Leadership is a key ingredient to an organisation or business’s success. At Leadership At Work, our goal is to ensure that success, by helping willing managers to become more effective in their role by enhancing their leadership and management skills. Our organisational, leadership and management development courses, coaching and training, in Geelong and Ballarat, are designed to help people become their best and maintain best performance.
Facilitating real change in organisations is never an easy task, but with the buy-in of senior management and our facilitated programs it can be achieved.
We are a Ballarat and Geelong-based human resource consulting and training organisation with a mandate to achieve our vision through a full range of leadership and management development programs for organisations and their people.
This is achieved through a multi-pronged approach incorporating our core values of: Customer Care, Business Growth, Innovation, Self Development and Community.
We provide an extensive range of integrated leadership, management and organisational services for business. These services include executive coaching, leadership development training, management development training, organisational development consulting and organisational development training.
Leadership At Work specialises in leadership coaching, organsational change management and HR training across various industries. We have a successful track record working with clients in the health industry, transport industry, distribution, logistics, manufacturing, food processing, finance and welfare, among others. While we are Geelong and Ballarat-based, we have delivered our programs across Australia, New Zealand and into South East Asia. We pride ourselves on retaining clients, in fact 70 to 80 per cent of our clients are from organisations which have already had participants go through our programs.
Leadership At Work’s training courses are tailored to meet individual client needs. These programs are geared to improving the effectiveness of individuals and enhancing the overall productivity and performance of client-focused organisations. Our aim is to get measurable results and we encourage and appreciate feedback from our clients. You can read reviews from current and ongoing clients, or contact us to enquire about our range of business leadership, management and organsational development services and courses.
At Leadership At Work, our leadership, management and organisational development services are offered out of our two locations, Geelong and Ballarat. But, since the foundation of our business in 1987, we have delivered leadership, HR and management training, coaching and services across Australia, New Zealand and even South East Asia.
We provide services focused on leadership coaching and leadership development training and executive coaching. At Leadership At Work, we also put a strong emphasis on human resources support with our HR consulting and training service.
An organisation’s or business’s success is often defined by the way it’s managed. Leadership At Work provides support and education services to assist with organisational development consulting and organisational development training. We also offer management development training which is designed to get the best out of leaders and position them to evolve and adapt with organisational change.
If you think your business or management could benefit from any of these leadership, management or organisational services, contact us today in Geelong or Ballarat.
At Leadership At Work, we offer a wide range of tailored management, leadership and organisational development courses and workshops. We deliver these programs from both our Geelong and Ballarat locations, with each course and workshop designed to meet individual client needs.
Through our leadership training and leadership courses, we aim to improve the effectiveness of your workforce and improve productivity and performance. We pride ourselves on our programs achieving quantifiable results, and we are confident you will be happy with your short and long-term outcomes.
Our professional and experienced associates Belinda Fyffe and Brad Clarke, deliver our leadership, management and organisational development programs out of our Geelong and Ballarat locations. However, we have provided courses and training across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia. As well as our courses, we provide organisational development and leadership training services, including executive coaching and HR consulting and training.
We welcome feedback on all our courses, training and services, and you can read reviews from previous experiences with us. Feel free to contact us for more information on our training courses, workshops and programs.
Leadership At Work provides the knowledge foundation for Managers and supervisors to apply in a practical way. Without the foundation they are just another goof person trying to be a good manager, if they are lucky.
Leading and managing is a skill that needs practical application with the guiding hand of experience. The Leadership at Work people provide both.
Clive Pugh, Managing Director, Winchester Australia
Our Operations Manager left with little notice and on poor terms. The Leadership At Work team encouraged us to complete a comprehensive Job and Workplace Analysis before rushing into re-hiring and making the same expensive mistake.
To our shock, we realised that we didn’t need an Op’s Manager; we needed a Technical Business Advisor. Its changed the game (and reduced the salary commitments by $40k per annum).
We’ve now got the right person with the right skills and temperament. The Leadership at Work team really know their stuff.
Chris Browne, Managing Director, Rising Tide Financial Services
As a Director of Simplex Insurance Solutions we had our Leadership Team recently attend the ‘Self Leadership Essentials- Resilience’ course with Robert – The course was fantastic, the course far exceeded all our expectations, after the past 18-20 months with COVID it was just what our team needed to reignite ourselves and find our own purpose again. I would highly recommend this course
Kay Jackson, Director, Simplex Insurance Solutions
Congratulations Robert on your 35 years of leading a successful and meaningful business.
I have been fortunate enough to have experienced several of your workshops over many years which has really been beneficial to both my professional and personal life.
You have been my mentor and friend and I am very grateful.
I also have autonomy, mastery and purpose in my current job where I aim to stay until retirement, whenever that may be.
Angela Cahill
Here at Leadership At Work, we love receiving feedback from our clients and providing it for prospective clients to read. We are currently compiling reviews for this page, so check back soon to see what our existing, previous and ongoing clients think of our leadership, management and organisational development services, training and workshops.
If you are consistently applying your leadership and managerial skills in the workplace, then practical leadership development skills are crucial. Previous participants in the Leadership At Work program have already attended various training and educational programs. However, a comment we consistently hear is that the Leadership At Work program is essentially practical, where participants can immediately implement tools and techniques to improve their leadership performance.
