01
Both sides, one language
We work on people and the conditions around them, described in the same terms: Safety, Meaning and Agency. So you can see what needs to grow in people, and what needs to change around them.
An adaptive practice · Aotearoa New Zealand
Fit isn't found. It's built.
Grow your people. Shape the conditions around them.
Square Peg is an advisory practice. We help people, teams and organisations develop — and the conditions they work in — so they grow into each other. Practical, co-created change, grounded in the science of fit.
What we do
Consulting on people and the conditions they work in
We work alongside leaders and teams on culture, leadership and change — on both sides of the fit at once: the people, and the conditions around them.
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Your people set the standard
No league tables and no one-size-fits-all benchmarks. Your people say what they aspire to, and that’s what progress is measured against.
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Most of the work is the change
Understanding where you are is the easy part. The real work — and most of the effort — goes into change that holds, designed with the people who own it.
Some organisations need something designed around them; others want a lighter hand. The work is always co-created, not prescribed — the people who know an organisation best are the people in it.
How we think
The peg and the space
Most organisations treat fit as something you find at hiring, then either have or don’t. In practice, fit changes all the time. People grow into roles, roles grow to fit people, and both drift when things change.
The psychologist Kurt Lewin showed that behaviour comes from the person and their environment together. We put it in plain terms. The peg is what a person brings. The space is the conditions around them. They meet in behaviour: what people actually do, every day. And behaviour, over time, builds fit or wears it away.
Every person’s behaviour also becomes part of the space for everyone around them. No one’s behaviour is neutral.
Peg × Space → Behaviour → Fit
- Peg
- What a person brings: skills, experience, and the beliefs they carry — that it’s safe to be themselves, that their work matters, that they can make a difference.
- Space
- The conditions around them, for the person, the team and the organisation.
- Behaviour
- Where the two meet, and how it lands with others.
- Fit
- Built, or eroded, through behaviour over time.
This is the Adaptive Fit model. White Paper 1 sets out the research behind it.
One model, one language
Conditions, beliefs and behaviour
Three things shape how people perform. We look at all three in the same language, so you can see whether it’s the peg, the space, or how they meet.
Around you
Conditions
How safe it is to speak up, whether the work feels worthwhile, how much room there is to decide. For the person, the team and the organisation.
Within you
Beliefs
What people believe about themselves and their world: that it’s safe to be me, that what I do matters, that I can make a difference. Built over a lifetime, carried from place to place. Beliefs generate behaviour.
From you
Behaviour
How people behave towards others, and the effect it has. Your behaviour is someone else’s conditions.
SafetyMeaningAgency
The science
Why safety decides the direction
Adaptation starts when something doesn’t fit: a new role, a new leader, a change in direction. What happens next depends on safety.
When it’s safe to ask, try and get things wrong, a gap becomes a challenge and people learn. When it isn’t, the same gap becomes a threat and people defend. Meaning gives people a reason to stay and adapt. Agency lets them shape the space, not only themselves.
The model draws on decades of research: Lewin’s field theory, Piaget’s work on development, the Theory of Work Adjustment, psychological safety, meaningful work, empowerment and team adaptation.
We test the model as we use it, through action research: measure, act, measure again. We publish what we find, including where the model needs to change.
Low safety
High safety
High challenge
DefendingRigidity, conflict, people leaving
AdaptingLearning and shaping. Fit is built.
Low challenge
Holding onCompliance, heads down
ComfortPleasant, but little growth
Writing · Papers, articles and notes
The work, in the open
We’re building the thinking in public: the research behind the model, and what we learn as we put it to work. More is on the way.
White paper 1
Fit Isn’t Found. It’s Built.
The Adaptive Fit model: how people, teams and organisations grow into each other, and the research it draws on.
Read the PDF · 18 pages
Article
Square Peg, Round Hole? Maybe It’s Not the Peg.
Why fit at work isn’t found but built, and what leaders can do about it.
Read the PDF · 5 minutes
Paper
A Word That Explains Everything
Why organisations might stop talking about culture and start shaping conditions.
Coming soon
Paper
Conditions, Not Culture
Measuring the conditions people actually work in — and why that moves more than a culture score.
Coming soon
Series
Find the Balance
Eleven paradoxes of leading, and why we lean the way we do: what we believe, what our workplaces reward, and one small move.
Read the series · 13 pieces
Coming in 2027
New ways to put this to work
We’re building a set of diagnostics and a platform to make the Adaptive Fit model practical, from one person to a whole organisation. Get in touch if you’d like to hear first.
About
Square Peg
Square Peg is a small, adaptive New Zealand practice led by Neil McGregor.
Neil has spent more than 20 years working alongside leaders and teams on culture, leadership and change. Over that time he kept seeing the same opportunity, in two directions. People change what they can do by choosing how they see themselves and the world around them. And when the conditions around people change, so does what they can do. Fit is built from both, and every person, team and organisation builds it differently. So the work starts with their context, not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Square Peg is his attempt to make that practical. It brings the research on fit, safety, meaning and agency into work that is simple to use and honest about what it measures. Neither Neil nor the work has all the answers. It’s there to help people see what’s going on and decide for themselves what to do about it.
Some organisations need something designed around them. Others want a lighter hand. The work is always co-created, not prescribed. The people who know an organisation best are the people in it.
Get in touch
Let’s talk about fit
Book a 20-minute call to talk about your people, your teams or your organisation. Email Neil to find a time.
neil@squarepeg.co.nz