In April 2025, Revenue Scotland officially marked our tenth anniversary - a decade of collecting and managing Scotland’s wholly devolved taxes. To commemorate this milestone, a year-long programme of events is underway, bringing together a select group of thought leaders and practitioners to reflect on various aspects of tax delivery and organisational development.
On November 6 we held a webinar exploring the question: “How do you build a high performing organisation?”
Hosted by Robert Macintosh, Professor of Strategic Management and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of the West of Scotland, and a member of Revenue Scotland’s Board, the session brought together a panel of expert voices:
- Louisa MacDonell, Scotland Director at Business in the Community
- Debbie Bailey, Co-CEO of 4 Day Week Global
- Elaine Lorimer, CEO of Revenue Scotland
Over 90 minutes, the panel shared insights, explored challenges, and offered practical strategies for creating workplaces where people and performance thrive. Attendees engaged through live Q&A, sharing their own challenges and voting on the toughest questions, from “How do you track subtle shifts in culture?” to “What role should boards play in driving performance?”
Some of the key messages which emerged were around culture, clarity, and purpose.
Culture sets the tone.
As Louisa MacDonell put it:
“We have a saying you've probably heard it before: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. We [Business in the Community] say culture eats policy for breakfast.”
The conversation explored the concept that culture is shaped through everyday interactions - trust, tone, and inclusion. If the lived experience doesn’t match the written policy, the lived experience wins.
Clarity beats intensity.
Debbie Bailey offered:
“Intentional work design actually beats intensity every single time. The most productive teams that I've seen have clarity of purpose, they focus and they know what those priorities are…”
The panellists agreed that high-performing teams cut noise, reduce unnecessary meetings, and protect time for deep work. Leaders set direction and create conditions for success, while teams design how work gets done.
Purpose powers performance.
Bringing together the concepts explored by the previous two panellists, Elaine Lorimer reflected on how Revenue Scotland bring these strategies to life, sharing our ethos on our corporate plan:
“For me, establishing clarity of purpose isn’t just about the what—it’s about the how. We’ve taken our corporate plan beyond a list of deliverables; it’s an expression of the journey of improvement we want to be on. We connect our performance to the wider system in Scotland and make sure every individual understands how their job matters. That line of sight opens up conversations about how they can do their job better to improve organisational performance.”
Elaine also reflected on how the culture at Revenue Scotland is integral to our success:
“For me, creating a high performing organisation is fundamentally about your people. You can have your systems, you can have your technology, you can have your processes, but fundamentally to get it right you need people and you need the right people with the right culture to be able to really deliver high performance.”
Across all voices, the message was clear: high performance doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built deliberately, through continuous learning and adjustment - not one-off initiatives. As Robert Macintosh reflected:
“…The important thing is the relationship between the very long term… and connecting that to the choices you make every single day, because every time you make a choice, people make a judgement as to whether you're being authentic or not.”
To watch the full discussion, see the webinar recording here: