How To Ask The Questions That Matter For Changing Work Culture With Seb Busz

I know a little bit about your background, but in terms of how you arrived at your perspective on coaching and what your philosophy is, it would be great to start there.

I’ve done a lot of reflection on this, and like a lot of people, it started during COVID, when you suddenly have that time to pause and reflect on your own journey. You start to see things a bit more clearly, and for me that led to creating my own philosophy, which I call Inceptivism. It’s essentially the philosophy of beginning again from within. 

The core idea is that every answer you ever need is already within you, but we are almost trained to constantly look externally. We’re always asking others for advice, looking outward for purpose, value, direction, what’s next, what am I meant to do, when actually the invitation is to pause and turn those questions inward instead.

Over the last few months, that thinking has gone deeper. It’s now about understanding that everyone’s challenge in this lifetime is learning who they truly are. It’s spiritual, but once you begin to uncover and understand yourself, everything else starts to follow naturally. Your purpose, your values, your reasoning all emerge from that self-awareness. So it becomes this deeper inner work, and it’s something I’m still very much on a journey with. Every conversation, every podcast, every interaction pulls back another layer, and it opens up something new where you think, wow, that’s interesting, and it keeps evolving.

Taking Inceptivism into the wider context of culture change at work, how do you think those ideas can help open up conversations around culture?

I think it always comes back to the individual first. The simplest way to look at it is asking yourself, if you are your best self, let’s say you’re operating at a nine or ten out of ten, who benefits from that? And the answer is always not just you, but everyone around you as well. So the first realisation is that by focusing on being your best self, you’re actually contributing more to others anyway.

But what tends to happen is that we’re conditioned through upbringing, beliefs, authority structures to prioritise others and put ourselves second. In a workplace, that shows up all the time. You might feel like you need to recharge, but then your boss offers an opportunity and you automatically say yes because you don’t want to disappoint, you want to be seen as reliable, you want to progress. You default to those patterns without questioning them.

The shift comes when you start asking, what works best for me? Because if you approach things in a way that supports your energy and wellbeing, the quality of your work is naturally going to be higher anyway. But that requires a change in mindset. It means being able to challenge authority respectfully, to say no when needed, to negotiate timelines rather than just accept them. Those behaviours don’t come naturally because we’re conditioned otherwise. But culture starts to shift when individuals begin to think and act in that way. 

You mentioned default behaviours like people-pleasing. Why do you think people fall back into those patterns?

At its simplest level, it’s patterns. People tend to stay within what feels comfortable, even if it’s not necessarily serving them. If you’ve always been a people pleaser, it’s difficult to suddenly change that and start putting yourself first without feeling like you’re letting others down.

It’s not always about the individual consciously choosing that behaviour. It’s often subconscious. We’ve built these beliefs and habits over time, and we keep repeating them. There’s also a fear element, whether that’s fear of conflict, fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough. So we stay in those patterns because they feel safe, even if they’re limiting.

Looking at initiatives like the UK wellness movement Stay Well, which we’ve both been involved in, how do you think they can help change conversations around wellbeing and culture?

When I was managing teams, I always focused more on the individual than the work itself. In one-to-ones, I would talk about their personal life rather than just their tasks, because I had this belief that if I could support someone personally, that would naturally improve how they showed up at work. If someone is in a better place mentally and emotionally, they bring that energy into the workplace, and everyone benefits.

So even small things, like allowing someone to adjust their shift or take time off when they need it, can have a big impact. It’s about recognising that supporting the individual ultimately improves performance.

What I like about Stay Well is that it encourages inward reflection and keeps the conversation positive. It’s not about what’s wrong, it’s about what works for you. Every activity or exercise is framed around how it makes you feel and what benefit it brings. That builds awareness.

It also gives people permission to explore. You might try something like going to the gym and realise it’s not for you, but that’s not a failure. It simply means you can try something else. It creates a mindset of continuous improvement, where you’re always asking what’s the next positive step.

Once you understand what helps you stay well, it becomes about accountability and how do you consistently show up at that level, whether that’s an eight or nine out of ten. Everything starts to connect, and it becomes a really powerful approach because it’s simple but effective. It invites people to go inward, understand themselves, and build from there.

What are your thoughts on learning styles versus learning preferences?

I think they’re all valid, because ultimately everyone is different, and that’s the starting point you have to work from. You’re never going to have a group of people who all learn in exactly the same way, process information in the same way, or respond to training in the same way, so it doesn’t make sense to ignore that. For me, it’s less about getting caught up in rigid definitions or labels and more about recognising that people do have preferences and tendencies, and where you can, you should absolutely try to incorporate those into how you design and deliver training.

At the same time, I don’t think the real focus should be on categorising people too much, because you can end up overcomplicating things or boxing people in. What I’ve found from experience is that the most important thing in any training environment is helping people understand why they’re doing something, not just what they’re doing. If someone understands the reasoning behind an activity, a process, or a skill, they’re far more likely to engage with it and actually retain it, regardless of their preferred learning style.

Alongside that, creating the right environment is absolutely critical. You need to build a space where people feel safe enough to make mistakes, because that’s where the real learning happens. In fact, you almost want to set people up to fail in a controlled and supportive way, so they can experience that failure, reflect on it, and then build confidence from overcoming it. If everything is too perfect or too controlled, people don’t get that opportunity to stretch themselves.

