The Work in Progress was set up in 2018 to explore this core question and collaboratively reimagine the leadership needed to make progress on issues with the potential to impact society over the long term, as they come together – responding to a phenomenon often described as polycrisis.
Amy Boydell-Smith – Founder
Grounded in Psychology (BSc), Organisational Psychology (MSc; MBPsS; MBS Programme Prize) and Cognitive Behavioural Coaching, Amy founded The Work in Progress to research and develop leadership that shapes long-term societal progress in an era defined by polycrisis.
She has extensive experience developing leadership in community, organisational, regional, national and international contexts. Her portfolio spans strategy development, commissioning, research, design, facilitation as well as complexity-sensitive evaluation and approaches to scaling innovation. Growing critical long-term thinking, care, equity, power and wealth are central to her work. Alongside practice, Amy previously lectured at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Edge Hill University.
Collaborators
As the challenges shaping our future rarely fit neatly within a single profession, sector or discipline, we build interdisciplinary teams around each piece of work. We bring together lived experience, specialist knowledge and diverse perspectives spanning strategy, research, organisational psychology, neuroscience, systems leadership, professional identity, community-led development, sustainability and net zero. By gathering different ways of knowing, seeing and experiencing the world, we uncover connections, expand possibilities and create the conditions for progress on complex challenges.
Making time visible.
Geology is our metaphor. We look to geology to make time visible. It helps us expand our thinking beyond the everyday – seconds, minutes and decades – and invites us to consider timescales far beyond a single lifetime, organisation or civilisation.
Whilst it is daunting to think about how to make change in some of the most challenging issues of our time, when we look to geology, it helps us to see that every word, decision and action counts. Layer by layer, it adds up over time.
Words shape what is possible
Words shape what is both visible and possible for us and others. The words we use in our work are intentionally chosen to reflect an idea that disconnects us from outdated ways of being and expand the potential for progress. We care deeply that our words are both accessible and able to reflect the needs of the moment. For decades (literally), we have debated how to do this. We don’t have a single answer. We don’t think there is one. So we are using words that might be unfamiliar to start and finding accessible ways of sharing meaning. One way we do this is to create Words Shape What is Possible – a growing list of words we think are helpful in shaping the language of leadership for today and beyond.
Artwork attribution
Licensed images of artwork by Helen West Heller (1872–1955), American activist, painter, printmaker, poet and illustrator.
Heller’s artwork was chosen not only because of the power of her woodcuts depicting everyday working lives, but because of the spirit behind them. Through her art, organising and contribution to the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, she stood alongside working people and fought for greater visibility and creative freedom. After experiencing resistance to her modernist work, she became part of the movement behind Chicago’s No-Jury Society, advocating for greater artistic freedom and access beyond traditional gatekeeping. We share Heller’s work because it reflects many of the commitments shaping The Work in Progress: noticing what others overlook, questioning inherited systems and making visible the conditions shaping what becomes possible. Her work often sits at the intersection of the microscopic, the cosmic and the human, inviting us to consider how everyday lives both shape and are shaped by forces both larger than ourselves and smaller than we can see. Her images remind us that work is never just work. It is social. Political. Human. Always unfinished. A work in progress.