Who I am

I'm Ste. Based in Bristol, originally from Derby. I coach, facilitate, improvise, write, and build useful things. Mostly for people who are quietly stuck and don't want a guru.

The day job

I've spent over twenty years studying how people think, decide, and change, and the past fifteen of those working in improvement in the NHS. The NHS taught me systems thinking: how to look at the environment before blaming the person. That changes how you see everything. Why people get stuck. Why teams stop talking to each other. Why the best advice in the world doesn't land if the system around you is fighting against it.

Coaching

The coaching grew out of wanting to see the individual change as well as the system-level. I'm a business psychologist by training, which mostly means I read a lot of research papers and then try to explain them without using the word "paradigm." I work with people one-to-one, helping them build systems that actually fit their lives. Systems over willpower. Small steps over grand plans.

Improv

Improv taught me something different. It taught me to listen, to say yes before I say no, to be comfortable not knowing what happens next. I co-founded the workplace training programme at Bristol Improv Theatre with my colleague Imo, where we take those skills and apply them to presentations, feedback, and the general messiness of working with other humans. I've facilitated workshops at universities, conferences, and for teams across the NHS. Our work is featured in The Artistry of Teaching (Routledge).

AI & tinkering

More recently, I've been experimenting with AI. Not as a replacement for human connection, but as a tool to create more space for it. I appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Artificial Human to talk about this, and I write about it in my newsletter, A Cup of Tea and a Sit Down.

Building things

I also build things. The Bristol Improv Calendar started as a weekend project and became the most-used improv listing in the city. I like making small, useful tools. The kind that give people back a bit of headspace.

• Business psychologist
• Senior Improvement Coach, NHS (15 years)
• Honorary Lecturer, University of Bristol
• Co-founder, BIT Workplace Training Programme
• Featured in The Artistry of Teaching (Routledge)
• Featured in BBC Radio 4, The Artificial Human
• Producer and host, Wednesday Night Improv, Bristol

When I'm not working, I'm probably tinkering with something I don't fully understand, drinking tea, or trying to convince myself that a 10-minute run counts.