So for me, rather than focusing too heavily on labels like learning styles, it’s about creating the right conditions. These conditions involve making sure people understand the purpose behind what they’re doing, and making sure they feel safe to experiment, to try things out, and to get things wrong without fear of judgment. When you get that right, people tend to learn much more effectively, regardless of how they might initially define their learning preferences.

An interesting topic for me is cognitive biases and how they show up in training. How can trainers become more aware of their own biases?

I think it really comes back to self-awareness and, more importantly, being willing to let go of your ego. That’s probably the biggest thing. I’ve seen quite a few situations where trainers will run a session and, if it doesn’t go well or if people aren’t engaging or understanding, the immediate reaction is to blame the group. They’ll say things like, “They weren’t capable,” or “They weren’t interested,” or “They didn’t put the effort in.” That’s the wrong way to look at it.

Ultimately, the responsibility sits with the trainer. If people aren’t understanding something, then you have to ask yourself what you could be doing differently. That might mean changing how you explain something, using a different example, approaching it from a different angle, or even recognising that you might not be the best person to deliver that particular piece of content and bringing someone else in who can do it better.

That’s not always easy, because it requires a level of humility. You have to be willing to step back and say, “Okay, maybe this isn’t landing the way I thought it would. What do I need to change?” But that’s where the growth comes from.

For me personally, when I’m training a group, my mindset is that my mission is to get 100% success. That’s the goal I set myself. If that doesn’t happen, I don’t look at the group and think they’ve failed. I look at myself and think about what I need to improve. What could I have done differently to help those people succeed?

That mindset forces you to constantly reflect and adapt. You’re always looking for ways to improve your delivery and communication. Over time, that leads to much better outcomes, because you’re taking ownership and continuously developing yourself as a trainer rather than blaming it on external factors. 

How can trainers balance quantitative results with qualitative, emotional impact?

I think it’s important to recognise that you will almost always get strong performers in a training environment. People who pick things up quickly, who engage straight away, and who perform well in the session itself are all natural parts of a programme. But the real test isn’t what happens in the room, it’s what happens after people leave that environment and go back into their day-to-day roles.

That’s why the journey shouldn’t end when the training session finishes. In many ways, that’s the starting point. What really matters is how people apply what they’ve learned over time, and that’s where the balance between quantitative and qualitative measures comes in.

Quantitative data can tell you certain things like completion rates, scores, performance metrics but it doesn’t give you the full picture. The qualitative side, the emotional impact, is about understanding how people actually feel about what they’ve learned, how confident they are in applying it, what challenges they’re facing, and how it’s showing up in their behaviour.

To get that, you need to build relationships and trust. People need to feel comfortable coming back to you after the training, asking questions, sharing challenges, and being honest about what’s working and what isn’t. That requires ongoing support like check-ins, follow-up conversations, opportunities for reflection.

Those moments are where you get the real insights. You start to understand not just whether the training worked, but how it worked, why it worked, and where it might need to be adjusted. You hear the stories, you see the behavioural changes, and you get a much deeper sense of the impact. 

What best practices would you recommend for check-ins and follow-ups after training? 

I think it depends to some extent on the individual and the business context, because different environments will have different capacities for follow-up and different expectations around what’s realistic. But one thing I’ve noticed consistently is that there tends to be a strong focus on people who are struggling, and not enough attention given to those who are doing well.

Naturally, when someone is struggling, they draw attention, and there’s a desire to support them and bring them up to the required level. That’s important, of course. But at the same time, high performers are often overlooked, and that’s a missed opportunity.

Just because someone is performing well doesn’t mean they don’t have challenges, or that they don’t have valuable insights that could benefit others. In fact, those individuals often have a lot to offer in terms of what’s working, what approaches they’re taking, and how they’re applying what they’ve learned effectively.

By checking in with them, you can start to understand those success patterns and then look at how you might replicate them across the wider group. It becomes less about just fixing problems and more about amplifying what’s already working well.

Ultimately, it comes down to being realistic about what’s achievable within the constraints of the business, but the more you can invest in follow-ups, continuous improvement, and ongoing conversations, the stronger your training outcomes will be over time. 

I agree that looking at the people who are doing well is an overlooked aspect of feedback. Speaking of success, are there any particular figures who have influenced your coaching approach?

I’ve drawn from a range of different influences over time, and I don’t think it’s ever just one source. There are definitely some well-known figures who have had an impact on how I think about coaching and personal development, people like Wim Hof and Marisa Peer. Platforms like Mindvalley are also really interesting because they bring together a lot of different experts from different areas, so you get exposed to a wide variety of perspectives and approaches.

I also spend time reading philosophy and personal development books, which have shaped how I think about things on a deeper level. Those kinds of sources can give you frameworks, ideas, and ways of looking at the world that you can then bring into your coaching in a practical way.

I get just as much value, if not more, from everyday conversations. Speaking to people, hearing about their experiences, sharing ideas, and learning from real-life situations is usually where the most meaningful insights come from. It’s not always the big names or the structured content that has the biggest impact, it’s those day-to-day interactions where you’re genuinely connecting with people and understanding different perspectives.