Strategy and Culture

The Efficiency Trap

Many organisations are stuck in an efficiency trap.

You have optimised your processes, audited governance processes, and refined your metrics. Yet, you still feel stuck. Innovation is slow, staff are exhausted, and the strategy increasingly feels like a tick-box exercise, rather than a vision that delivers the organisation’s purpose.

You cannot efficiency your way to the future.

At One Little Spark, we believe that Imagination is a core to an effectively functioning System. It isn’t just for creatives, it is for the engineers, the administrators, and the operational leads. We help you design organisational structures that allow imagination to flow, rather than get blocked by bureaucracy.

Our Strategic Interventions

We work with Learning & Development Directors, HR and Culture Leads, and Leadership Teams to design interventions that oil the machine.

1. The Future Leaders Programme (Early Career)

Your emerging leaders are the future of your organisation, but they often feel powerless to change how things are done. We give them the tools to challenge the status quo constructively and think in (eco)systems to help the organisation move forward.

• The Shift: From Process Follower to Idea Generator.
• The Content: We use Design Thinking and Futures Tools to help them prototype small, low-risk innovations within their teams. We teach them how to lead, navigate organisational complexity, and articulate the value of new ideas.
• The Result: A pipeline of leaders who are ready to innovate, not just replicate.

2. Imaginative Management (Mid-Level & Heads of Directorate)

Mid-level managers are the immune system of any organisation. They can either kill new ideas or nurture them. Often, they are drowning in administration to consciously decide on either approach.

• The Shift: From Gatekeeper to Gardener.
• The Content: We focus on Systems Thinking, supporting participants to identify bottlenecks and zombie processes that kill time and energy. We teach managers how to create psychological safety, allowing their teams to take risks without fear of the audit trail.
• The Result: Managers who build cultures of trust and agility, rather than compliance and fear.

3. Strategy & Vision Facilitation (Executive & Board)

Most strategic plans are just “Business as Usual + 5%.” We facilitate strategy days that actually look at the horizon.

• The Shift: From “Probable Future” to “Preferable Future.”
• The Content: We use Strategic Foresight to map scenarios (2030, 2040, 2050). We help Boards move beyond the immediate crisis to design a robust, values-led vision for the long term.
• The Result: A strategy that is distinctive, ambitious, and clearly differentiated from your competitors.

A Design and Futures-Focussed Approach

We don’t deliver generic Leadership Training. We deliver futures-focused Organisational Design and Agility.

Our approach is built on three pillars:

• Systems Thinking: We look at the whole organism. “Fixing people” won’t help if the system is broken.
• Futures Literacy: We teach your teams how to harness their imaginative capacity and use the future as a tool for decision-making today.
• Imaginative Inquiry: We ask “What if?” rather than “How much?”, creating the space for breakthrough thinking.

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Ready to build something new?

If your organisation is rich in process but poor in imagination, let’s talk. We can design a bespoke intervention for your team or department.