‘I’m going to tell you how you should be doing it, but it’s up to you to do it. But I’m going to dress it up in a way where the message might land 15 minutes later when you’re on the bus going to town. And you’re like, Oh, THAT’s what he meant…’
It takes courage, tact and humour to point out to a leader not only that there might be an issue with their organization’s culture, but that the issue might be them. And that’s as true when you’re writing a book as when you’re in the room with the person. Luckily, Colin D. Ellis has all three, and in this frankly hilarious conversation he takes us under the hood to show us how he tells difficult truths in an easy-to-read way.
We also talk about crediting the music you listen to as well as the books you read as you write, the joy of the Venn diagram, and why being Liverpudlian is a superpower.
Pin your ears back.
Colin’s site: https://www.colindellis.com/
Colin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colindellis/
Alison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-alison-jones/
The 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge: http://proposalchallenge.com/
Write it Wild 2025: https://alisonjones.lpages.co/write-it-wild/
The Extraordinary Business Book Club on Substack: https://extraordinarybusinessbooks.substack.com/
The Extraordinary Business Book Club on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1447064765612358/
Alison Jones: In the club today is Colin D. Ellis, who is a global workplace culture expert, sought after by organisations around the world to help them build vibrant, high performance cultures. He’s the author of four best selling books, the latest being Detox Your Culture: Deliver results, retain staff, and strengthen your organization’s reputation.
He’s worked with almost a hundred different cultures in many different countries with clients ranging from Red Bull in Austria to the US House of Representatives, the Dutch Olympic team and IAG Insurance in Australia, which is where he currently is, interestingly, but he’s originally from just up the road from me in Liverpool.
So first of all, welcome Colin, it’s great to have you here.
Colin Ellis: Thank you, Alison. It’s great to be here.
Alison Jones: You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?
Colin Ellis: Long way from home. This is what happens in Liverpool when you’re no good at football and you’re not funny enough. They’re like, you, Australia, now…
Alison Jones: I mean, it’s harsh but fair, I think. But you know…
Colin Ellis: I think so too, yes.
Alison Jones: What’s really interesting was I was reading your book and it was only at the end that I went, oh, he’s from Liverpool. That explains a lot. Because there is something about the kind of, the way of managing to be really direct and actually quite harsh without giving offence, which is a sort of Liverpudlian superpower, isn’t it?
Colin Ellis: Well, I think so. I was doing a culture workshop today for a client and somebody came up to me at the end and was like, I really loved the workshop. She was like, I felt like you told us off, but you wrapped it up in so much humour that I didn’t realise it at the time.
I think that was a compliment. Thank you.
Alison Jones: Yes, it’s definitely a compliment, and it is an absolute superpower.
But, you know, when you’re writing a business book, it’s terribly easy to come across as preachy, as sort of finger wagging, all that stuff, because, you know, you’re kind of telling people what to do. You know, you can wrap it up any way you like, but that’s what’s going on.
That gift of being able to do it lightly, and with humour, and you say something brilliant like, if you don’t know who it is, it’s probably you, you know. If somebody’s given you this book, there might be a reason for that, and it’s funny, but that smuggles through the lesson, doesn’t Oh, it?
Colin Ellis: Well, I think so, Alison, I’m sure we’ll come on to this, but the workshops, when I was an employee, the workshops that always landed for me the best were the ones where you got told what you should be doing. You were given the chance to discuss it with people and then you made the decision yourself based on the actions that you want to take.
So when I’m writing, I always think of it in that way. And that’s obviously how I teach it now. I’m like, listen, I’m going to tell you how you should be doing it, but it’s up to you to do it. But I’m going to dress it up in a way where the message might land 15 minutes later when you’re on the bus going to town.
And you’re like, Oh, that’s what he meant.
Alison Jones: Oh, that’s what he meant
Colin Ellis: Yes.
Alison Jones: Yes, it’s really smart, and it’s such an important skill, and we absolutely will come onto writing, but let’s first address what we mean by toxic culture, because it’s become a bit of a buzzword, hasn’t it? And as you say, not every culture is toxic, you know, maybe it’s bandied around a little bit too much, and I think you had a lot of just stagnant, which I’m not sure was much better…
Colin Ellis: Yes.
Alison Jones: What do you mean by toxic culture, and why is it such an issue?
I mean, obvious question, but still.
Colin Ellis: Oh, no, I think it’s a good question. You’re right that it does get bandied about, you know, and I go to great lengths in the book to say this towards the end, is not every culture that people say is toxic is actually toxic, you know? And I think toxic culture is actually, it’s severe inhuman behavior. You know, that’s the way that I like to put it.
So bullying, harassment, any kind of homophobia, racism, sexism, unwanted physical contact, verbal or emotional abuse, but also it can be a real lack of trust, poor communication, a lot of hubris that we see.
So I think, you know, for me, there are three levels of toxic culture, but ultimately it comes down to a feeling of safety, Alison. I think if where you work feels unsafe, there’s a good chance that there are elements of toxic culture certainly lingering about there.
Alison Jones: Yes, and I think that point about trust, communication, and safety really comes through. I found it really helpful, actually, that you did almost you gave a checklist almost in the book of, you know, if this is here, then maybe, you know, and I think that’s really useful when you’ve got a word that is so open to misunderstanding. My toxic culture might not be your toxic, you know, anyway, so that I thought that was really useful.
But the practical aspects of the book as well, that kind of, if you find yourself, you know, so firstly, you can identify it, then what, what do you do if you find yourself presumably not necessarily in a position of power, but perhaps you do have some level of power in the organization.
What’s the first thing you can do?
Colin Ellis: Well, I always encourage people to go down the formal route, Alison, there will be a process. There’ll be people that you can talk to and confide in. Usually HR, although in the book, when I reviewed, lots of different reviews and reports, HR didn’t come out particularly well.
But I always say, you know, look at yourself. What can you do differently? What’s that one thing that you can do? But if you feel that you’re not able to escalate it, it’s find the pathway to be able to raise your concerns, and there were certain case studies that I read where people had to actually go external to authorities to report it.
And I think this is why we’re seeing more stories of toxic culture in the media, Alison is that people don’t feel that it’s safe to raise their concerns and actually they can now use social media as a platform to say, Hey, you know, this culture, you might want to look at it.
And the media, of course, are really, really interested because it’s a story that usually has legs.
Alison Jones: Which is a great reason for a leader to read this book, because much better to sort it out internally before it gets out there and does massive reputational damage potentially.
Colin Ellis: Yes. Not only to the organization, but to the leader as well. You know, and you mentioned that I started the book to say, Hey, listen, you might be the problem. I think there’s a real lack of self awareness sometimes in leadership. And leadership is a fairly loose term. Like we don’t really teach people how to be great managers.
And so listen, I have a degree of empathy there. I think if you’re not taught how to be a good manager, the chances of toxic culture arising are relatively high. But you know, I really wanted to focus on the, listen, here’s what you need to do to avoid it. You know, because when I first pitched the book to the publisher, they were like, Oh, it’s not really negative, full of horrific case studies? I was like, no, no, no, that’s only half the book. The other half is really positive. Here’s what you can do to mitigate the risk of it, you know.
Alison Jones: And that’s really important, isn’t it? And did you find, because obviously when you’re delivering in the training room or you are consulting. It’s a two way conversation. You really understand what’s going on for these people. You know their specific situation. You can tailor the message.
Did you sort of have a single reader in mind or were you consciously almost flipping through a Rolodex of potential levels of the organization, situations people might find themselves in?
How did you manage that?
Colin Ellis: So I did it three levels. When I first started writing, I very much wrote for myself in mind, the old me, I didn’t write it just for me, but if I was a manager and I used to have this narrative, if I was a manager reading this book, what would I want?
