You want work tailored to your business, language and priorities rather than generic leadership development.
IGNITE. Nine months. Capable leaders the system was not seeing.
What shapes the choices of a high performer whose performance is not turning into progression?
A nine-month leadership experience designed for Black leaders within Serco. The participants were already capable, high-performing professionals. The challenge was that performance was not consistently translating into visibility, progression or access to senior leadership. The easy answer was another layer of generic leadership competencies. That was not the answer.
Reframing the brief
The answer was never simply to be more confident.It was understanding what shapes a leader's choices, inside them and around them.
Who am I, and where do I belong here? Limiting beliefs that arrived before the job did. Code-switching, and what it costs. Ambition it felt unsafe to say out loud.
Hierarchy, and who gets heard. Bias, visible and structural. Organisational systems that decide access. Whose performance gets seen, and whose does not.
Not everything is yours to fix, and not everything is the system's fault. Seeing which is which is where agency starts.
The intent was never to tell people to be more confident. It was to help them understand what was shaping their choices, then choose differently.
The lens behind the design
The whole system
Designed around the interaction between identity, organisational power, belonging, visibility and behaviour. Every line matters. Move one and the others move with it, which is why the programme worked the whole system rather than one node at a time.
A sustained journey, not a sequence of events: five plenaries, six Action Learning Groups, mentoring and a capstone. Strategic mentoring ran underneath the whole journey.
Between the sessions, in real work
What the experience was built from
Action Learning Groups converted insight into application. The programme mapped to Serco's leadership behaviours: belonging, growth, collaboration, safety, results and learning.
Client
Serco
Nine months
- 1
Make progression discussable
Plenaries named visibility, power and progression as legitimate leadership topics, not private frustrations.
- 2
Connect to mentors and managers
Strategic mentoring arranged through Serco linked participants to people who shape access.
- 3
Repeat it in real work
Six Action Learning Groups turned each insight into a workplace experiment, then reviewed what happened.
- 4
Use the organisation's language
The work mapped to Serco's leadership behaviours: belonging, growth, collaboration, safety, results and learning.
This is the designed route for transfer. It is not evidence of lasting culture change.
What participants reported doing
- Participants submitted individual development plans
- Some secured new internal roles
- Improved management effectiveness was described
- Client relationships became more visible
- Cross-functional networks were built
- Participants sought feedback more actively
Examples recorded in end-of-programme reporting. No counts were recorded, and none were verified independently or over time.
What the evidence shows
- 87.5Net Promoter ScoreParticipants, end of programme
- 90%Confident applying their learningParticipants, end of programme
- 85%Said the programme impacted their leadershipParticipants, end of programme
Participant-reported programme measures. They show how participants rated the experience, not organisation-wide outcomes.
What would prove lasting change
- Promotion and internal move rates for participants at 12 and 18 months, set against the baseline at the time of the brief
- Representation at senior bands over time
- Manager and mentor observation of the behaviours in practice
- Career-support feedback compared with a matched group
This is relevant if
- Capable people are performing but not progressing, and generic leadership content has not changed that.
- Progression and visibility need to become discussable between participants, managers and sponsors.
- You want inclusive leadership development tied to your own leadership behaviours and real work.
- You need an honest measurement plan from the start, not only a satisfaction score at the end.
1,500+ managers across eight countries, and one question about what a manager makes possible.
What does a manager make possible when a capable new joiner is trying to find their footing in a system that nobody can learn alone?
Co-designed with Google as part of The Collective, a six-month onboarding experience for Black+ new hires and their managers. The work began with a particular onboarding reality, but it addressed a leadership problem that exists in every complex organisation: new people are often expected to understand the culture, find the right relationships and decode what success looks like before anyone has made those things visible. We designed the manager experience around the conditions that change that.
Reframing the brief
Onboarding does not fail because people lack information. It fails when leaders leave the human work of joining to chance.
In large organisations, the most consequential knowledge rarely appears in the welcome pack. Who holds influence, how decisions happen and what good looks like travel through relationships.
Under pressure, managers fall back on their own defaults. Their availability, style and assumptions become the environment a new joiner has to navigate.
Ambiguity can be productive. Unspoken expectations are not. Managers had to make role standards, feedback and routes into the work explicit.
People contribute earlier when they know they can ask, challenge, admit uncertainty and be met with curiosity rather than judgement.
The lens behind the design
See the person → Reveal the system → Make the expectation clear → Practise the leadership move → Build the routine. The original programme focused on the onboarding experience of Black+ Googlers. The leadership practices were deliberately transferable: learn the person, make the system legible, give candid feedback and keep the connection active.
Six months of connected onboarding. A manager journey designed to change what happens between the formal moments.
Between the sessions, in real work
What the experience was built from
Facilitated as a partnership between MindsetShift and Google, so the manager experience was built with the people who would have to live with it.
Partner
Six months of connected onboarding
- 1
Name the unwritten rules
Manager sessions on unwritten rules and role clarity: how influence, decisions and good work actually happen.
- 2
Share one map
Manager and new joiner were given the same Guide to Google, organised around Self, Role, Culture and People.
- 3
Practise the hard parts
Candour, relationships, networks and expectation-setting when the work itself is ambiguous.
- 4
Leave with a plan
The experience included a post-programme action plan for manager and new joiner, intended to support the rest of year one.
Repeated across cohorts and countries. The guides and scale support designed transfer, not measured long-term effects.
What the design put in place
- Managers and new joiners were given the same guide
- Manager sessions made unwritten rules and role expectations explicit
- The programme ran across cohorts in eight countries
- The experience included a post-programme action plan intended to support the rest of year one
These describe how the experience was designed and delivered, not measured changes in behaviour.
What the evidence shows
- 1,500+Managers reachedManagers, across cohorts
- 93%Said the experience was worth their timeInaugural class
- 75%+Opted inEligible Googlers
What would prove lasting change
- New-joiner reports of role clarity and connection at 3, 6 and 12 months
- Whether action plans were still in use later in the first year
- First-year retention and internal mobility against joiners outside the programme
- New-joiner reports of manager candour and expectation-setting over time
This is relevant if
- New joiners take too long to understand how decisions, influence and success really work.
- Onboarding sits with HR, but the experience is decided by managers.
- You need a repeatable manager onboarding routine across countries and cohorts, not a one-off event.
- You want inclusive onboarding that works as everyday leadership practice.