The Better Us Culture Journey
Culture isn’t what you say. It’s what your people repeatedly experience.
A 12-month journey that helps your people experience, practise, measure and own the culture you want. Four Summits, five Labs, a small Mission every month, Champions inside your walls, and the numbers to show what changed.
12 months. One team. A better way of working together.
- Summits
- 4Summitsfounder-led days
- Labs
- 5Labsexperiences, not modules
- Missions
- 12Missionsone small brave thing a month
- Pulse checks
- 3Pulse checksstart, middle and end
2012
doing this since
25+
countries
600+
organisations
The difference
Same room. Very different first thirty minutes.
A traditional culture consultant
Walks in with a 140-question diagnostic, a slide deck and a change-management framework.
- Describes the culture
- Measures it, eventually
- Leaves a report
Better Us
Walks in, and within 30 minutes people are laughing together, taking risks together, talking honestly and noticing how they behave together.
- Lets people experience the culture
- Keeps it alive between visits
- Proves what changed
We don’t just talk about culture. We create experiences where people practise it.
Where culture actually lives
Not in the values on the wall. In eleven small moments, every day.
Changing culture isn’t about writing another set of values. It’s about changing the moments people repeatedly experience. This is what we change.
- How we enter meetings.
- How we disagree.
- How we listen.
- How we respond to mistakes.
- How leaders react when someone challenges them.
- How we recognise one another.
- Whether we ask before assuming.
- Whether people feel safe enough to say 'I don't know'.
- Whether we notice someone who's withdrawn.
- Whether we have the difficult conversation.
- Whether we make decisions with people, not for them.
The Better Us Culture Model
Five conditions. One way to build them.
Not fourteen dimensions. Five conditions a thriving team has, with play around the outside as the way to build them. Every Lab moves one or two. Every Mission is tagged to one. The Pulse scores all five, and your Snapshot is laid out on this picture.
Belong
“I feel known, valued and part of something.”
What it looks like
People know each other beyond the job title. Newcomers are pulled in fast. Recognition is specific and frequent.
What kills it
Anonymity, cliques, and recognition only for results.
Play sits around all five.Not “let’s play games at work”. Play is how a team gets from describing trust to feeling it in the room: people lower their guard, take safe risks and get curious about each other.
The Journey
Four phases, not twelve workshops.
Tap any month to see what happens in the room, what happens between visits, and what gets measured.
1 · Months 1–2
Understand Us
Look at ourselves honestly, and kindly.
You get: The Better Us Culture Snapshot
2 · Months 2–5
Build Us
Experience the culture we want before we're asked to believe in it.
You get: 3–5 Culture Practices per team, Champions trained
3 · Months 5–10
Live It
Keep it alive between visits. Change the micro-moments.
You get: Visible behaviour change, and a mid-point Snapshot
4 · Months 10–12
Measure + Move
Prove what changed, and set up Year Two.
You get: The Year One impact report
Month 2 · Understand Us
Summit 1: Us
Connection, belonging and the baseline. What we're proud of, and what's in our way.
In the room
Summit 1, and the Snapshot revealed to everyone
Between visits
Mission 1
Measured
The Snapshot
Between the Summits
Culture lives between the sessions.
This is the part workshop providers don’t do. Every month the same loop runs, carried by the app, your managers and your Champions. Not by us. That’s what turns four good days into a system.
- 1
Pulse
Three to five quick questions on this month's condition.
Carried by The app
- 2
Mission
One small thing for everyone to try. 'Ask someone whose opinion you normally wouldn't seek.'
Carried by The app and Champions
- 3
Manager conversation
Fifteen guided minutes with the team, from a one-page card.
Carried by Managers
- 4
Team practice
The team runs its chosen practice on purpose, and logs deposits.
Carried by Crews and teams
- 5
Reflection
Three questions. Stories captured. Champions surface the best.
Carried by Everyone
- Then again next month, on a new condition.
Three streams, running at once
Everyone has a different job in changing a culture.
Lead It
Your executive team
Quarterly sessions and coaching on modelling the culture: trust, decisions, accountability, and how leaders react when they're challenged. The executive does the whole Journey, visibly. Non-negotiable.
A 90-minute session each quarter, coaching in between
Live It
Your whole workforce
The Labs, the Summits, monthly Missions, Crew meetings, Culture Practices, daily deposits and Pulse checks.