Previous attendees of our Ballarat and Geelong leadership development programs have ranged from participants preparing for their first management positions, to more experienced senior managers. Both inexperienced and senior managers are also suitable attendees for our management development training. However regardless of experience, a common remark we hear is “I wish I had done this course years ago”.
The learning points from the Leadership At Work program are both fundamental and essential to effective leadership and management, regardless of the level the participant is working in the organisation.
The Leadership At Work program is designed in such a way that each module can stand alone and participants can, and do, choose the module, or modules, most suited to their needs.
The emphasis at the Leadership At Work program is the immediate application of action plans into the workplace. Through feedback and 360-degree evaluation from peers, team members and managers, participants and their managers can assess their progress from before the program to after the program.
The positive results will be obvious in workforce morale, productivity and overall buy-in to your organisation’s direction, vision and mission.
Yes. Whilst we are based in Ballarat and Geelong, we have a long history of working with clients across every State in Australia. We have also completed work with clients in SE Asia and New Zealand. We can create or adapt our program delivery to accommodate clients where we need to travel so as to keep expenses for them to a minimum. We’re not afraid of long-distance relationships.
For more than two decades Leadership At Work has been establishing itself as an industry leader when it comes to developing professional leaders and facilitating organisational change across Geelong and Ballarat. Our mantra of helping willing managers to become more effective in their role by enhancing their leadership and management skills is achieved by incorporating our key values of customer care, business growth, innovation, self development and community.
Although our offices are located in Geelong and Ballarat, we are an Australia and South East Asia-wide human resources consulting and training organisation. Our aim is to deliver effective outcomes and improvement to organisations and their people through a range of leadership, management and organisational development programs. We provide comprehensive integrated human resource, management and leadership development programs, tailored to meet individual client needs.
Robert Re established Leadership At Work in 1987, following a 10-year career in senior HR management. Since then, HR and organisational development specialist Belinda Fyffe, and business and community development expert Brad Clarke have joined the team.
Leadership At Work also works in partnership with Corporate Plus in providing workshops and training. Corporate Plus is an Australian-based consulting and training provider with a holistic approach to an organisation’s needs.
Leadership At Work offers business leadership, management and organisational development services and courses out of offices in both Geelong and Ballarat. You can find our contact details for either location by following the links below.
Subscribe to Leadership At Work’s newsletter to keep up to date with information about our training courses and the opportunities we have available to positively reshape your workplace and ensure your team members are happy, content and working at optimum productivity. Don’t hesitate to contact Leadership At Work if you’d like more information or to discuss training options for your organisation.
Proven Pathways to personal and organisational effectivenessThe Business of Life brings together the six timeless practices of organisational and personal effectiveness. While these practices are widely known, they’re rarely implemented well. Accordingly, the book aims to assist readers in applying these practices in order to create effective outcomes in both their personal and organisational life. A key theme throughout this book is the deep connection that exists between:
While these connections are often implicit in the personal development literature, the authors draw upon six key practices to highlight the explicit nature of this connection – one that can drive both personal and organisational effectiveness.
The book will be an invaluable tool to readers interested in bringing about sustainable improvements in their working and personal lives. The references in each chapter draw on empirical studies, as well as recognised theories from leading authors and practitioners over the last half century and focus on ‘what’s true’ – rather than ‘what’s new’. This is a back to basics book that will appeal to new and seasoned business professionals alike.
“…. I’m very impressed with The Business of Life. Not only is it based on sound theory, research and proven practices, but it shows how normal people like you and I can implement the practices both within our organisations and in our daily lives. I know of no other book that merges the world of work and the world of life, so well.”
Bob Selden, Author: ‘What To Do When You Become The Boss: How new managers become successful managers’ and ‘Don’t: How using the right words will change your life’.
Leadership at Work is a culmination of thirty years’ experience and covers the essentials of leadership and management practice.
The reader is shown the common sense – but not common practice – tools and techniques to bring about organisational improvement. The first four chapters focus on the needs for any organisation to set corporate direction, simplify the organisation structure, clarify roles and create an improvement culture.
The middle chapters give the reader the simple but valid and tested “how to’s” of implementing leadership and management techniques, including recruitment and selection, managing performance, developing teams, solving problems and resolving conflict.
The final three chapters focus on the ideal organisation of the future, succession planning and how to bring about productive change.
The book itself is based on the author’s highly successful eight-day ‘Leadership at Work’ development program, which has been conducted more than one hundred times in all states of Australia, New Zealand as well as Europe and Asia. Many of the course participants requested that the course be turned into book form. This is the book!
A plain English, practical reference guide for first time managers, HR graduates, small to medium business owners and those wanting an understanding of HR processes and what to do to implement a basic HR structure in an organisation in Australia.
Written in a conversational tone to ensure the audience is engaged and not intimidated; this reference guide is written in four parts, with headings and subheadings to make finding a section again easy.
Each Part is finished with a Summary section, and a Further Reading section with a small number of additional reference texts offered to the reader to further their understanding of the Part.
The four parts of this guide are as follows:
Part I – Compliance: An overview of the current industrial relations framework in Australia.
Part II – HR Processes: Covers the HR processes in detail, commencing with Recruitment, concluding with Exit Interviews when staff leave employment and covers everything in between.
Part III – Outside Influences: Covers other parties, legislation and concerns that influence the HR function, including Unions, Occupational Health & Safety, Quality and Environmental concerns, how they all impact on the employment relationship, and how to best work with them all.
