About Us
The kick-ass team behind the kick-ass cultures
Ordinarily Different was born in 2017. And wow what an incredible journey it has been so far.
We truly believe that everyone deserves to not just go to work, but to go to “joy” everyday. Work is not supposed to be hard, painful and soul destroying, which for so many people it is. It doesn’t matter what job you are in, with the right culture, even the most unpleasant of jobs can give someone a fulfilling career. We’ve lost sense of what it means to have a human experience, and instead have wrapped ourselves up in old fashioned rules, procedures, penalisations and ways of working gifted to us from the generations before us.
With mental health, workplace productivity and engagement at an all-time low, we have a workplace humanity crisis. Customers are expecting more from organisations and so are their people, yet very few employers are ready, able and willing to rise to the challenge. But we know that those who do, have raving fans (both employees and customers), are worth more money on the stock market, in company mergers and acquisitions.
It makes so much sense to put your people first.
And after a HR career spanning over 20 years, our founder saw exactly how organisations break people, diminish their spark, exclude and shut down voices. And believe me, she knows, her previous employers broke her too! Ordinarily Different stands to eradicate poor workplace practices so that everyone’s talents can make a difference to the world.
We believe that there are exemplary examples of great workplaces, that we treat like the far reaching holy grail of workplace cultures – you know who I mean, Semco, Bertzorg, Zappos and Netflix. They feel so different and light years away from what any other organsiation can achieve. But to be Ordinarily Different means to find your own version of that special sauce. And ee've got the recipe to help you make it.
We are all about creating extraordinary workplace experiences, so that people live healthier and happier working lives, and so they feel they are being productive – making a difference and serving a purpose aligned to their beliefs.
Our mission is to prove that you can take your ordinary workplace culture and make it different.
Our Values
We have 3 very special ingredients to help your culture evolve - Freedom, Curiosity and Play.
They are in our DNA. We live and breathe by these words and within the work that we do with organisations, just like yours. Our founder, Sophie Bryan, even has a TED Talk about this very specific 3 words.
We want to help you be liberated of old fashions systems, structures, and ways of working. We all know they aren’t working but finding the right direction to change it often feels complex, clunky or confusing.
The good news is your pain is our pleasure! Our flavour is BDSM all the way! Bringing Deeply Soulful Magic into the workplace (you knew that's what we meant, right?!). Our speciality is helping organisation’s just like yours become unleashed. And we don’t mean causing chaos. We mean giving you the tools to be free - free to be creative in what your culture really looks and feels like, free to decide on your ways of being, and freedom in the redesign of your organisation’s culture, leadership and people development. Freedom is throwing the rule book out the top floor window (look out below!) and writing your own culture play book, unleashed from the “should” and “has been” practices.
We love questions. Curiosity builds connection and collaboration – all absolute must have in the world of uncertainty, volatility, ambiguity and complexity. If you are clear on your workplace culture, your identity and how you serve both your people and humanity, then you’ll be stronger than ever when the brown stuff hits the fan! And it all starts from curiosity. It’s our pleasure to help organisations step into this place of curiosity, and see them flourish. Curiosity builds deeper relationships, reflection and learning, resilience, innovation, psychological safety and voice. It enables leaders to step into the role of “coach” - unleashing their people to make their own decisions. For us, curiosity wins hands down.
Oh play! Our favourite word. As children we had this natural ability to play, and as we’ve grown older, we’ve had it educated out of us. Play is this sexy, delicious, juicy, fun, creative space that we’ve made a dirty word. We've made a childhood skill immature and inhuman. Well, it’s time to re-inject some playtime into your culture. Imagine your organisation being ready to get playful at any given moment, to have fun, break things up, tinker, reconstruct, modify or invent. To play is to create the future. And in everything we do with you, we show up with play!
We are playful with our language, humour, the way we encourage you to move your body (Yoga? Salsa? Anyone?), the music we use, the rituals we teach, and the tools we use to help embed our practices and techniques (we've used things like Lego, clay, sweets, gingerbread houses, cookies and wood so far...).
Curiosity
Play
Freedom
Subscribe to our newsletter
Subscribe
To our newsletter
The disco ball is on! You joining the culture party? Get a new fresh beat in your inbox every month. You don’t want FOMO!