Amantha Imber answers 25 questions on work, leadership, and innovation

Executive overview

Most workplace problems — too busy for innovation, inbox chaos, no deep work time — stem from reactive work habits, not workload. Amantha Imber, organisational psychologist and founder of Inventium, fields 25 live questions spanning hiring, holacracy, mentoring, culture, and creative output.

The through-line: designing your work environment intentionally beats relying on willpower or luck.

What to look for when hiring

• Passion for the work is a baseline, not a differentiator
• Humility matters more than credentials — ego and innovation are incompatible
• Learning orientation over achievement orientation: look for people energised by the journey, not just the outcome
• Autonomous self-starters are essential in a holacracy structure
• Client selection follows the same logic — Inventium declines work from industries misaligned with its values as a B Corp

Breaking the "too busy for innovation" myth

• Busy is usually a time-allocation problem, not a capacity problem
• Track time in 15–30 minute increments for a week — the surprises reveal the waste
• The average person spends 2.5 hours on email daily; cutting that creates real margin

Deep work in an open-plan office

• Harvard research: face-to-face interaction drops ~77% in open plan; email and IM surge 50–60%
• Block deep work in the diary — one to three hours — and defend it
• Physically leave the office when possible; if not, noise-cancelling headphones and a "respect the headphones" norm
• Most requests are not as urgent as they feel — give yourself permission to be unreachable for an hour

Approaching mentors

• Don't ask "will you be my mentor?" — relationships form organically
• Lead with what you can offer, not what you want
• Find where potential mentors gather: professional associations, awards programs, networking communities
• Peer mentoring groups can be more effective than formal mentoring for founders

Running a peer mentoring group

• Nine members, monthly 3-hour sessions (7–10am), dates set six months ahead
• Each session: 3-minute check-in (best and worst of the month, personal and professional)
• Each member shares a challenge; group advises, ideates, or experience-shares
• WhatsApp group keeps momentum between sessions
• Diversity of industry and background is essential; shared business maturity creates common ground

Breaking out of an innovation drought

• Change physical environment — even a few days away resets creative thinking
• Reduce input deliberately: silence and "boredom" generate ideas; constant podcast consumption blocks them
• Alternate stimulus-on with stimulus-off, including during exercise
• Shift the ratio from reactive to proactive time — more control over your day restores creative capacity

Making better innovation decisions

• Experimentation beats intuition: form hypotheses, build an MVP, test cause and effect, iterate on data
• Make important decisions before lunch — decision fatigue degrades quality as the day progresses
• Avoid whether-or-not decisions; introduce two or three alternatives (A, B, or C)
• Ask "what would my smartest friend do?" to remove emotion from the choice
• Recommended reading: Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

Work-life boundaries

• Strict email off-times are more effective than willpower-based restraint
• Weekend work erodes creativity — diverse external stimulus is part of the job
• Having a child forced the boundary-setting that love of work alone never did

Unlimited leave (rebalanced leave)

• Framed around intent not instruction — treat staff as adults, not children
• Leave still accrues normally in accounting software; it can go negative
• Separates annual leave from personal, sick, and parental leave categories
• The letter explaining the intent matters more than a formal policy document

Starting a podcast

• Have something genuinely unique to say before launching — the market is saturated
• Set a launch date; ambition without a deadline produces nothing
• Start cheap: USB microphone, Squadcast for remote recording
• Budget roughly one day per week — if you don't love it, it won't last

Running a holacracy

• Self-managed teams thrive with autonomy-oriented people; the model is polarising
• Hardest unsolved problem: pay and promotion decisions — still centralised at CEO level
• Peer feedback replaces manager feedback; quarterly self-reflection plus CEO catch-up fills the gap
• Introduce holacracy gradually if converting from a traditional structure; check for people who won't thrive

Building a best-place-to-work culture on a budget

• Perks are icing — people care about autonomy, growth, and genuine connection
• Fancy lunches don't move the needle; good food and real togetherness does
• Self-determination theory framework: autonomy + competence challenge + connection
• Recommended reading: Work Rules by Laszlo Bock

Scheduling and procrastination

• Hard tasks belong in the morning when willpower is highest
• Mindset reframe: focus on how you'll feel after, who it helps, why it matters
• Get out of your own head — purpose reduces procrastination more than discipline

Moving from CEO to maker

• Three years of planning preceded a six-month transition
• People management was the primary source of stress — not clients or intellectual problems
• The right successor (Mish) emerged naturally; their close working history made handover near-instant
• Now operates with full autonomy: CEO calls when she wants input, not approval