Part IV – Beyond Merely HR to OD: Begins to bring in some of the concepts that should be on every businesses agenda once the HR Processes have been implemented successfully.
Robert Re worked in the field of personal and organisational development for many years and was involved in workplace change and work-life improvements since 1977. As Human Resources Manager of two large regional manufacturing companies, he successfully introduced major organisational cultural change initiatives. He established his own consultancy business in 1987. Robert had worked on various projects with a diverse range of organisations in every state of Australia and had presented his popular ‘Leadership at Work’ program in Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Italy and New Zealand.
Allan Meers commenced business life as a chartered accountant with KPMG in Scotland, before developing an interest in personal and organisational systems. He began working with Robert Re in 2013, providing support for workshops such as Leadership in Life, How to Explore your Life Purpose and Resetting your Life Compass.
Belinda Fyffe is an experienced Human Resources professional specialising in helping small to medium business owners work with their teams to get better performance. Her book is a resource guide which outlines the Australian Industrial Relations Framework in plain English, and allows a small business owner to understand their obligations under employment legislation, and then to take the next step, to enhance employment relationships to build their business to the next level.
Problem Buster is a modular, step-wise program designed specifically for organisations to effectively identify, analyse and resolve problems impacting upon their performance, culture or financial viability.
This program should be run as a collaborative experience; that is, key stakeholders within the business should be engaged to work through the program as a collaborative team, following the program collectively, whilst focussing on and completing specific individual tasks related to the problem.
This program, from commencement to completion, will require a commitment of approximately 10-15 hours, excluding independent research and collation of data related to the problem. It is anticipated that modules 1-4 would be done consecutively, followed by a period of individual research, then recommencement of the remaining 6 modules.
What you will learn
Participants will be guided through the 10-step process, including a briefing and a series of tasks, supported by tools, checklists and explanatory notes for each step.
Participants will develop competence in applying the steps to existing problems.
Modules
Program Introduction
Step 1: Agreeing and defining the problem
Step 2: Agreeing on the Goal
Step 3: Getting Facts about the Problem
Problem Solving Tools
Step 4 & 5: Looking for and picking the most likely Cause
Step 6: Checking the Most Likely Cause Against the Facts
Step 7: Thinking of Possible Ways to Solve the Problem
Step 8: Picking the Best Way to Solve the Problem
Step 9 : Checking the Best Way against the Goal
Step 10: Putting the Best Way into Action
Appendix 1: Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Points of Management
Appendix 2: Problem Solving T/F Quiz
Completion
Find out more about our new online courses
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Thank you for contacting Leadership At Work, we will be in touch with you as soon as possible.
Thank you for contacting Leadership At Work, we will be in touch with you as soon as possible.
Leadership At Work’s executive coaching service can provide an independent voice of reason in any business leader’s decision-making process. Being a CEO or managing director can be a lonely place. Although you are surrounded by a ‘team’ and people to work with, you are often required to act as an independent leader when it comes to the big decisions. Our Geelong and Ballarat-based leadership coaching provides the ideal platform for a company or business leader to improve their independent decision making.
At Leadership At Work, we find CEOs and managing directors can have difficulty finding the right person to bounce ideas off or see if new ideas have merit. They feel a requirement to maintain their position of strength and leadership within the organisation. Our leadership executive coaching can provide external and independent advice to help a leader’s thought processes and decision-making skills. We develop relationships with clients based on their vision and values. Leadership At Work will help provide a platform where leaders can search for answers without fear of losing face or, rightly or wrongly, showing weakness.
Leadership At Work offers Geelong and Ballarat leadership development training and coaching to key employees in your organisation. We also provide management development training for those employees who are already in a leadership position but want to hone their skills and improve. Development of leaders and managers is crucial to any business or organisation, particularly when planning for the future. This tailored approach is as much about what participants want to get out of the process as it is the tools and techniques involved. Our corporate coaching has the proven success rate that a truly effective executive coaching process should have.
Call us today at either our Ballarat or Geelong locations for a free, no obligation chat about our leadership and executive coaching and how it can work for you and your organisation.
Human resources, better known by its abbreviation HR, is all about people. How people are managed, motivated, engaged and given the opportunity to achieve their organsational goals and objects. Leadership At Work’s Ballarat and Geelong HR training and consulting aims to help organisations maximise the output and morale of their workforces.
Most employees go to work to do a good job and develop within the organisation. Leaders need to facilitate that objective through effective HR practices. There are two sides to good HR practice. Firstly, HR processes must be in place and working well to achieve compliance, and secondly, engaging staff in these practices. When you have your people on board with your vision, values and what you want to achieve, you will achieve real productivity gains.
At Leadership At Work, our Geelong and Ballarat organisational development training and services include HR audits and compliance, development of HR processes and equal employment opportunity and HR training. We believe effective HR practices are a key ingredient of organisational development. Leadership At Work can also provide organisational development consulting.
Our HR auditing process can help you identify your gaps and introduce new processes to ensure compliance, clarity in the organisation and encourage innovation. Staff engagement is the next logical step in our HR consultancy. Once people feel communicated with, valued and encouraged, they are much more likely to buy into where the organisation is headed and what they can do to help it get there. That’s where ensuring you have the right HR skills, and knowledge in key people around management and leadership is critical.
At Leadership At Work, our HR consultants are here to help you with building these skills through the HR consulting and training service offered from our Geelong and Ballarat locations. Our eight-day Leadership at Work management and leadership development program can be run in-house and offers practical, hands-on tools. Based around an individual’s action plan, it is designed to have real impact in the workplace immediately.
