Stay in Your Lane (and Other Myths)

Reflections on change, complexity, and why it’s rarely just about the person

Hi Friends👋

Today I’m launching a new series - short reflections on my learning about systems innovation in workplace psychology, community leadership, and philanthropy.

It builds on my earlier reflections about purpose but with a wider lens. Ideas that sit in here somewhere…

As a workplace psychologist, I’m often asked to help individuals change but there is frequently tension between an individual’s control and the role of culture, team norms, and context that shape their behaviour. Where does one end and the other begin? Can you help an individual or team change if their context remains the same? Should you even try?

Whether it’s wellbeing training, coaching a struggling leader, or helping organisations boost collaboration and cooperation, I’m increasingly aware that disconnection, resistance, and struggle aren’t always signs of failure or developmental needs, but rather clues - signals pointing to deeper systemic patterns.

Disengagement might be a response to unclear priorities, shifting power dynamics, or invisible incentives. Resistance to collaboration may stem from context that rewards individual achievement, punishes risk, or overwhelms people with competing priorities. The intent is there but the pattern says, ‘stay in your lane’.

Exploring patterns with organisations wanting change isn’t always welcome however. The ideas are too foreign. We don’t have the tools and language. We’re trained to think in programs and processes - tidy sequences, predictable outcomes, deficits and development programs. If someone is underperforming, send them to training. If a team is disengaged, run a survey.

Cause → intervention → outcome.

But humans, teams and workplaces are systems, and systems are messy. They ripple. They loop. They respond to relationships, not checklists. You can’t just fix the part — you have to understand the whole.

This series of posts is my way of exploring, more openly, the tension between our need for change and our understanding of how it works. I’ll start with the shift from individuals to systems, step it up to co-designing with communities and round it out with abundance-oriented philanthropy and goals for societal transformation. Big topics and much to think about!

It won’t be a how-to guide. It’s more like field notes—thinking aloud about what it means to see systems clearly, work with complexity, and stay grounded in practice.
If that’s your kind of learning too, I’d love to have you along.

Onwards and upwards,

More fun stuff:

I’m listening to… A Split Enz playlist on Spotify #oldschool

I’m reading… Trauma Proof: Healing, Attachment and the Science of Prevention by Benjamin Perks. You should too.

I’m loving… My new home office. Ten years in the making 🎉