Four Summits, a Mission and a Crew each month, a deposit a day
Spread It
10 to 20 Culture Champions
The people others already go to, chosen for influence not seniority. We train them to run micro-experiences, hold a Crew, read the dashboard and tell the stories.
Two training days and a monthly huddle with a Better Us facilitator
The five Labs
Experience it before you’re asked to believe it.
Not training modules. People play, move, talk, laugh and make decisions, then every Lab ends on the same question:
What just happened in that activity, and where does this show up in the way we work?
The Connection Lab
Games that make people known to each other fast. Storytelling rounds. Noticing who isn't in the conversation.
Changes: How we recognise one another, and how fast newcomers are pulled in.
The device-free question of the week.
The Trust Lab
Built on the Wolf Logic Trust Lab. The Trust Deposits game, the 'trust withdrawal' post-mortem, and practising saying the thing that needs to be said.
Changes: How we respond to mistakes, and whether we do what we say.
Trust deposits at home: the follow-through challenge.
Grounded Leadership
Self-awareness, presence and curiosity. Knowing your default under pressure. For managers, and for anyone who leads without a title.
Changes: How leaders react when challenged, and how we enter meetings.
A 'stop, start, keep' family check-in.
Better Conversations
Listening, perspective-taking and feedback. Role-play cards. Kind, not nice. Getting curious before judging.
Changes: How we disagree, and whether the hard conversation happens.
One conversation you've been avoiding at home.
Move As One
Team challenges that only work when everyone moves. Deciding with people, not for them. The future culture.
Changes: Whether everyone can say what we're for.
The yearly 'better us' family letter.
Every Lab, the same five beats
Arrive 10 min
A game the moment people walk in. Energy up, guard down.
Experience 40–60 min
Two or three experiences that put the condition in the room.
Notice 20 min
What just happened, and where does it show up in the way we work?
Name 20 min
Teams draft their Culture Practices in their own words.
Commit 10 min
One Mission each, and one story to tell someone at home.
Culture Practices
Three to five behaviours, in your own words.
By month five every team has chosen what it commits to living. Each one has to be something you could see happen in a meeting. They go on the wall, into the app and into every manager conversation.
- We get curious before we judge.
- We say the thing that needs to be said.
- We notice who's not in the conversation.
- We challenge ideas without attacking people.
- We do what we say we'll do.
- We ask before we assume.
Monthly Missions
One small, brave thing for everyone, every month.
Month 3 · Belong
Learn one real thing about someone you work with but don't know.
Month 4 · Connect
Ask someone whose opinion you normally wouldn't seek.
Month 5 · Trust
Say 'I don't know' or 'I got that wrong' out loud this week.
Month 6 · Connect
Start your next meeting with a human check-in.
Month 7 · Belong
Recognise someone for something that normally goes unnoticed.
Month 8 · Trust
Have one conversation you've been avoiding.
Month 9 · Contribute
Ask your team: what is one thing we should stop doing?
Month 10 · Align
Make one decision this month with your people, not for them.
Announced in the app on the first of the month, echoed by your Champions, and closed with a three-question reflection. Every Mission has a family version too.
Measure + Move
Not “everyone loved it”. Here’s what changed.
The Culture Pulse runs at the start, the middle and the end of the year: short, the same questions each time, scored on the five conditions. Numbers on a page for your board, not applause in a room.
Your Snapshot, month two
Not a 70-page report. Five human pages, revealed to everyone at the first Summit.
- 1Where we are now
- 2What we're proud of
- 3What's in our way
- 4What we want more of
- 5What matters most
Year One impact report
| Condition | Baseline | Year end |
|---|---|---|
| Belong | 71 | 84 |
| Trust | 64 | 78 |
| Connect | 62 | 74 |
| Align | 73 | 82 |
| Contribute | 68 | 75 |
Illustrative numbers, showing the format of the report. Your baseline, mid-point and year-end Pulse use the identical questions, so the comparison is clean, and it sits beside your own data where you have it: turnover, absence, exit-interview themes.
The honest time cost
Two hours a month that change how the other 160 feel.
Plus four Summits across the year, three to six hours each. That’s the whole ask of a busy person who is allergic to fluffy wellbeing.
2 hrs
a month, outside Summits
- Crew meeting30 min
- Manager conversation15 min
- The month's Mission40 min
- A daily depositunder a minute a day
- Micro-pulse and reflection15 min
Who leads it
Two teachers who have worked inside elite sport.