When defining leadership, people can often confuse the term with good management. However, at Leadership At Work we believe leadership and good management are vastly different concepts. Ideally, good managers will be good leaders, and we frame our Geelong and Ballarat leadership development training around creating leaders.
Understanding the difference between leading and managing can considerably enhance your organisation on the basis that employees are more inclined to follow leaders, as opposed to managers. If you are in a sole leadership position at your organisation, we can also enhance your confidence and ability to lead and make tough decisions with our executive coaching program.
At Leadership At Work, in our Geelong and Ballarat leadership coaching we define leadership using four elements. These elements include having and sharing a vision, a plan for where we are going, and why we are going there. We incorporate these elements in our leadership training.
We believe every organisation must be about more than making a profit. There has to be some underlying reason for its existence that is greater than money. If it does not have this as a cornerstone, then it will not thrive and perhaps, even more importantly, survive in the long term. An organisation needs leaders to drive its non-financial mission, and ensure employees believe in what they are doing and sustain that belief.
The Australian Institute of Management has in the past identified leadership as a top skills gap in 45 per cent of organisations. A further survey from the University of Technology Sydney also highlighted a skills gap in the crucial area of leadership. The UTS survey also rated Australia’s organisational leadership as average at best, and even less than average in key areas of people development.
Leadership development and leadership training are proven methods of improving the effectiveness and productivity of our organisations. At Leadership At Work, we provide practical and action-orientated leadership training and leadership development courses in Ballarat and Geelong. Our courses can deliver productivity improvements, with the support of top management. Leadership development programs are the best known tactics to positively impact productivity. We offer leadership development training including Leadership At The Top, an executive level training program, and Leadership At Work, a mid-level management and emerging leaders program.
As we have touched on when discussing our leadership development training, good leaders make good managers. Leadership At Work can deliver Ballarat and Geelong management development training providing the skills and strategies needed by managers of all levels to successfully lead their team. Whether you are new to a management position or a senior manager, our management development training can provide the tools and techniques to manage day-to-day operations. We can also help position you to plan for future growth and proactively manage organisational change.
Leadership At Work teaches exceptional management skills by developing and delivering courses tailored to address the common core challenges of an organisation, regardless of the industry. We work closely with an organisation’s senior management to address performance and workplace culture. Through our Ballarat and Geelong management development training, we are able to assist with identifying where there might be people problems within an organisation.
Managing workplace conflict can be one of the most crucial aspects of any leadership position. Whether the issues are personal or professional, they are likely to affect performance. Although you are not a counsellor, you need to know how to deal with conflict at an organisational level. Our management development courses are focused on conflict management and time management. We aim to train leaders and executives to identify the source of conflict or issues affecting performance and efficiency. Once identified, we look at appropriate interventions around these issues or conflicts.
Effective management is the key to driving workplace and organisational performance. Leadership At Work can help you and your organisation create lasting and effective cultural change by providing inspiring, innovative and practical training programs for Geelong and Ballarat. Based on more than 30 years’ experience in designing, delivering and evaluating workplace change, we can make a difference to your organisation and the way you manage your team.
At Leadership At Work, our goal is to make a real difference in your organisation and our Geelong and Ballarat organisational development consulting is framed around this mission. With a vision of positively shaping organisations and peoples’ work lives, we want to help you move from where you are now, to where you want and need to be as a high-achieving, engaging workforce.
Organisational improvement can be tackled in a variety of ways using a range of methods. Leadership At Work’s organisational development services include consultations on how to increase work performance, organisational recruitment system consultations and DISC personal and job profiling system consultations. We also offer organisational development training from our Ballarat and Geelong locations.
Organisational development is most effective when problems are solved and goals reached. Leadership At Work’s organisational development consultants work with clients on a comprehensive range of methods to ensure goals are achieved. Like with our HR consulting and training, we consult with Geelong and Ballarat clients on a variety of organisational development needs. These include recruitment and talent management – helping assess workforce structure, meeting design and facilitation – helping clients run effective and efficient meetings, group problem solving, and business process redesign – reassessing the way certain jobs are done.
Our Leadership At Work team has expertise in the following areas and will tailor an improvement program to lift your organisation’s performance: Stakeholders requirements; Mission; Performance management; Organisational structure; Role definitions; Goals or objectives setting; Role relationships; Work unit job design; Human values; Leadership and vision; Learning and development; Team development; Behavioural styles (DISC); Managerial styles; Interpersonal skills; Team facilitation and social skills; Culture surveys
Creating and managing change can be the biggest challenge a leader can face. Leadership At Work delivers consultations on organisational change management and how to create cultural change in the workplace. Our consultants collaborate with managers and their workforce to help plan and implement major changes in organisations. Organisational change could involve a restructure of roles, jobs or teams, or could even be space changes such as new work surroundings or environments. Organisational change management is a set of strategies, skills and ideas to put in place to effectively apply change with minimal negative impact. Contact us at Leadership At Work if you or your organisation needs help managing workplace or professional change.
One of the keys to organisational development is assisting clients not just in meeting their goal, but delivering training to develop new problem-solving skills they can use in the future. This is where Leadership At Work’s Geelong and Ballarat organisational development training differs from our organisational development consulting. It’s one thing to consult with organisations on their developmental needs, but we offer courses aimed at training leaders to implement organisational development tactics in-house in the long term.
