Our impact

Activating change through aligned leadership

Driving transformation and performance through empowering conversations.

The Challenge

This iconic Australian organisation, challenged by significant decline in its traditional business and entry of new local and global players in its growth market areas, recognised the need to activate organisational change and transformation by moving away from a ‘command and control’ culture to one of empowerment. With significant previous investments in leadership development at the frontline leader level the need was to create an initiative which developed leadership capability across frontline and mid-level leaders at scale.

The Approach

We were invited to collaborate with the in-house team to design, develop and pilot an enterprise wide solution for frontline and mid-level leaders. Our discovery process centred around understanding previous leadership development initiatives and what had worked well in the organisation so far, as well as the broader culture landscape including the importance of the Values and associated Leadership Behaviours. We designed a longitudinal, multi-faceted solution, able to be deployed in two different ways, to suit business needs. Whilst the solution involved face to face workshop modules focussing on key topics of leadership expectations, leading change, coaching and feedback conversations, the power of the program was really driven through the ‘scaffolding’ which was put around the workshop learning to ensure embedding and behavioural change. Elements such as individual leadership and business projects, manager conversations, peer coaching circles and the creation and tracking of micro-habits were key to supporting leaders apply and sustain learning. We also designed the program evaluation methodology and have supported the development of capability of the inhouse facilitation team in the coaching circle methodology.

The Outcome

With pilot programs still in progress it is early days to truly ascertain the impact of the program. Preliminary module evaluation results show total favourability of ratings ranging from 86% - 97%, however the real power emerging from the program so far relates to the stories of change happening at the local level. Leaders report feeling empowered and valued, business challenges are being worked on in new and different ways, connectivity and support is enhanced through peers in coaching circles, greater coaching and engagement of teams is occurring locally and more regular leader and direct manager conversations which build a culture of continuous learning and growth are in place. We are excited to see the continued impact of the program as it moves to ‘at scale’ deployment.