But as my writing, I’d like to think has matured and has evolved, I like to think of three different levels.
So if I’m an employee, so if I’m on the bottom rung of the ladder, what can I do? If I’m a manager, what can I do? Also, if I’m a senior executive, you know, and I write a little bit about board members, what do I need to be thinking about? What do I need to be looking out for? So it’s really hard, Alison, and you’ll know this yourself.
It’s really hard to write for everyone, but I tried to write it in a way that every level of employee could gain something from it. Oh, that was my aim anyway.
Alison Jones: Yes, and it does come across that with that sort of multiplicity of target readers is a really hard, hard trick to carry off, but I think there’s enough in common there that it worked really well.
You talk about your writing maturing. What has that looked like for you? You know, think back to when you sort of wrote your first book or you first started writing.
What was the impulse and what’s that journey looked like for you to get to here?
Colin Ellis: The impulse was, well, the reason that I started writing is I decided to start working for myself when I got passed over for a C suite job in government in Australia. And I felt like I had a really good approach to doing things and I was like, Oh, you know, maybe I can sell this to other people, but we’d only been in Australia for nine months. So I didn’t know anybody.
And so I joined a business school, which part of the program was to write and to write a book. So for me, my original impulsion was it’s a great business card. And then what I did was I decided to break down the things that I did into almost small, bite sized chapters.
My first book was called The Conscious Project Leader, and it was all about, well, how do I be a good human? How do I build teams? And how do I use structured methods to deliver projects? Because that’s what I was doing. And so I tried to make it as easy as possible to write, but also to have a kind of impactful point and then some actions at the end. So that for me, it was very much about how do I write 52,000 words? That like, because as a high extrovert, the thought of sitting down and writing was just, you know, anathema to me.
So I was like, well, how do I actually do this? Whereas I feel that over the years, I’ve really, I really enjoy the process now. Whereas back then it was a case of, I just need a business card to meet people in the hope of gaining work to do the things that I would really like to do and to help people.
Whereas now I feel I very much write books where I think what’s the core message that people need to take from this and what’s the one or two things that they can immediately do to make a change.
And so my writing style, you know, I like to think has evolved where I’ve still retained that sense of fun, but also that sense of action as well.
Alison Jones: It’s such a nice description of how you start writing in a way that makes it kind to yourself. You know, I’m an extrovert. I’m not going to do well with stream of consciousness, writing over 50,000 words. I need to chunk it down. I need to get it really specific. I need to be thinking about my readers. So, you know, all of that is brilliant.
I guess what, I mean, you’ve talked in broad terms about how you’ve shifted and how you really enjoy that process of conceptualizing what it is you’re going to say and getting that down and really kind of connecting with people. What surprised you? Can you sort of go back and think as you were writing that first book, what did you notice that you thought, Ah, this is not what I thought it was, or this is more interesting than I expected.
I’m just really interested in what goes on under the hood.
Colin Ellis: Well, I didn’t do that well in school, Alison, don’t worry, this is a short story. I didn’t do that well in school, but one of the things that I was good at, one of the O levels that I got out of the original three was English, and I was really good at creative writing. So I knew that I would actually enjoy the process of writing.
But what, because I read lots of other business books, you know, I’m just like you, I love reading business books. And I always felt that they had a certain amount of depth. They had research, they had facts, they had data, they had quotes, they had all of these things. And so when I actually sat down to write, I’m like, I’m just going to hate doing the research.
Literally, that’s what I thought. Creative writer. I can write about what I know, no problem.
But you know, I got into a real routine of research first, writing second. So I always look forward to the writing. I knew if I started writing first, all of the research and the data and all of that stuff would kind of, I’d probably see that as a bit boring, given my personality.
And what I found is I actually really enjoy that bit of it now. And that’s the bit where I really take myself out of my comfort zone. The research, the data, reading, reading, like for toxic culture I read loads of reports into toxic cultures, some of which were pretty gruesome.