At Leadership At Work, we offer several organisational development training mechanisms including organisational recruitment systems, DISC personal and job profiling systems and OD4HR (organisational development for HR professionals).
DISC (dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance) training involves assessing an individual’s personality and behavioural traits aimed at building stronger, more fulfilling relationships. In an organisational sense, DISC training and assessments are designed to improve interpersonal communications, connection with co-workers and your understanding
of what you need to maximise your potential. Leadership At Work offers DISC profiling systems workshops as part of our Geelong and Ballarat organisational training courses, and you can read more about the workshops in our brochure.
We also provide customised organisational development training. Our consultants can work with a group from your organisation to develop or renew values, knowledge or skills that relate to a common outcome. With this customised training also comes team development, where we can help a team work more effectively together.
Leadership At Work’s Ballarat and Geelong organisational development training is suitable for small to medium businesses with a 20 to 200-strong workforce. The training is designed to develop people and help them become their best. It also intends to create or improve organisational culture, and develop a workforce that can identify where the ‘pain’ is or what is ‘hurting’ internally when performance expectations aren’t being met. Contact us today at either our Geelong or Ballarat locations to inquire about any of our comprehensive training courses.
You can find all we have to offer in leadership, management and organisational development services and training programs at our Ballarat office. Leadership At Work provides everything from executive coaching to organisational development training for you and your business. Contact us in Ballarat today.
Leadership At Work offers management, leadership and organisational development courses and training services out of our Geelong office. Geelong businesses can contact us during business hours, except public holidays, to discuss our courses and services including HR consulting and training, leadership development and training and management development training.
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This five-day leadership and management program, delivered (typically) as 1 full day module per month, is offered publicly as well as being adopted in-house.
Today, more than ever, improving productivity and remaining competitive requires full support of all employees working as a team. Engaging employees in your business through shared vision and values, charges up productivity and is like moving from second gear into overdrive.
The critical link between a corporate strategy and the people that make it happen is the middle manager and the first-line team leader, who are often selected for their technical skills and expertise. However, many find that leading and managing people is a more difficult challenge. The good news is that these skills, like technical expertise, can be taught.
This nationally recognised program develops the ability to motivate, coach and counsel people in today’s changing environment. The program provides participants with practical skills and techniques, which they can then apply to current workplace situations.
Modules involve adult learning principles to ensure participants get the maximum benefit through a range of presentation and group participation techniques including; use of DVDs, role-playing, simulations, games, question and answer sessions. Participants have described these techniques as ‘practical, fun, and supportive’.
Download the Leading & Managing Teams 5-day experience here.
Leading & Managing Teams by Leadership At Work is ideal for organisations wishing to create higher levels of alignment and consistency of leadership and management across their business divisions. A cohort consisting of Executive, through to team leader level will promote common language, knowledge and application of skills and techniques. It will foster collaboration and empathy. It will promote positive, effective culture.
In-house courses can be modified to meet specific needs. Whilst some modules are considered core, we can introduce other modules to fit your needs. These modules can be selected from a broad range of offerings, including, but not exclusively:
Contact us today to discuss your needs.
SELF LEADERSHIP ESSENTIALS- BOOSTING OUR RESILIENCE!
Self Leadership Essentials (SLE) Workshop
Currently organisations and their leaders are concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the health and well being of their people.The objective of this workshop is to equip people with the skills, tools and determination to reset their lives now and for a better future.
This is designed for Business and Team Leaders who wish to support their valued Team Members. You might also consider as an important way of bringing your team together for a truly memorable experience.
As one recent client attested:
“ We recently had our leadership team attend the Self- Leadership Essentials workshop with Robert.
The course was fantastic and far exceeded all our expectations! After the past 18-24 months with COVID it was just what our team needed to reignite ourselves and find our purpose again.
I would highly recommend this course.”
Kay Jackson, Simplex Insurance Solutions.
To discuss your needs and to build your Team’s resilience and make 2022 the best year yet, give Robert a call on 0418 518 667 and we can discuss an in-house program for you.
In case you missed it, two recent studies have again put leadership in Australian organisations in the spotlight.
Both the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) survey, and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) survey, have highlighted the skills gap in the crucial area of leadership and have rated our leadership as average at best and even less than average, in key areas of people development. That’s the issue – but what do we do about it?
We do know that an improvement in leadership skills is a proven way of improving the effectiveness and productivity of our organisations.
With over 30 years’ experience in leadership development, Leadership At Work has been able to develop a highly effective CEO and executive level program. This program is guaranteed to immediately improve the leadership skills of your executive team and ultimately the productivity of your organisation.
Title: Leadership At The Top
Duration: Two days
Designed for: CEO and executive team
Key Features
Conducted in-house and specifically incorporating your organisation’s corporate direction and strategies.
Content Areas
Why not contact Leadership At Work to discuss your specific needs and arrange a booking for this highly effective workshop?
Rationale
Whilst most senior managers have participated individually in a number of leadership and management programs, courses, degrees etc, few may have had the opportunity to improve skills in a team environment.
Peter Senge, in his book The Fifth Discipline – The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, called it simply “team learning”. Team learning allows the group to attain insights which are not attainable individually.
Pre-work
Two-day workshop outline
Investment/cost
Tailored proposal for each client.
You can download the brochure to read more about our Leadership At The Top workshop.
Leadership and Management are two very different (complementary) skill sets that are crucial for people in supervisory and leadership roles to possess if they are to safely guide their teams to the expected destination.
