Your Culture Isn’t Broken—It’s Working Exactly as Designed | Abi Adamson (S4 E19)

What if the burnout, silence, mistrust, disengagement, or fear showing up inside a workplace isn’t random? What if the culture is growing exactly what the environment was designed to grow? In this episode of Sunday SoulDay, I sit down with Abi Adamson, author of Culture Blooming: Nurturing Workplaces Where People Grow, workplace culture transformation expert, TEDx speaker, and founder of The Culture Partnership. Abi has spent more than a decade helping leaders navigate the difficult conversations behind real cultural change, working with organizations including Spotify, Google, Sony Music, the World Economic Forum, and Match Group. But our conversation goes beyond workplace culture strategy. We begin with Abi the person: her experience growing up in London as the first-born daughter in an immigrant family, her early path through film school, and some of the experiences that shaped how she came to understand people, work, and belonging. Then we go beneath the surface. We explore Abi’s provocative question, “Who owns culture?”, and why she believes creating a healthy workplace requires contribution rather than control. Abi also walks us through her SERN Framework: Soil, Exposure, Roots, and Nutrients, including what leaders often miss when they focus only on the behaviors they can see rather than the conditions producing them. We talk about psychological safety, difficult conversations, productive discomfort, leadership responsibility, and an important question: Can you really change a culture without getting uncomfortable? And because this is Sunday SoulDay, we bring the conversation back to the human being behind the leader. What must we cultivate within ourselves before we can create environments where other people genuinely flourish? This conversation is about more than workplace culture. It’s about understanding that what grows above the surface is often shaped by conditions we rarely stop to examine beneath it. ️ In this conversation: Who actually owns workplace culture? Why culture is something we cultivate, not simply control Abi’s journey from film school to workplace culture transformation The SERN Framework: Soil, Exposure, Roots & Nutrients What burnout and disengagement may reveal about an organization Psychological safety vs. avoiding discomfort Why difficult conversations are necessary for cultural change What leaders need to cultivate within themselves Creating workplaces where people can genuinely grow Featured Book: Culture Blooming: Nurturing Workplaces Where People Grow by Abi Adamson Subscribe to Sunday SoulDay for conversations with founders, leaders, experts, creatives, and changemakers about the inner work behind how we lead, live, grow, and become. Hosted by: Damesha Craig, Leadership Strategist and Purpose Alchemist | Founder, Leadership Garden OS & Leadership Garden AI | Executive Coach | Host, Sunday SoulDay | Publisher, The Soul Fueler Journal Connect with Damesha Craig : https://www.dameshacraig.com : https://www.leadershipgarden.ai : https://soulfuelerjournal.com : https://www.linkedin.com/in/dameshacraig/ : ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@sundaysoulday⁠ Be a Guest: Email us: [email protected] www.sundaysoulday.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.