Welcome to Pecan's Summer 2026 newsletter
Summer has a way of bringing people together. A great day can lift spirits, create energy and open up opportunities. There’s a buzz that comes with sunshine that’s hard to replicate – and we’ve had plenty of it!
In many ways, culture is a like the weather. When it’s positive, people feel connected, motivated and able to do their best. The atmosphere is lighter, relationships are stronger and good things happen.
Unlike the weather, however, organisational culture can be influenced. While many of us simply accept whatever the forecast brings, leaders have the opportunity to shape ‘the way we do things around here’. With a little care and attention, the energy that sunshine brings can be sustained even through the cloudy months. You could even say culture is evergreen.
This summer also brought us the World Cup, and another fascinating football story on our television screens. In the new BBC drama, Dear England, explores the transformation of the England football team under Gareth Southgate and offers a powerful reminder of the relationship between leadership, culture and success. Conveniently, three of our favourite subjects!
As always, thank you for reading and for being part of the conversation. We hope you enjoy this edition.
Dear England: More Than a Football Story
If you’ve not yet watched Dear England on BBC One, we’d highly recommend it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The drama follows Gareth Southgate’s journey with the England football team and culture is at its core. It explores how shifting mindsets, building trust and creating psychological safety helped turn a group of talented individuals into a connected, resilient team.
What stands out most is that the transformation wasn’t driven by tactics alone. It came from the environment around the players, the expectations set, and the leadership style that encouraged openness and accountability.
It’s a timely reminder that in sport, just as in organisations, culture is the quiet driver behind visible success.
Flexible working becomes a day-one right
A major update in UK employment law will soon reshape how organisations think about flexibility.
Flexible working will become a day-one right for employees, and employers will need to provide written, reasonable justification if a request is refused. These changes will be phased in between 2026 and 2027, giving organisations time to prepare.
In practice, this means flexibility can no longer be treated as a reactive policy. It needs to be designed intentionally, built into how work is structured rather than negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
As ways of working continue to evolve, culture, connection and trust will play a critical role in making flexible and hybrid teams work effectively.
We’ve explored these changes in more detail in our latest article, where we look at what the new legislation means in practice for organisations, how it will shift expectations around flexibility, and why leaders will need to be more intentional than ever about how work is designed.
The fairness trap: equality vs equity
What does fairness really look like in practice?
In our latest insight, we explore the often-misunderstood difference between equality and equity in the workplace. While equality focuses on treating everyone the same, equity recognises that people don’t always start from the same place, and that different levels of support may be needed to create genuinely fair outcomes.
It’s a subtle but powerful shift in thinking. One that challenges leaders to look beyond standardised approaches and consider what individuals actually need in order to thrive, contribute and succeed.
This distinction matters in everyday decisions: from how opportunities are allocated, to how support is offered, to how performance is understood and developed. When organisations move from equality to equity, fairness becomes less about sameness and more about impact.
Defining cultural DNA
Getting to the heart of an organisation’s culture – what it is and what it needs to be – requires the right kind of conversations.
Over the past couple of months, Ella has been out with clients, working face to face to help leadership teams get under the skin of their organisational ‘DNA’. That means uncovering what already makes them successful, as well as defining what needs to evolve to support where they’re heading next.
From a small, founder-led scouting agency in Soho to a large, established UK mutual, the context couldn’t be more different. Yet the approach is the same: listening carefully, testing assumptions, and translating complex cultural dynamics into a small set of meaningful, lived values.
Cracking Culture Change Podcast
🎧 Podcast Pick: – Tom Cliffe
The Cracking Culture Change podcast brings you more real-world stories and insights to help you ’crack’ your organisational culture.
In Season 2, we spoke with Tom Cliffe, founder of Track, a social enterprise focused on enabling neurodiverse people to fulfil their potential.
Inclusion was a central theme throughout the conversation, and one idea really stood out: inclusion doesn’t have to be complex or costly. Often, it’s the smallest changes that make the biggest difference.
We also discussed how many of the barriers neurodiverse people face aren’t about capability, but about how roles, recruitment processes and workplaces are designed. As Tom put it, the focus should be on adapting the environment, not the person.
Recent figures from NeuroBridge suggest that around 1 in 5 people are neurodiverse, which makes this less of a niche topic and more of a fundamental workplace reality. The question is no longer whether organisations should be thinking about neurodiversity, but how well they are set up to support it in practice.
We have two whole seasons of insightful podcasts for you to explore.
Your Culture Fix Inspiration
Get your dose of insights and practical tips to support your organisation’s culture journey and visit our insights hub, here’s a couple of links to get you started.
Summer 2026 newsletter
Welcome to Pecan’s Summer 2026 newsletter Summer has a way of bringing people together. A great day can lift spirits, create energy and open up
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