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MEET RICHARD SHARP
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I’m Richard Sharp — a leadership coach, facilitator and founder of Flea Factory, based on the Sunshine Coast and working with people and organisations across Australia.
I’ve led teams, founded organisations and carried significant responsibility myself.
I know how easy it is to keep moving without finding the space to think clearly about what you’re carrying.
That experience shapes my work now.
HOW I WORK
I create spaces, conversations and practical resources that help people who lead slow down, pay attention and think honestly about how they are leading.
That might take the form of a Reflection Morning, a One Good Question live session, a coaching conversation, a resource used within an ordinary team meeting, or a longer piece of work alongside an organisation.
I don’t arrive with a formula or rush people towards an answer. I bring thoughtful questions, useful perspective and enough structure to help good thinking and honest conversation happen.
The form may change, but the purpose remains the same: to help people who lead see more clearly, act more intentionally and pay attention to how they are shaping the people and culture around them.
Why Flea Factory?
The name Flea Factory comes from one image in Charles Handy’s writing, but his influence on my work goes much deeper.
Handy was a writer and social philosopher who spent much of his life thinking about work, organisations and the place of people within them. His writing explored questions of purpose, trust, responsibility and how people might remain fully human within the demands of organisational life.
One of his most memorable images was elephants and fleas. Elephants are large organisations, built for stability and scale. Fleas are smaller and more independent, able to move and see things differently.
That image gave Flea Factory its name. Handy’s wider work helped shape its purpose.
I’ve carried significant responsibility inside organisations and know how easily the work of keeping things moving can consume all the available space. When the demands keep coming, it becomes difficult to pause, pay attention and think clearly about how we are leading.
Flea Factory creates that space.
Space for people who lead to slow down, notice what is happening and think more deeply about their work, their responsibility and the people around them.
Not to escape responsibility, but to return to it with greater clarity, intention and humanity.