But I actually enjoyed that part of the process, and that was a real surprise to me, that actually I enjoyed that bit. The creative writing, I think I always knew that I would enjoy since I first started blogging in 2013. But I’ve been surprised at just how much I’ve enjoyed the research.
Alison Jones: That’s so interesting to hear because you sort of, you go in, it’s quite iterative isn’t it, you go in with a hypothesis, if you like and then you go and you do the research, you read the things and then part of it is sense making, part of it is applying what you knew you wanted to find and finding the stories to illustrate it and the evidence and all the rest of it.
But also part of it is having an open mind, isn’t it, and noticing things that you hadn’t seen before and that’s what makes the book so much more useful and richer and also it makes it professional and personal development for you as well.
Colin Ellis: I always felt as well, so yes, that’s all true. I always felt as well, and, I very much say this is a strength. I have a fairly basic view on the way things need to get done, so I’ve never been overly flowery in my language, partly because of my upbringing, I’m not going to lie, you know, I’m not someone who did particularly well at school, I didn’t ever go to university, you know, kind of the jobs that I had, you know, I was working at 17, very fairly basic.
So my language is very much the language that employees use, if that makes sense. And I’ve always tried to stick to that. And I think that that’s helped me in my thinking as well as my writing. I never wanted to get too far ahead of myself. And if that, I don’t know, these are just a bunch of half jumbled thoughts.
But my hypothesis, as you mentioned, has always been write a book in the way that people want to read it. And I always think that people, listen, give me a bit of context, give me some data that proves the context, but also then give me some action. Oh, and we’ll let you interweave some of your stories into that.
So I always feel like it’s a privilege to write for people. And so I, you know, I’ve always kind of stuck to that. What’s the language that works well for the audience that I’m trying to reach?
Alison Jones: Yes and it’s a really good example of taking what some people might see as a disadvantage and turning into a superpower. Yes, no, I haven’t got a MSc in Employee Relations or anything, or I, you know, I didn’t sort of go to Oxford and that means I’m able to write really, really well for people who are at the coalface to read.
So I love that. That’s brilliant.
Colin Ellis: And people who are at Oxford, just to make that point.
Alison Jones: Yes, just to make that really clear. If you’re in Oxford, it’s still okay.
Colin Ellis: I don’t have a degree in anthropology, but I’ve done a lot of research. So practically the same.
Alison Jones: And the music. Tell me about the music because I have seen it before, but not very often. You’ve got a playlist in the book.
Colin Ellis: In the back of every book. And, it is honestly, it’s some people’s favorite bits of my book. I mean, that shouldn’t put people off from buying it. I always, when I wrote my first book, listen, we didn’t have much money and, but I wanted to be kind, I don’t know, in my head, I was like, all of these people, I’ve read a load of business books. I’m like, I want to credit those people because those business books have inspired some of my thinking. And I wrote to music because as an extrovert I need noise. You know, I always make the point it’s fine having song lyrics when I’m researching, but actually have classical music or instrumentals when I’m writing, otherwise I get distracted.
And so, in my very first book, I’m like, right, well, I’m going to list all of the things that I listen to. And it was the very first time somebody talked to me about one of my books. It was a guy from Manchester at a conference in Sydney. And he said, Colin, I’ve been dying to meet you. He said, I bought The Conscious Project Leader. I just want to let you know. And here’s me like proud dad moment. He’s like, I just want to let you know. I love the music list. I’m like, great. I could have just done a Spotify playlist and shared So, yes, it’s just my way of acknowledging that I take inspiration from all of the music. Although my wife said I should list comedians as well, because that’s most of my research is watching comedians. So, should start doing that. I was like, oh, I won’t have a book. I’m just crediting other people in this book.
Alison Jones: I’ll just have really fascinating end notes. There’s an argument for that.
Colin Ellis: It works.
Alison Jones: And I mean, you draw a parallel between, you know, this is my bibliography, this is my playlist, and almost like it is sort of, I can see the parallel. I can see how it makes sense to do that.
