Luke Murphy
How to Drive Change From Within Your Organisation — Without Waiting for Permission
Luke Murphy is a Product & Transformation Coach on a mission to disrupt the status quo from within. Drawing on his own lived experience as a Trailblazer, he empowers internal change agents to drive meaningful transformation—without waiting for permission or a fancy job title. Through coaching, mentoring, and consulting, Luke helps organisations shift how work gets done, one small experiment at a time. Learn more about becoming a Trailblazer, sign up for Luke’s newsletter Disrupt From Within → https://disrupt-from-within.kit.com.
If you feel stuck in an organisation where change is painfully slow or seems impossible—you are not alone.
Many professionals in midlife can clearly see where improvements are needed in their teams, yet they feel powerless to drive transformation without formal authority. They fear making the wrong move, rocking the boat, or wasting effort on initiatives that won’t gain traction.
But according to Luke Murphy, Product & Transformation Coach and guest on the Joy at Work podcast, you don’t need permission or a big title to create meaningful change at work.
Here’s how to become a Trailblazer for change—starting right where you are.
What stops professionals from driving change at work?
Luke sees four common traps that prevent well-intentioned professionals from becoming effective change agents:
1. Waiting for Permission
Employees often wait for leadership to drive change from the top. But waiting preserves the status quo—and many top-down programmes ultimately fail.
2. Chasing Perfection
Professionals can become paralysed by the desire for the perfect plan. In reality, transformation happens through small, iterative steps—not one flawless rollout.
3. Forcing Change Onto Others
Trying to impose change on colleagues usually backfires. Successful change is built through co-creation, not mandates.
4. Going Under the Radar
Secret "skunkworks" projects lack the visibility and buy-in needed for sustainable impact. Transparency and storytelling are essential.
What is the Trailblazer mindset?
Luke encourages frustrated professionals to adopt the Trailblazer mindset—a powerful identity shift that fuels grassroots change:
Curiosity: Seek out better ways of working
Courage: Take action even when it feels uncomfortable
Collaboration: Bring others along on the journey
Trailblazers inspire through their actions, not their job titles. They focus on solving real problems and improving work for everyone—not waiting for a formal change initiative to be handed down.
A real-life example of grassroots transformation
Luke shared his own experience of driving change without waiting for permission.
When external consultants failed to deliver meaningful impact in his organisation, he realised that true transformation would need to come from within. Reframing himself as a Trailblazer empowered him to take action—and the results were significant:
✅ Faster results
✅ Improved customer experience
✅ Greater employee engagement and retention
Perhaps most importantly, the experience was deeply fulfilling. "When we start to embrace our inner rebel and we break a few rules and we see real change, it can be deeply fulfilling," Luke said.
How can you start driving change from within your organisation?
Here are four practical steps Luke recommends for anyone ready to begin:
1. Start with Why
Create a clear, motivating vision of what better could look like. Visualise it in the present tense to make it feel tangible and exciting.
2. Share Your Vision
Engage allies through informal conversations. Find colleagues who share your frustrations and enthusiasm, and build a small support network.
3. Challenge Existing Habits
Ask: If we were starting from scratch, what would we do differently? Run small, visible experiments to spark new conversations and ways of working.
4. Share Stories Openly
Communicate wins, failures, and lessons learned. Storytelling builds curiosity and momentum across the organisation.
FAQ: How can I drive change in my organisation if I’m not a leader?
You don’t need a formal leadership role to spark meaningful change at work. Start by identifying a clear vision for what better looks like, engage allies through informal conversations, challenge old habits with small experiments, and openly share what you learn. Trailblazers drive change through curiosity, courage, and collaboration—not job titles.
Final Thoughts
Driving meaningful change at work doesn’t require a top-down mandate. It starts with one person—or one small group—committed to making things better from within.
As Luke reminds us, small actions can lead to big impact. And embracing your inner Trailblazer can transform not just your organisation, but your own career satisfaction as well.
Curious to begin your own redesign journey? Start with the Life Satisfaction Assessment, Derailed, here → https://www.midlifeunstuck.com/derailed
To learn more about becoming a Trailblazer, sign up for Luke’s newsletter Disrupt From Within → https://disrupt-from-within.kit.com
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Ep05: Becoming a Trailblazer for Change with Luke Murphy
[00:00:00] Why change efforts stall in large organisations
If you've ever worked in a big organization, I bet you a million pounds. You've felt the kind of soul sinking frustration that comes when change projects move at a snail's pace.
At one end, you've got the parade of glossy PowerPoint decks from high price transformation consultants On the other, a shed load of meetings, all talk and zero follow through.
Well, today's guest, Luke Murphy, is here to flip this script on those old fashioned change ideas. He believes real change doesn't need to come from the top down. It can and should start anywhere. Luke's on a mission to inspire professionals at every level to reimagine how change happens in their role, in their team, and in their company with more impact, more ownership, and more speed.
Let's dive in.
[00:01:02] Common traps that stop people from driving change
Luke, what stops people who are frustrated by a lack of change within their organization from actually initiating change themselves?
