Future Ready Organisations: Behaviour, Not Buzzwords, Will Shape the Next Era of Local Government

We throw around the phrase “future ready” a lot in local government. It appears in strategies, transformation plans, and funding bids. But for many organisations, it’s more of a tagline than a reality. Here’s the truth: most councils do have a strategy. Many have a transformation roadmap. Some even have innovation teams or delivery units. But very few are truly future ready because readiness isn’t about documents. It’s about behaviour. It’s about systems that help people navigate complexity, not collapse under it. It’s about trust, clarity, and momentum even when the path ahead is uncertain.

This isn’t a criticism it’s an observation shaped by 20+ years working across local government and wider public services. I’ve seen up close how well-meaning change programmes can stall when culture, trust, or leadership consistency are missing. I’ve also seen how behaviourally informed design often through small shifts can reignite purpose, improve performance, and make organisations feel more human again. So if we want councils that can adapt, deliver, and lead through change we need to stop pretending structure and strategy are enough. Future readiness starts with understanding people. And that’s where behavioural science meets real-world leadership.

Why Future Readiness Matters Now

Local government is facing a perfect storm:

• Budget pressures are relentless doing more with less has become doing different with nothing.

• Expectations haven’t dropped. Residents still want quality, access, fairness and now digital too.

• Workforce burnout is real. Talent is harder to retain. Younger staff expect meaning, flexibility and values alignment.

• Disruption from climate to AI is already here. Councils need to lead, not just react.

And yet, despite these pressures, we continue to approach transformation like it’s a spreadsheet exercise. We restructure. We redesign. We rebrand. But we often fail to tackle the root issue: whether the organisation is behaving in a way that supports change or resisting it at every turn.

I once worked with a directorate where everything on paper looked sound: new structure, clear objectives, engaged leadership. But underneath, teams were fearful, overloaded, and unclear on priorities. Progress was slow. Energy was low. Change fatigue had set in.

Change fatigue is what happens when people are asked to adapt again and again without seeing the benefits or feeling in control. It’s not resistance. It’s exhaustion. People stop engaging not because they don’t care, but because they’ve learned that today’s priority might be replaced by another one tomorrow. Trust erodes. Energy dips. The best people quietly opt out.

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To turn it around, you have to stop pushing and start listening. In that case, we paused the delivery treadmill and created protected space for honest reflection what was working, what wasn’t, and what support people actually needed. We focused on rebuilding psychological safety, clarity, and alignment before launching anything new. Once people felt seen and heard, momentum started to return. Not because we motivated them but because we removed the noise that was getting in the way. The fix wasn’t another restructure. It was creating the space to talk honestly about behaviours, expectations, and what needed to change in the day-to-day. Only then could the strategy actually land.

What Does It Really Mean to Be Future Ready?

Let’s strip it back.

A future ready organisation is one that can adapt to complexity without losing clarity, purpose or integrity. It doesn’t need everything mapped out. It knows how to respond when things shift. It builds confidence in its people, even when the answers aren’t obvious. That looks like:

• Teams who can self-organise, not wait for instruction.

• Leaders who role-model values under pressure, not just in away days.

• Culture that rewards curiosity, not compliance.

• Performance that focuses on outcomes, not just tick-box delivery.

And it’s not about always getting it right it’s about having systems that notice, adapt, and learn. That’s future readiness.

Behavioural Science: Not Theory Practice

This is where behavioural science earns its place in leadership conversations. Not as a buzzword, but as a toolkit for how humans actually work.

Here are four insights I bring into almost every transformation programme:

1. We default to habit not logic under pressure.

You can launch all the change comms you want, but if the daily routines don’t shift, nothing else will. People don’t “resist change” they repeat what’s familiar. That’s why designing for new defaults is more effective than enforcing compliance.

2. People trust what they experience, not what they’re told.

A glossy values statement means nothing if behaviours at the top don’t match. Psychological safety feeling safe to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes is a key predictor of team performance. It starts with consistency and humility in leadership.