But somehow, a music playlist is so much more personal, isn’t it? Because what you’re saying is, here’s the kind of person I am, this is the music I love to listen to. And, I mean, maybe it’s just me, but I often feel I’m going to be judged when I tell people what I like to listen to, or maybe it’s…
Did you have any sort of sense of that self consciousness?
Colin Ellis: A little bit to begin with, but not since then. It’s eclectic.
Alison Jones: It is eclectic.
Colin Ellis: It’s a very, very, eclectic.
Alison Jones: It is hard to take offense with all of it.
Colin Ellis: Yes and I had a real, during the writing Detox Your Culture, I had a real dark period and I went back to my old Suede days of the nineties and really divulged those…
Alison Jones: 90’s indie in there.
Colin Ellis: But then was listening to Harry Styles’ new album as well. So, you know, I, this is just me, although I do have to tell you this story. You can’t see it on this video, but I have lots of tattoos. I have Smiths, The Smiths lyrics tattooed on one of my arms. They’re all over my arm.
And a guy had a go at me once. He was just like, I can’t remember. I think it was Kylie Minogue or either Kylie Minogue or Jason Donovan in one of the books. And this guy had a go at me. He’s like, you’re betraying your Northern English indie roots. I know you love your Smiths, but why are you listening to Jason Donovan?
I’m like,
Alison Jones: They are way too cheerful.
Colin Ellis: Just a phase. Listen, everyone has Stock, Aitken and Waterman phase. They do, right?
Alison Jones: let’s go with that.
Colin Ellis: Sure. They do. Yes.
Alison Jones: You haven’t got any Kylie lyrics tattooed anywhere though, no?
Colin Ellis: Not yet. No.
Alison Jones: Never say never. Brilliant
Colin Ellis: Never say never. Yes. Yes
Alison Jones: So Colin, I always ask my guests for their best tip. So if there’s somebody, I mean you’ve done loads of books now and you’ve learned so much through it. If you think back to yourself starting that first one, what do you wish you’d known then that you know now for somebody starting in that position now?
Colin Ellis: I think I had an idea of a book, but it wasn’t a particularly good idea. And so in the early days, I was capturing ideas, but I had no real thought about how I would bring it all together. And then about three months in, I had like a business mentor and she really helped me with a model for my thinking.
It was just your classic Venn diagram, three circles. And as soon as I had that, I knew how I wanted to structure my book. And so it’s probably a very obvious thing to say, Alison, but I always think if you can have some kind of structure in your head before you start the book, it makes it so much easier to bring those ideas together.
Prior to that, I was just kind of doing lots of research and writing lots of things without really any thought of how I would bring it all together. And it became a source of frustration because I couldn’t really see how I would get from writing this to self publishing a book.
Alison Jones: That’s such a good tip. You know, nobody’s quite articulated in that way before. They said, oh you need to know what you’re writing about.
But I think that… when I’m doing concept reviews for people, often this is what it is, that they’ve got a whole load of really interesting stuff, but they haven’t pulled it together into a pointy, you know, concept that people can kind of grab hold of.
And actually, you know, you talk about the Venn diagram. Well, the beautiful thing about doing a Venn diagram is A, it forces you to select it down to a sort of smallish number of really important things. But B, it forces you to name the thing in the middle where, you know, where they all intersect and that’s your space. And if you can own that, if you can name it, if you can be really intentional about what that is and why it matters, that’s your book concept, isn’t it?
Colin Ellis: So, so true. I didn’t even have the book name until I did the Venn diagram because Janine, my mentor, she was like, okay, so you’ve got these three things. And my three things were leadership, culture, methods. And she’s like, so what do we get in the middle? I was writing about projects. So what do we get?