A lot of people are frustrated with the way work gets done in their teams and organizations, and they know deep down that there is a better way, but either they don't believe they can make a difference. They don't wanna rock the boat, or they feel overwhelmed by the scale of change needed.
And I see this a lot. People tend to fall into four main traps.
The biggest one is waiting for permission. They look to leadership for a top down mandate or wait for the transformation program that was promised and never seems to materialize. You know, the one with the fancy code name.
But by waiting, nothing changes. We maintain the status quo. ways of work in continuum and frustration grows. And honestly, most top down transformations fail anyway.
Another trap is chasing perfection thinking we have all the answers, big upfront design, beautiful Gantt charts, every risk mapped out, and the perfect plan in place before taking action.
But perfection doesn't exist, and transformation is a journey, not a rollout. And we learn by doing and adapting along the way.
And the last two traps are either trying to force change onto colleagues, doing it to people, or trying to do it in secret, hoping to fly under the radar skunkwork style.
But transformation should be a co-creation. It should be done with people, not to them. And we can share openly and invite feedback and collaborate so that we can get buy-in and take people on that journey with us.
[00:02:51] How to become a trailblazer (without waiting for permission)
I love that with rather than to really like that. So, so if those are the traps, what can people do instead?
Instead of waiting for permission, they should become what I call a trailblazer. So someone who challenges the status quo and drives change from the ground up. A trailblazer is someone who is curious enough to see that there's a better way, courageous enough to go out and find it and collaborative enough to bring everyone along on the journey. And trailblazers inspire through action, not authority or job titles. No one gets a job title of Trailblazer. They build support organically, not through executive mandates. And actually, I. We are closer to the coalface. We know how things really work. We're familiar with the day-to-day challenges. So instead of waiting for the answers to come from above, we should actually look to ourselves and our colleagues to drive the change that we want to see.
Love it.
Because when, change is driven from within by people who are embedded in the organization, it's got a much better chance of success and real change happens at the grassroots level anyway. And we get to enjoy a better way of working that we create for ourselves. And even though terrain in the trailblazers could be quite challenging, it's often feels like swimming against the tide. It can also be incredibly empowering. When we start to embrace our inner rebel and we break a few rules and we see real change, it can be deeply fulfilling.
Ooh. So it's flipping that old fashioned model on its head totally from that change mandate comes from the top, but actually we trailblaze through change. Okay?
[00:04:34] Luke’s personal story of grassroots transformation
So make it real for me. Gimme a success story.
The best example I can give is my own story because I've lived it. I've been a trailblazer. I've got all the scars to prove it. I was the first product person in a new experimental way of working. At first I was excited to make a difference, but then I quickly realized that leadership weren't taking action. The big consultants came and went without much impact, and that's when I realized that if real change was gonna happen, it needed people like me, trailblazers. And early on I referred to myself as a Guinea pig. But it was an agile coach who told me to be kinder to myself and called me a trailblazer. And it's the first time I heard the word, but it really resonated with me. It shifted my mindset and gave me a new identity. I decided I needed to step up to take action instead of waiting, I became someone who was going to make things happen, not just a passive participant in an experiment. And that mindset shift led to some real success. We were working very differently from some of the other teams. We were driving faster results and improving the customer experience, and our approach set the stage for a much bigger transformation, one that resulted in an international award for transformation of the year, but that recognition was just cherry on the top.
The best part for me was the impact it had on employee engagement and retention. People were happier because they were working in a better way, and they saw the impact that they were having.
[00:06:03] First steps to becoming a Trailblazer in your team
Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, so, so if someone is listening to today and they're currently feeling frustrated by the lack of change within their team or their organization, what might they do to make a start on becoming a trailblazer?
Good question. It doesn't have to be huge at first. I always say think big, start small. But start.
Yeah.
Even small steps can create a big impact. So something simple that you can start today. And I've got four things really. So number one is we start with why. We create a clear vision of the kind of change that we want to see. What would a better way of working look and feel like for you?
Love it.
We paint a vivid picture in the present tense as if it's already happening and make it something exciting that people still want to be a part of.
Okay.
Step two is then to share it with others. It doesn't have to be a big fancy presentation. Just have an informal coffee with people. People that see the same frustrations as you and can buy into your vision and get their feedback. You can start to build a small group of allies and together you can start a movement.
And then number three is then start to challenge the team's habits. So if something isn't working, ask yourself and your teammates, well, if we were starting from scratch, what would we do differently? And then we could start to turn those ideas into small but visible experiments that you can run quickly to spark conversations and drive action.
And the last thing, which I think is the most important then, is to share your stories. So turn those experiments and results into stories that leadership and and your colleagues can't ignore.
So share your wins. Share your failures, share your learnings. That transparency creates curiosity and it can create a bit of a snowball effect. 'cause when we share openly,
Yeah,
could create that gravity that pulls people in and creates that momentum for lasting change.
We are giant fans of experimentation at the Joy At Work podcast. Thank you
[00:08:09] Take My Life satisfaction assessment (Derailed)
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my life satisfaction assessment. It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you die. I call it Derailed. It's a fabulous place to begin at joy at work redesign.
