COLIN J BROWNE, the author of Don’t Believe Everything You Think, is an ex-journalist who became an entrepreneur once he discovered an itch he could not stop scratching. The founder of organisational culture consultancy Happy Sandpit, he has spent the past decade helping organisations to create more human workplaces where employees find purpose, meaning and belonging.
Colin’s work as a business journalist in the UK and Dubai during the 1990s and early 2000s taught him how to connect dots and dig for the truth. When he returned to South Africa in 2002, he put that to good use as the co-founder of SalesGuru and the founding editor of SalesGuru Magazine. It was the building of that business, however, that really put him on his current journey. Before SalesGuru, Colin had never given any thought to concepts such as organisational culture, shared core values, or the importance of employee engagement. But, bit by bit, the pieces fell into place.
During a sabbatical and self-funded speaking tour of the UK between 2010 and 2012, the idea for a culture-focused speaking career began to take shape, and he returned to South Africa to go back to his journalism roots, researching and writing his first book How to Build a Happy Sandpit.
At the end of 2013 when that book was released (with an updated second edition in 2015), Happy Sandpit (named for the book) had become a growing brand in the corporate training space. In the years that followed, Colin has innovated ideas such as the Three Day Field Trip immersion exercise and the Iceberg! culture stress-testing game, which has partners in South Africa, the UK and Europe.
He has lectured on organisational culture at Wits Business School, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) and the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, and has shared his message with more than one thousand companies worldwide.
Colin lives in Johannesburg, South Africa with his wife and three daughters.