I was like, someone who really thinks about the way that they deliver. So like a conscious project leader. She was like, there you go. And I was like, Oh,
Alison Jones: There’s your title. I mean, it’s such a simple, powerful, but honestly, drawing it forces you into partly a different part of your brain, I think, but it also, because you can get it at a glance and then you can go on and use that to communicate the ideas for other people, which is a sort of double win, isn’t it?
Amazing. Brilliant tip. I think that might be one of my favorite tips ever. Love it.
Now you are a prolific reader as well as a prolific writer. So I’m really interested in this. What business book would you recommend us?
Colin Ellis: There’s so many.
So I really, I mean, I really love Mindset by Carol Dweck. Now, the reason that I love Mindset is that the way that she structures the book, it makes it easy to read. One of the things that often daunts me when I read a business book, and don’t even get me started on Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, is that it feels like hard work before I’ve got to the end of the first chapter. But Mindset by Carol Dweck doesn’t feel like hard work and she makes the concept so easy to understand and apply, these are the business books that I always love best is when I feel I can take immediate action.
Also, I read it at the time when the kids were just getting to those formative years. So not only did it help me with my own work, but it also helped me as a parent too.
So it’s still my number one book recommendation is Mindset by Carol Dweck.
Alison Jones: I mean, I can’t fault it. I always think there’s some sort of rule of business book writing is that, you know, you have to have a case study from Apple and you have to have a reference to Carol Dweck’s fixed and growth mindsets.
Yes, it is so foundational. But you’re right, and actually one of the things that she does so brilliantly is you can tell somebody the story of Mindset in like a sentence.
You can describe fixed mindset and growth mindset and why this matters like in seconds. But the richness of the book and the story she tells and the way that that plays out and the practical applications of it, it’s genius.
Colin Ellis: It’s genius. And there aren’t many books that I read more than once. On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. You know, they’re a couple of my real fiction favorites. But then there’s Mindset by Carol Dweck, is that’s a business book that I’ve read probably three times. It’s a book that I will go to when I just need a dose of inspiration and it’s easy to read again.
Alison Jones: Yes. Yes. It’s brilliantly written and you’re right, it’s a business book, but it’s also a life book, isn’t it?
Colin Ellis: Yes.
Alison Jones: Yes, love it.
If people want to find out more about you, Colin, more about your books. Where should they go?
Colin Ellis: Well, they can find me on Amazon at Colin D. Ellis Alison, they can find me at ColinDEllis.com. We’ve just produced a little quiz to help people understand where their cultures are. That’s called the5culturesquiz.com. And so that gives them a report, again, focused on here’s some things that you can do to change your situation.
But if you just Google Colin Ellis Culture, yes, you’ll get a load. You’ll be overwhelmed by stuff in a slightly dodgy Scouse accent.
Alison Jones: And actually the quiz, the diagnostic, the thing that complements the book, really smart move. Everybody loves a quiz, right?
Colin Ellis: Thank you. Everybody does love a quiz. And we just wanted, I took inspiration from Gretchen Rubin. I don’t know if you know Gretchen.
Alison Jones: The four tendencies.
Colin Ellis: Four Tendencies. And I did that ages ago and I’m like, this is so good because it actually gave me some stuff that I could do. And I’m like, I’m totally going to rip that off.
And so I got in touch with the person that developed it and he put me in touch with someone who helped him. And that’s how it came to be.
Alison Jones: Side story, hilariously, I did a workshop a few years back now and we did use the four tendencies framework as a bit of pre work, you know, so do this thing. And so we were in the workshop, we were saying, who was an upholder, who’s an obliger and who was a rebel, nobody put their hands up, but there was a couple of people who hadn’t, and so I was like, did you, and he went, oh Yes, no, we didn’t do it. I know, brilliant, self diagnosed, hilarious.
Colin, it’s been so much fun talking to you today, thank you. I know it’s late in Australia, so I really, really appreciate your time, but it’s been great to meet you, and you’ve given such gold tips, it’s been brilliant, thank you.
Colin Ellis: Alison. It’s been great to talk to you.