The Leadership at Work team are excited to offer newly appointed and experienced Managers the opportunity to establish (and reaffirm) these skills within a series of single day professional development sessions.
Each session incorporates key learnings from the Leadership course including a blend of theory and practical coursework that is the trademark style of our course delivery.
| Day 1 – Understanding Leadership & Management
The role of the team leader and manager Leadership and management styles Giving and receiving feedback |
Day 2 – Creating & Communicating Performance Standards
Role Clarity / Performance Counselling Effective Communication Time Management |
| Day 3 – Understanding & Managing Staff Behaviour
Using DISC to understanding behaviour Using Behavioural profiles in Recruitment Using DISC in the Performance Management process |
Day 4 – Conflict Resolution
Nature and causes of conflict Conflict resolution Styles The dialogue approach Ten steps in conflict resolution |
| Day 5 – Effective Time and Team Meetings
Understanding & Creating Purpose Planning and creating objectives Roles and responsibilities of the Leader |
| 2023 | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 |
| Ballarat | |||||
| Geelong | 2 May | 6 Jun | 4 Jul | 1 Aug | 5 Sep |
| Melbourne | |||||
| Geelong | |||||
| Ballarat | 6th Oct | 20th Oct | 3rd Nov | 17th Nov | 1stDec |
| Melbourne |
Download Registration Form here.
Contact us to make a booking or register.
DISC profiling is a powerful workplace behaviour model. It can be used very successfully as an additional recruitment tool to ensure you are hiring someone with the natural disposition to do the job well, and also as a powerful team-building tool.
When teams understand each other’s profiles they are able to work more cohesively, therefore enabling more collaboration and productivity due to a greater understanding of the people involved.
DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance) profiling involves assessing an individual’s personality and behavioural traits aimed at building stronger, more fulfilling relationships. In an organisational sense, DISC training and assessments are designed to improve interpersonal communications, connect with colleagues more effectively and understand what you need to maximise your potential.
For more information on our DISC profiling systems workshops, including costs, read our brochure, or read more from our DISC profiling systems partner Corporate Plus.
Leadership At Work also provides access to a DISC Accreditation Course. Attendance at this course qualifies participants to become DISC accredited and also enable participants to purchase the DISC system if desired for Job Profiling and Individual Profiling.
10 & 11 March and 29 & 30 June.
Contact us to for more information.
This course is designed to help create and maintain a sustainable organisational culture.
“Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?” – attributed to acting icon Woody Allan.
The notion of sustainability has been with us for some time. Management thinkers such as Drucker, Deming, Handy, Weisbord, McGregor, Senge, Pratt and many others have written great works on this topic.
The need for humans to seek ways to make our lives, our institutions and our planet sustainable for future generations is paramount, and the role of the organisation in achieving sustainability is crucial.
It is time now to make sustainability a serious focus in organisations. At the very least the notion of sustainability must be supported, reinforced, rewarded and, above all, measured.
Rationale
So what is the bottom line of creating and maintaining a sustainable organisational culture?
In fact there are three bottom lines. Steven Covey urged us to think win/win, however having a sustainable organisational culture is about win/win/win.
Measuring sustainability
Organisational values (or the idea of them) began to surface in the early 1970’s, but whose origins most likely lie in the work of Kurt Lewin in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Despite a general awareness, the experience of the Leadership At Work team is that organisational values across the spectrum of Australian industries are ill-conceived, misinterpreted, intermittently applied or ignored entirely (there are of course a few organisations doing it well…). Organisational values it would seem, are somewhat like the Loch Ness Monster; the romantic notion of her existence is nice, the reality is somewhat different.
The question we might ask is: What could happen if we created and maintained the right values?
In marketing lingo, we might also ask: what is the value proposition created from establishing and maintaining a set of organisational values?
Remember, a value proposition is a statement outlining the expected return on investment and in this we find the first hurdle we face when addressing the above questions, how do we measure it? Without a tool to create scale, a genuine value proposition is always going to be difficult. Clearly, if we fail to describe or understand the dividend of a course of action, our motivation to take it is greatly diminished. If however we do proceed and the fruits of our labour are not reaped or recognised, the results can be calamitous.
The next question in our line of enquiry should be: How are our organisational values derived?
In recent times, HR departments and Leadership teams have enabled employees to be involved in the creation of organisational values; we applaud the intention and encourage more of it. Managed well, staff can leave feeling involved and motivated with a shared sense of power (one of the critical conditions effective leaders create!). Yet the destination arrived at is more often than not the same; a dusty, dogg-eared laminated A4 poster stating “Our Values…” pinned to a notice board, unloved and long-forgotten. Come on be honest, we’ve all seen them.
In order for your organisational values to have genuine value, to be maintained and relevant, they must create a ‘line-of-sight’ to the overall goals of the organisation. They must guide behaviours towards performance we expect. They must dovetail into our corporate themes and strategic plans and when they do, we will start to see value; our value proposition will emerge.
The Leadership At Work team are experts at helping you create value in your organisational values. Using tools like GAMs and SOCS we will help you build a values-based culture that is relevant, appropriate and sustainable; a culture that will lift and maintain motivation, discretionary effort and performance and generate the results you expect.
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LEAD
ARE YOU –
Introduction
The concept of self-leadership has gained traction in recent years as organisations recognise the practice of leadership begins at a personal level. Although there are now a variety of self-leadership models available, each tends to focus on different aspects of life.
