Culture Blooming:
Nurturing Workplaces
Where People Grow
This book, the first to treat workplace culture like a garden instead of a construction project, offers a proven framework that transforms toxic environments into thriving ecosystems where all talent flourishes.
Available to pre-order from....
We bloom
together
or we wilt
alone™
About the book
This book, the first to treat workplace culture like a garden instead of a construction project, offers a proven framework that transforms toxic environments into thriving ecosystems where all talent flourishes.
Organizations fail when they treat culture like a construction project. They thrive when they treat it like a garden, cultivating conditions for growth rather than engineering behavior through rigid blueprints.
Award-winning consultant Abi Adamson introduces the SERNTM Framework (Soil, Exposure, Roots, Nutrients) to guide sustainable cultural transformation. Drawing from her experience working with international clients, including Spotify, Sony Music, and Match Group, Abi shows how to:
• Identify and detoxify the soil poisoning organizational foundations
• Expose who’s hoarding the light while others wither in shadows
• Strengthen the root networks where real culture actually lives
• Distribute the nutrients people actually need to thrive(hint: it’s not pizza Fridays)
Unlike traditional culture initiatives focused on compliance and conformity, this framework reveals why expensive transformation efforts keep failing and how to spot “nutrient vampires” draining your best people.
For C-suite leaders, executives, people managers, and anyone who has ever felt invisible at work, this guide offers a sustainable alternative: treating culture as a living ecosystem requiring ongoing cultivation, not a one-time fix.
The SERN™ Framework
Developed by Abi Adamson
Most organisations try to fix culture through initiatives, programmes, and policies. SERNTM takes a different approach. It reveals the culture you already have, so you can understand why some people flourish while others just survive.
Soil
The cultural reality of your organisation. Not the values on your website, but what people actually experience every single day. It is the accumulated history, behaviours, and conditions that determine whether people truly flourish or simply survive on coffee and stubbornness.
Exposure
Who gets access to light and opportunity, and who works in shadow. Whose voices get amplified in meetings, whose work gets visibility, and who remains overlooked despite their contributions.
Roots
The hidden networks and connections that actually hold your culture together. Where your real culture lives, not in town halls, but in the support systems people build when official channels fail them.
Nutrients
What people actually need to thrive. Real growth opportunities, genuine influence, and psychological safety. Not surface-level perks, but the essential conditions that either feed people’s potential or leave them starving.
What people are saying about Culture Blooming
“Leveraging extensive organizational experience, author Abi Adamson uses the garden as a metaphor to develop a compelling and practical framework
for growing the culture your organization needs to succeed in our increasingly challenging environment. The result is a handbook for action, full of stories and insights.”
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
“Leveraging extensive organizational experience, author Abi Adamson uses the garden as a metaphor to develop a compelling and practical framework for growing the culture your organization
needs to succeed in our increasingly challenging environment. The result is a handbook for action, full of stories and insights.”
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor
of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
“Leveraging extensive organizational experience, author Abi Adamson uses the garden as a metaphor to develop a compelling and practical framework for growing the culture your organization
needs to succeed in our increasingly challenging environment. The result is a handbook for action, full of stories and insights.”
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor
of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
“Leveraging extensive organizational experience, author Abi Adamson uses
the garden as a metaphor to develop a compelling and practical framework for growing the culture your organization needs to succeed in our increasingly challenging environment. The result is a handbook for action, full of stories and insights.”
Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
Who Owns Culture?
In this TEDx talk, Abi Adamson asks a question that cuts to the heart of every workplace culture conversation: who actually owns culture? Drawing from years of transforming workplace cultures globally, Abi challenges our obsession with controlling and policing culture, and reveals why the strongest cultures are never built through ownership but through contribution.
Press and Media
Black LinedIn is Thriving. Does LinkedIn have a problem with that?
How To Tend Your Workplace Culture Like A Living Ecosystem
Seeing Black written with a capital b means more than you think it does
Three years after George Floyd’s death, business still has a long way to go
How privileged employees can help protect victims of microaggression
Seven signs your workplace culture is wilting
Diversity does not mean minority
Four behaviours to unlearn (and relearn) to become a better leader today
Understanding the true meaning of psychological safety
Why build a psychologically safe workplace in 2022?
4 Benefits of creating an inclusive safe space in the workplace
5 lessons for leaders to unlearn in 2022
When DEI training doesn’t work, the approach, not the concepts, may need a shift
WeAreTheCity speaks to inspiring individuals on how to #BreaktheBias
Leaders, are you ready to unlearn? Here are 5 lessons to unlearn today
How can executive sponsors ensure they add value?
Does D&I need professionalising?
The importance of capitalising the B in Black
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About Abi Adamson
Abi Adamson is the Founder of The Culture Partnership, creator of the SERNTM Framework, and author of Culture Blooming: Nurturing Workplaces Where People Grow (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, August 2026).
Recognised as one of the UK’s Top Workplace Culture Experts (Favikon, #6) and a Thought Leader on LinkedIn by The New York Times, Abi has partnered with and facilitated workshops for hundreds of organisations globally, including Spotify, Google, Sony Music, World Economic Forum, RingCentral, Zynga, Match Group, SoHo House, and Papier.
Lagos-born, London-bred, and New York-based, Abi understands firsthand what it means to navigate spaces not built for you. She uses that knowledge to help organisations build ones
that are. Her approach is known for being equal parts thought-provoking and practical, bringing people in rather than calling them out, often with a laugh that breaks down walls faster than any corporate framework ever could.
In 2025, Abi delivered her first TEDx talk, “Who Owns Culture?”, exploring why the strongest cultures are never built through control but through contribution. Her LinkedIn posts regularly surpass two million views, and her Substack newsletter, Culture Blooming, delivers weekly insights on culture, belonging, and leadership.
Her work has been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, The Metro, Raconteur, and People Management.
Subscribe to my Substack Newsletter
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Ready to transform your workplace culture?
Whether you are looking for a keynote speaker, a fa- cilitator for your next session, or a long-term culture partner, Abi would love to hear from you.