Dale Sidebottom founded The School of Play and The Better Us Project. He wrote All Work No Play and Wolf Logic Leadership, hosts Energetic Radio, and has taken play-based learning to 25 countries.
Paul Campbell has spent more than 25 years leading people and building teams, including welfare work with athletes and coaches at the Collingwood Football Club.
Together they lead every Summit, the executive stream, your Snapshot reveal and the year-end results. Trained Better Us facilitators run the Champion days and huddles, so the Journey scales without losing the room.
It goes home with them
Every Lab and every Mission has a version for the kitchen table.
The device-free question of the week. The follow-through challenge. One conversation you’ve been avoiding at home. Better Me, Better Us, Better Together is one family of programs across workplaces, schools and families, and your people feel that.
An honest comparison
Three things we say that nobody else does.
Experience it before you're asked to believe it.
Every session bridges from play to work.
Culture lives between the sessions.
We don't leave after the workshop.
Here's what changed.
Baseline, mid-point and year end.
| Compared on | Traditional culture consulting | The Better Us Culture Journey |
|---|---|---|
| The belief | Culture can be measured and described. Here is the framework. | Culture is what people repeatedly experience. Change the micro-moments, through play. |
| The diagnostic | Long and rigorous, and slow to act on. | A short Pulse on five conditions, and a Snapshot in weeks. |
| In the room | Slides and frameworks. | Labs and Summits where people practise it. |
| Between visits | A change-management plan. | Missions, manager conversations, Crews, deposits, Champions. |
| Inside capability | Sometimes, expensively. | Culture Champions, trained from month three. |
| Proof | Measured, but rarely human. | Baseline, mid-point and year-end Pulse. Here's what changed. |
| At home | Nothing. | Every Lab and Mission has a family version. |
| Year Two | A new engagement. | Lighter and cheaper: insight and support, not repeat workshops. |
Ways in
Built around your organisation, priced after one conversation.
Culture Journey
Core
One cohort of 40 to 120 people
- The Pulse, interviews and your Snapshot
- Four founder-led Summits
- All five Labs
- Missions and the app for 12 months
- Mid-point and year-end Pulse
- The Year One impact report
Culture Journey
Plus
Organisations that want it to stick
- Everything in Core
- The Lead It executive stream
- The Champion program: two training days and monthly huddles
- A monthly check-in with us
Culture Journey
Whole of organisation
500+ people, many sites
- Plus, for many cohorts
- An executive intensive
- Better Us for Families, for every staff member
- Your own Practices, printed and on the wall
Year Two: Sustain
From month 13. A quarterly Pulse and executive insight session, Champion refreshers, twelve new Missions, an onboarding module for new starters, and one Summit or Lab. Lighter and cheaper, because by then your people carry it.
Not ready for a year?
Start with a single Lab, a team day or a keynote. See the experiences.
Questions people ask
Before you book the call.
How much time does it take from our people?
Four Summits across the year, three to six hours each. Outside those, about two hours a month: a 30-minute Crew, a 15-minute manager conversation, the month's Mission and a deposit that takes under a minute. Two hours a month that change how the other 160 feel.
We already have values and a leadership framework. Does this replace them?
No. The Journey sits underneath what you already have and makes it lived. Your teams write their Culture Practices in their own words, and they usually end up being your values, made observable in a meeting on a Tuesday.
How is this different from an engagement survey?
A survey tells you how people feel once a year. The Pulse is short, scored on five conditions you can act on, and it's only the start: the Journey then changes the moments behind the numbers, and measures again at the mid-point and the end of the year.
Does it work for hybrid and multi-site teams?
Yes. The Summits and Labs are in person, because that's where people feel it. Everything between them, the Missions, manager cards, Crews and deposits, runs through the BetterUs Workplace app and works wherever people are.
What happens to our people's data?
Reporting is team-level only. Nobody's individual answers are shown to their manager or the executive, and the Snapshot never names or shames a team. Data is hosted in Australia. The detail is on our trust page. Read it here.
Does it end after twelve months?
The Journey is designed to end dependence, not create it. By month twelve your Champions carry the culture. Year Two is optional, lighter and cheaper: a quarterly Pulse, an insight session with your executive, new Missions and Champion refreshers.
Better Me. Better Us. Better Together.
Twelve months from now, what will your people say it’s like to work here?
A 30-minute call. We’ll ask about your people, what’s in the way, and what you’d love to be able to show your board a year from now. You’ll leave with a shape for your Journey, whether or not we’re the ones to run it.