Designing Work That Feels Worth It
Keynotes and advisory work for leaders and organisations who sense that while their people aren’t broken, something important about the work isn’t quite right.
Most organisations I work with are functioning well on paper.
The people are smart.
The strategy is sound.
The work gets done.
And yet energy is flatter than it should be. Curiosity has narrowed. Initiative feels more cautious. The effort-to-reward ratio is quietly out of balance.
Nothing is “wrong” enough to trigger a crisis.
No one’s failing.
But something important has gone missing and everybody knows it.
That moment matters.
Because what often gets labelled as a motivation, engagement, or resilience problem is usually something else entirely.
It’s a work culture problem.
The stance I take
Most organisations respond to burnout and disengagement by asking more of their people.
More resilience.
More flexibility.
More mindfulness.
More bloody lunch-and-learns.
Meanwhile, the work itself stays the same.
Here’s the uncomfortable bit: your people aren’t broken. They’re not lazy or lacking grit. They’re discerning. They’re refusing to give sustained effort to work that feels wasteful, incoherent, or designed without their intelligence in mind.
That’s not a problem.
That’s feedback.
My work helps leaders stop trying to fix individuals and start examining the conditions people are working within, so effort leads somewhere meaningful, difficulty is shared rather than imposed, and people are willing to commit fully to what they’re creating.
Who this work is for (and who it isn’t)
This work is usually commissioned by:
CEOs and executive teams
Heads of People & Culture or Organisational Development
Senior leaders with responsibility for both performance and culture
The organisations that engage me are not shopping for speakers. They’re responding to a moment where the cost of staying the same has become visible, and they have both the authority and the budget to do something about it.
If you’re looking for quick fixes or feel-good sessions, this is unlikely to be the right fit.
A practical place to start: the Alignment Scan
If this page has resonated, the most useful next step is usually clarity rather than commitment.
I use a short Alignment Scan to help leaders work out whether the way I think and work is a good fit for what they’re trying to do.
It takes around 10–15 minutes and is mostly simple rating scales, with a few short-answer questions to add context.
It’s not a test.
It’s not an application.
And it doesn’t decide whether we talk.
It’s a way of making assumptions visible, on both sides.
The keynote: Stop Trying to Fix Your People
This keynote reframes burnout and disengagement as signals from the system, not failures in the individual.
It challenges leaders to rethink how work is designed, not to make it easier or softer, but to make it feel worth committing to.
Grounded in behavioural science and delivered in plain English, the talk introduces a diagnostic way of seeing where work conditions are quietly failing, and what to change first.
We explore:
why adding more wellbeing resources often makes things worse, not better
how autonomy, competence, and relatedness are routinely undermined by well-intentioned systems
Assuming AI is primarily a productivity tool can accelerate existing ways of working, quickly exposing where work design is fragile or misaligned.
what real experimentation looks like (not culture programs, not surveys, not slogans)
This is not a talk full of tidy answers. It’s a precursor to honest, human-centred experimentation and to conversations most organisations know they’ve been avoiding.
What the scan is for
The Alignment Scan helps you see:
how closely your goals align with my approach
where you’re open to being challenged
whether this feels like the right kind of work to explore
It also asks for a few practical details your role, your organisation, and who would need to be involved in a decision, so that if we do speak, the conversation starts in the right place.
What happens next
At the end of the scan, you’ll be invited to book a discovery conversation. Everyone who completes it is welcome to that conversation. The scan doesn’t filter people out, it shapes how we talk.
Either way, the aim is the same: to help you decide whether this is a good fit before anyone invests more time or energy.
About Brad
Dr Brad Hodge is a behavioural scientist, speaker, and facilitator who helps leaders redesign work so people can thrive, without pretending the work should be easier.
He’s the founder of NewBiscuit and the author of More: How to Live a Magnificent Life (forthcoming). He entered the university world in his late thirties, fascinated by what makes people tick. Brad has spent the last decade designing and testing demanding, human-centred environments across education, health, and community. Specialising in high intensity training and work environments, Brad takes pride in his ability to get people to work hard, and like it.
Organisations work with Brad when they want more than inspiration, and when they’re willing to change something real about how they work once the talk ends.
Formats and logistics
Keynote: 45–60 minutes (in-person or virtual)
Includes a pre-event briefing call to tailor examples and framing
Optional follow-on: leadership workshops, Alignment Scan diagnostics, or advisory work
Speaking fee available on request. Discounts available for multi-event or follow-on work.
Next step
If you’d like to explore this properly, start with the Alignment Scan.
It’s the cleanest way to work out whether this conversation is worth having.
What leaders leave with
Not inspiration. Not motivation. And not a list of things to roll out on Monday.
Leaders leave with:
a reframe they can’t un-hear: disengagement is a design problem
a simple diagnostic lens to see where work is quietly misaligned
permission to experiment with small, reversible changes rather than five-year transformations
language for the conversation they’ve been circling but not naming
The most common response isn’t applause.
It’s: “I hate that you’re right… and now I have to do something about it.”
