The Transformation Myth: Why Big Change Fails in Real Life - Tom Kegode

In this episode of Work’s Not Working… Let’s Fix It!, Siân Harrington sits down with Tom Kegode – former People & Places Culture Transformation Lead at Lloyds Banking Group – to challenge one of the most overused ideas in corporate life: transformation.

Despite the slide decks, the roadmaps and the change programmes most organisations aren’t actually transforming. They’re stuck in cycles of exhaustion, over-promising and initiative-fatigue. Tom argues that the real fix lies somewhere very different: evolution.

Across his career – from innovation teams to workforce design to hybrid work strategy –Tom has learned that change doesn’t happen through grand programmes. It happens through curiosity, co-creation and short, sharp experiments that shift how people work in the real world. And sometimes it starts as simply as walking into an executive meeting in a green Adidas track top and a baseball cap – his signature signal of “friendly disruption” designed to open up new conversations. 

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the idea of “transformation” gives leaders false confidence
• How evolution reduces burnout, boosts wellbeing and creates psychological safety
• What Tom learned from redesigning Lloyds’ hybrid model – including why the first iteration didn’t work
• How “unboxing your week” helps people use office time intentionally
• Why learning cultures aren’t built through hours-tracking but through collective, experiential learning
• The real lever for culture change: co-creation, agency and protected learning time
• What Kenya’s young, optimistic workforce taught Tom about adaptability and the future of work
• Why curiosity is a muscle that anyone – at any stage – can build

Whether you’re leading a transformation programme, navigating hybrid work or simply trying to make change stick inside a large organisation, this episode offers practical insight into how work actually evolves and how leaders can make that evolution faster, healthier and more human.

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