3. Small nudges matter more than big declarations.

Changing how you run meetings, share decisions, or design workspaces can shape culture more than a full-blown OD strategy. One council I worked with replaced formal check-ins with short “pulse” conversations led by team members. Engagement went up. So did performance.

4. Cognitive overload kills performance.

If everything is a priority, nothing is. Future ready organisations simplify where they can. They create clarity through boundaries, not just ambition. One leadership team I coached scrapped 80% of their KPIs and focused on five core metrics. Delivery improved. So did morale.

The Six Levers of Future Readiness

When I’m supporting councils through change, I use a six-lever model to diagnose what's really going on and where the energy needs to go. Each lever is grounded in systems thinking and behavioural insight:

1. Structure

·         Ask: Does your operating model enable flexibility or just reinforce hierarchy?

·         Tip: Map how decisions actually get made vs how they should be made.

2. Leadership

·         Ask: Are your leaders consistent, credible, and visible?

·         Tip: Introduce leadership habits that promote trust (e.g. narrating decisions, open 360s, walk-and-talks).

3. Capability

·         Ask: Are you developing skills for ambiguity, or just technical competence?

·         Tip: Invest in coaching, relational practice, systems thinking not just transactional upskilling.

4. Technology

·         Ask: Is your tech human-centred, or process-led?

·         Tip: Don’t just digitise your forms. Redesign the journey first.

5. Culture

·         Ask: What’s the story people tell themselves about how things really work here?

·         Tip: Surface these stories. Use rituals, language and routines to reinforce the culture you want.

6. Performance

·         Ask: Are you measuring activity or impact?

·         Tip: Align metrics to purpose, not just output. Include wellbeing and enablement data alongside delivery.

Each of these levers affects the others. Future readiness happens when they’re aligned not when one is excellent and the rest are dragging behind.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Some examples from my own work:

Culture heatmaps + eNPS + enablement grids: We mapped teams across a bespoke 9-box framework, surfacing where people felt energised and supported and where they didn’t. The results changed how we targeted leadership development, engagement activity, and workload balancing.

“Team around the service” model: Instead of siloed business partners for finance, HR, digital etc., we designed integrated partnership teams that shared insight and priorities. The shift from transactional to strategic conversations was immediate.

OD sprints: Short, focused design sprints with mixed teams (HR, service leads, frontline staff) to solve one challenge at a time from onboarding to complaints handling. These built ownership and capability at the same time.

The common thread? Practical behavioural design, aligned leadership, and a system that helped not hindered people doing their best work.

How to Start Building a Future Ready Council

You don’t need a 2-year programme to begin. You need momentum. And that starts with leaders being brave enough to look at the system not just the symptoms.

Here’s how I often advise clients to begin:

Start with trust

If people don’t believe the process is fair or that change is worth it, nothing sticks. Build this first. Own past mistakes. Be visible. Be human.

Map your “behavioural landscape”

Ask: What behaviours are showing up right now? What’s being rewarded, ignored, or tolerated? That’s your current culture.

Name the gap between intention and impact

Where are the good ideas failing in execution? Where does the system say “yes” but the experience says “no”?

Pilot differently

Start small. Test things that shift behaviour meeting design, decision loops, feedback practices. Share what you learn.

Focus on consistency, not charisma

Future ready organisations aren’t built on heroic leaders. They’re built on leaders who behave consistently, show up with integrity, and invite challenge.

Final Thoughts

This isn’t about adding another layer of work. It’s about doing what you’re already doing but better, braver, and with more humanity. Future readiness isn’t perfection. It’s permission to learn, to adapt, to build trust in real time. It’s a commitment to people, not just plans.

So ask yourself:

• What is your organisation really designed to deliver?

• Who’s thriving in your current system and who’s surviving it?

• And what’s one thing you could change today to make the future feel less like a threat and more like an opportunity?

Because the future isn’t coming. It’s already here. And how we lead today shapes what’s possible tomorrow.

Lucy Thompson

Strategic People Leader | Turning Strategy into Culture. Making Change Stick.

People. Systems. Impact.