While some focus on how to enhance your performance in the workplace, there is an increasing view that self-leadership can be beneficial at a more personal level – whether it’s finding your calling in life, handling major life transitions or accessing your intuition to guide the next phase of your life’s journey.
Overview
The two-day Leadership in Life program is designed to assist you in creating a future that provides a deeper level of meaning and purpose. It consists of 6 simple yet profound practices:
A key benefit of the program lies in bringing together a small group of like-minded individuals who enjoy exploring their life journey. The ultimate aim is to assist participants in reviewing and affirming the direction of their life compass for the coming 12-month period.
Dates for 2-day Public Courses in 2022:
10 & 11 February – Sold Out!
19 & 20 May
For more information how the program can support you in achieving your personal goals for the year ahead, click here to contact us for a discussion.
Testimonials from previous participants:
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A course designed for your organisation’s executive team.
This workshop is designed for the leaders and decision makers of your organisation and is ideally suited as a lead-in to a strategic review and strategic planning conference.
Contact us for more information regarding The First XI workshop.
‘If only I had more time!’
This cry can be heard from almost any manager’s rooftop regardless of industry or experience.
This course provides practical skills to concentrate on what really needs to be done, identify what doesn’t and effectively delegate the rest. A must have management tool.
One thing we can attest to with this program, is that if you use the tools, the tools work, and if you do not use the tools – they don’t work!
An interactive workshop – this course is practical, hands-on learning at its best. Participants question assumptions, which leads them to be able to view suggestions in a new light.
Key tools are provided in this course that can be implemented immediately back at work to make an instant impact, along with others that can be implemented over a longer timeframe, for more dramatic effect.
Incorporated as part of the Leadership At Work and Leading and Managing Teams Programs or as a standalone workshop, this module provides practical skills to concentrate on what really needs to be done, identify what doesn’t and effectively delegate the rest.
25 May, 11 August & 20 October
Our Time Management module is offered as a half-day workshop, contact us for more information.
Most people don’t like conflict and many actively avoid it. But, like it or not, we all need to deal with it at work.
A conflict properly negotiated to extinction leaves no residues, such as frustration, bitterness, patronage or feigned closeness.
Relating is searching out our differences and negotiating them to the point of satisfaction. There must be room in the context of relating for frustration to be expressed.
Each conflict, properly negotiated, leaves only a recognition of who we are to each other at this moment.
This workshop, incorporated into the Leadership At Work & Leading and Managing Teams Programs, provides practical skills that can be implemented at work instantly, giving you back control of the situation.
22 June, 8 September, 17 November.
In-house programs can be run for teams by negotiation at anytime.
Conflict Management is a half or one-day workshop, and you can contact Leadership At Work for more information.
In this program we not only help organisations uncover the known and unknown solutions to their recurring problems; but in many cases we help them discover what their problem is in the first place.
Read our Problem Busters brochure for more information, or contact us.
Organisational development process for all Australian corporations.
Practically all of us involved in organisational improvement programs have witnessed the lack of sustainable change, and the inexorable reversion to ‘the way things were’, despite the best efforts of both internal and external change agents.
This workshop explains why sustainable change is difficult but, more importantly, what can be done to really achieve organisational improvement.
Leadership At Work organisational development facilitator Robert Re has more than 30 years’ experience in organisational development and brings together two powerful forces for sustainable improvement.
– Aspiring to Greatness, renowned organisational development practitioner Dennis Pratt’s great work which set the scene for organisational improvement in the last decade of the 20th century
And
– The First XI – Winning Organisations in Australia, this book is a result of the recent Mt Eliza Business School three-year study of high performing organisations in Australia
Pre-reading and pre-work:
Course content:
Setting corporate direction
Two day workshop includes all the tools and techniques to apply immediately into participant’s or their client’s workplaces.
Guaranteed to be more instructive and effective than many post graduate academic courses, which cost thousands of dollars more and take months or years to complete.
7th & 8th April to be held in Ballarat – one course only – be sure you register or miss out!
Contact us at Leadership At Work for more information.
It is one thing to provide a consulting service, continually pointing businesses in the right direction when it comes to organisational development. But at Leadership At Work, we deliver effective organisational development training for Geelong and Ballarat, allowing managers and leaders to eventually implement tactics and methods in-house.
It might seem like we are ‘cutting off our nose to spite our face’ by pushing one of our services over another, but there are key differences between consulting and training – and there is definitely a time and place for both when it comes to organisational development.
Helping our clients reach goals through our consulting service is one of the keys to organisational development, but Leadership At Work’s organisational development training can help clients develop new problem-solving skills and gain tactics to implement organisational change in the future.
Our DISC training is a good example of how organisational development training can position business managers and leaders for the future. As part of our training courses we conduct DISC (dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance) workshops, designed to improve interpersonal communications, connection with co-workers, and help individuals understand what they need to maximise their potential. However, Leadership At Work also provides access to a DISC accreditation course, qualifying participants to become DISC accredited. This accreditation can then allow managers and leaders to conduct DISC profiling systems in-house.
DISC profiling systems is just one of several Geelong and Ballarat organisational development training mechanisms we offer. Leadership At Work can also provide organisational recruitment systems, and OD4HR, which is organisational development for HR professionals.
We also provide customised training where our consultants work with a group from your organisation. This aims to develop or renew values, knowledge or skills that relate to a common outcome. With this customised training also comes team development, where we can help a team work more effectively together.
