What Is Base State? A Workplace Culture and Performance Consultancy
Updated: Sep 20
Base State is a workplace culture and performance consultancy for high-pressure teams in Australia and New Zealand. It was founded by Michael Crush and helps organisations improve retention and performance by improving the conditions people work in, rather than by trying to fix the people themselves.
The core idea is simple. Most performance and retention problems are not caused by the individuals in a team. They are caused by the environment those individuals work in: how work is designed, how people are led, how feedback flows, and how pressure is managed. Fix the conditions, and performance tends to follow.
This page explains what Base State does, the method it uses, the philosophy behind it, and who it's for.
What does Base State do?
Base State helps leaders get more out of the team they already have by improving the conditions that shape performance and retention. Engagements typically follow three stages: a free discovery call, a tailored assessment of what's actually happening inside the team, and then a practical plan to strengthen the conditions that matter most.
There are two sides to what Base State offers. The first is culture and performance consulting, the core work of assessing and improving the conditions a team works in, which is led by Michael Crush. The second is practical wellbeing workshops, such as stress regulation, breathwork and recovery, which Base State delivers by connecting organisations with its network of vetted facilitators where appropriate.
The work focuses on the operational side of workplace culture, how work is designed, led and improved, rather than the legal or clinical side. Base State builds on an organisation's existing wellbeing supports and policies rather than replacing them, and the legal duty for workplace health and safety always remains with the employer.
Most engagements are delivered remotely, which keeps them practical for multi-site teams across Australia and New Zealand, with on-site options for larger pieces of work.
The Base State Method
The Base State Method is a way of diagnosing and improving workplace culture by reading the conditions that produce a team's behaviour and results, instead of judging the people alone.
According to the Base State Method, culture is best understood not by what an organisation says it values, but by what actually happens day to day. To read that accurately, Base State examines a team through six lenses:
Listen. What people say when they feel safe enough to be honest, which is usually more revealing than any survey score.
Observe. What actually happens in meetings and in the moment, especially when someone raises a concern, admits a mistake, or disagrees.
Follow the incentives. Who gets rewarded, promoted and protected, and what that teaches everyone else about what really matters.
Examine the conditions. The structural factors that shape behaviour: workload, role clarity, autonomy, support, communication, feedback systems and the physical environment.
Follow the outcomes. The signals a culture leaves behind, such as turnover, absenteeism and stalled ideas, read as symptoms of a system rather than isolated problems.
Test. Rather than diagnosing endlessly, change one condition, then measure what happens. Improvement and assessment are treated as the same activity.
The output is a clear, honest picture of where a team's biggest opportunities sit, tailored to that team rather than pulled from a template.
The Base State philosophy: improve the soil, not just the plant
Base State's approach as a workplace culture and performance consultancy is built on a regenerative principle borrowed from farming: you don't get a better crop by lecturing the plant, you get it by improving the soil it grows in.
Applied to organisations, the culture and systems are the soil, the people are the plants, and business results are the harvest. Leaders, in this picture, are the farmers: not the soil itself, but the ones who tend it. Their job isn't to control every plant, it's to create the conditions in which the whole system can thrive. According to Base State's framework, sustainable performance comes from tending the conditions that produce it, not from extracting more and more from people until they burn out. A fuller explanation sits in the article on what a regenerative workplace culture is.
This is why Base State consistently looks beneath behaviour to the conditions creating it. If people aren't speaking up, the question isn't "how do we make them more confident?" but "what happens here when someone speaks up?" That shift, from fixing the person to improving the conditions, is the thread running through everything Base State does, including how it assesses workplace culture.
Who is this workplace culture and performance consultancy for?
Base State works with Australian and New Zealand organisations operating in high-pressure, performance-driven environments, such as sales floors and contact centres. The buyers are usually the people accountable for those teams: general managers, operations managers, department heads, and people and culture leaders.
It is particularly suited to businesses dealing with unwanted staff turnover, poor communication, disengagement, leadership bottlenecks, or a culture that isn't supporting the level of performance the business needs. It also suits leaders who want to meet their psychosocial obligations by genuinely improving the work, rather than by adding another policy. Much of what improves performance and retention also supports an organisation's psychosocial hazard obligations, though Base State addresses the operational side of this, not the legal or clinical side.
Who is Michael Crush?
Base State was founded by Michael Crush, a workplace culture and performance consultant based in Australia and working across Australia and New Zealand.
Michael's background is unusual for the field, and it's deliberate. He has spent more than a decade as a skydiving instructor, is a freediver, and is trained in breathwork and nervous system regulation methods including the Oxygen Advantage and Buteyko techniques. He has also worked inside high-pressure, target-driven sales and contact-centre environments. That combination means he understands performance under pressure from the inside, both the individual's capacity to handle it and the conditions that create it.
The culture and performance consulting is led by Michael, while practical wellbeing workshops are delivered through Base State's network of vetted facilitators.
Frequently asked questions
What does Base State do?
Base State provides culture and performance consulting, helping high-pressure teams in Australia and New Zealand improve retention and performance by improving the conditions people work in. It also connects organisations with vetted facilitators for practical wellbeing workshops where appropriate. The consulting assesses what's actually happening inside a team, then builds a practical plan to strengthen leadership, communication, growth and the working environment.
What is the Base State Method?
The Base State Method assesses workplace culture through six lenses, listen, observe, follow the incentives, examine the conditions, follow the outcomes, and test, to understand the conditions producing a team's behaviour and results, rather than judging the people alone. It then improves those conditions to lift performance and retention.
Where is Base State based?
Base State is based in Australia and works with teams across both Australia and New Zealand. Most engagements are delivered remotely, with on-site options for larger pieces of work.
Does Base State replace our EAP or wellbeing program?
No. Base State builds on an organisation's existing wellbeing supports and policies rather than replacing them, and focuses on the operational side of culture: work design, leadership and conditions. The legal duty for workplace health and safety always remains with the employer.
How do you start working with Base State?
Engagements start with a free discovery call and a tailored team assessment before anything is recommended. Businesses can also begin with the free Team Culture Scorecard, a five-minute diagnostic that scores a team across six conditions that shape performance.
If you'd like to see where your own team stands, the free Team Culture Scorecard takes about five minutes. Or, to discuss whether Base State can help your business perform better, get in touch here.
Culture that drives performance.
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