Ep. 20: A New Year, and a new paradigm for strategy and culture, with Steven Fitzgerald.

Caroline Stokes speaks with Steven Fitzgerald, an engineer-turned-CEO and culture designer who’s spent 30 years in technology and human-centred design, and now helps organizations move from brittle, mechanistic structures to living, adaptive ecosystems.They get into why “strategy is what gets done, and culture is how it gets done,” why treating your company like a machine no longer works in a complex, AI-supercharged world, and how leaders can redesign culture so people feel safe, stretch, and actually use the big collective brain of the organization.They also explore what it really means to be a human-centric company when things go wrong — including Steven’s story of a life-changing concussion and how his team redesigned his role around his recovery.If you’re a CEO, senior leader, or culture builder trying to navigate AI, polycrisis, and compressed reinvention without burning everyone out, this one will give you language, metaphors, and hope.In this episode: Strategy vs culture: why “strategy is what we want to do, culture is how it gets done” — and why that distinction matters now. Machine → ecosystem: moving beyond the Industrial Revolution “business as machine” metaphor into a living garden/ecosystem you nurture and prune. Complicated vs complex: why you can “project plan” a space shuttle but you can’t project plan your way through culture, AI disruption, and polycrisis. Brittle organizations: how hierarchy, red tape, and fear pool decisions at the top — and why that makes companies fragile as AI and climate shocks accelerate. Using the “big brain”: designing transparency, autonomy, and psychological safety so decisions can move closer to the edges, where the information is. AI as MSG for culture: why giving people AI “toys” isn’t enough if the system still keeps them caged — and what needs to change so AI actually liberates human potential. The empathy crisis at work: understanding that hiding in bureaucracy is often about safety, not laziness — and why culture is designed, not “just the way things are.” Learning vs development: Steven’s elegant distinction: learning is getting an idea; development is becoming a different person, team, or organization. Appreciative inquiry & co-creation: working with the system, not on it — using appreciative inquiry, dialogic OD, and human-centred design so people build their own future. A real story of human culture: how his company responded to his severe concussion by completely redesigning his role based on energy, not status — and what thattaught him about patience, love, and long-term thinking in organizations.More about Steven FitzgeraldHabanero co-founder and president Steven Fitzgerald thinks about the world of work a lot. He has spent his life examining what motivates us as human beings and how thriving organizations build successful teams.Executive peers call Steven a thought partner. Whether challenging the status quo or providing a dose of inspiration, he’s the one in the room who helps move things along when everyone else is stuck. In the sometimes abstract world of people and culture, he brings a breadth of coaching and consulting skill to help teams cut to the chase and move to something clear and actionable. And while he’s often invited into the executive boardroom or asked to be the voice of the future of work, his most remarkable and proud workplace achievement has been a home called Habanero — his springboard for helping people and organizations thrive.https://www.habaneroconsulting.com/