At Anthropy 2025, I listened to a debate about where company culture truly comes from. One camp argued it’s shaped from the top, that leaders set the tone and culture trickles down. The other side claimed it lives on the shop floor, in the daily interactions between colleagues.

Intuitively, I side with the latter. Culture lives in how people treat each other when no one’s watching. But that doesn’t mean leadership doesn’t matter. The most powerful cultures are shaped in the space between leadership’s intention, and how that intention is lived, challenged, and reimagined every day.

Take a moment to observe any workplace. You’ll notice whether there’s discord, interactions limited to necessity, statements made without curiosity. Or whether there’s warmth and energy, people seeking each other out, collaborating with ease, and connecting as humans.

Now imagine you're the customer. For all the values listed on a company’s website, what do you actually experience? What’s the real energy behind the brand?

Culture lives in conversation. And conversation can be designed.

At Reboot the Future, we see this again and again. Whether working with sustainability leaders, education pioneers, or global changemakers, transformation always begins in dialogue, not performance reviews or vision statements, but in the everyday moments:

• The way someone is welcomed into a room
• Whether a junior team member feels safe to speak up
• How disagreement is handled, and repaired

These aren’t accidents. They’re shaped by attention, intention, and care. Which means they’re also teachable.

So we ask:

• Are we listening with genuine curiosity?
• Are we equipping teams to connect across difference?
• Are we making space for reflection, not just reaction?
• Are we building trust, or just delivering transactions?

The future of leadership belongs to those who know how to hold space for real conversation. Because dialogue isn’t a soft skill, it’s the soil where innovation, wellbeing, and ethical action grow.

And yes, this takes time. But not more time, different time.

Time that’s intentional. Curious. Sometimes courageous. Always transformative.

So what if the future of work doesn’t depend on the next big tool or framework?

Call to Curiosity

At Reboot the Future, we design experiences that get people back into meaningful dialogue, with themselves, with each other, and with the planet. Because when conversation shifts, everything else can follow.

What kinds of conversations are happening in your organisation, and what future are they creating?