LEADERSHIP IN TOUGH TIMES
At Leadership at Work we understand the challenges facing Leaders, even when times are “normal!”
Now we have some definite added degrees of difficulty which will require some agile and innovative thinking, which many Leaders are currently demonstrating.
However, the timeless Principles of Leadership don’t change, in fact they could never be in more demand!
Those Principles include:
A shared understanding of the current Environment
A shared Vision of where we want to get to
A shared set of Values and Behaviours that will get us there, and
A shared feeling of Power, letting people know their part.
The ability to Communicate and apply these Principles is crucial and will positively impact on your organisation and its people.
We want to let our valued clients know we offer our support at this time. Be it one on one coaching/counselling/mentoring/advice and generally a shoulder to rely on. We can do this also with Leadership Teams via Zoom or other remote technologies. We are not charging for any initial consultations, we simply want to put in practice our own Mission and Values, i.e. Helping Managers and Leaders be more effective in their role by enhancing their Leadership and Management skills.
We have a number of programs to assist:
-Leading and Managing Teams, run by Belinda Fyffe in Ballarat and Brad Clarke in Geelong.
– HR Compliance assistance
– Leadership in Life, a personal effectiveness program run by Robert Re
– Sound, experienced advice from seasoned practitioners.
In addition, we are happy to make two new announcements:
If you would like to express your interest or seek more information on the above, please call Robert on 0418518667 for a chat.
Stay well and best wishes in your Leadership journey.
Regards
Robert
Robert J Re
Principal
In early 2015, Leadership At Work Principal, Robert Re, made a visit to our Capital. Superman cape in hand and a resolve to rescue our political ‘leaders’ from themselves, he ventured into the belly of the beast.
Over an afternoon Robert met with several of the Nation’s most recognised and experienced pollies; he explored their concept of leadership and offered the Leadership At Work model as a best-practice approach to a more sustainable, trusted Government.
Whilst Robert’s superhuman powers were fully asserted, they were equally matched by the kryptonic powers of his adversaries (Robert might describe them as the powers of incredulous stupidity…) and the net result was an experience draped in frustration and to some degree, resignation.
Here is one such gem as to demonstrate why we experience such profound frustration and obvious lack of leadership across our political spectrum…
Robert: so tell me what you consider successful leadership to be…
Respondent: when you get there.
Whilst there may have been a degree of ‘tongue-in-cheek’ to this response, it does paint a bleak picture of how leadership is viewed within the top ranks of our Federal parliamentarians:
Furthermore, the appointment (or election) to the position, is by default, a mandate to do as you please; the battle is already won (until the next race commences, then its game on again).
The title of Leader should never be the destination, rather the vessel used to effectively create a “better” future. Moreover, the title of Leader does not by any means guarantee that “better” future is arrived at. It is the application of leadership knowledge (and skill) that enacts the magic.
We encourage all Leaders to continue the journey of learning, knowledge development and strategic application. We encourage you to reflect on your level of knowledge and how effective you are in converting it into real action (and desired results) within your organisation. We are always here to help, guide and support you. We’re only a phone call away.
So, where do you sit on the Hierarchy of Applied Leadership Knowledge?
Phew, we survived another Federal election.
Whilst we seem to have an outcome, a clear path forward is perhaps more amorphous than before; a very small majority in the Lower House and a bag of mixed nuts (perfect metaphor) in the Upper House leave us wondering just how effective the latest iteration of parliament can be? Undoubtedly our Prime Minister has charisma, intelligence and a drive to succeed, but is this enough to become the effective Leader we need?
Political commentators have speculated around themes of disunity and mistrust across the Federal political landscape. We can postulate on the drivers of disunity, but its hard to argue against the negative impact its had and will likely continue to have in the coming months, if not years unless it is addressed and remedied. Lets not forget it was similar themes of disunity and disruption that brought the Rudd / Gillard / Rudd era to a tumultuous, fiery end.
A three year research project conducted by the Mt. Eliza Business School seeking answers to the questions, “Who are the best organisations over the long term in Australia and what are their practices?” can give us insight into where perhaps our Prime Ministers past and present have gone wrong. The resultant book, “The First XI – Winning Organisations in Australia” is a valuable read for all Australian Business Leaders describing 11 key factors to success; number 5 is of particular interest:
Leadership, not Leaders
In essence, the actions of a united leadership team far exceed the impact of charisma and individuality. A united Leadership team that actively builds the organisation, its vision, values and strategic themes will outperform one that trades on its outward projections of Self.
To be effective and create the expected outcomes, Leaders must focus on unifying the team as a priority. In the absence of unity comes disunity, dysfunction and disengagement from the very thing you are trying to achieve. I’m sure our Prime Minister would agree.
Creating unity within your leadership team / Board can be one of the most difficult and stressful tasks a CEO tackles. The Leadership At Work team invite you to sit down and chat with us about how we can help you create unity so that you can, together, focus on creating the success you expect.
For more than 30 years Leadership At Work has created clarity for its clients around the differentiation between LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT. After working with us, participants understand that they can have a healthy blend of leadership and management functions built into their roles; more importantly, they leave with the necessary tools to ensure they perform both functions at the levels their organisations expect.
Leadership, as described in Leadership At Work – Letting the Apes Go Free, is essentially concerned with creating conditions that encourages others to follow. Leavitt (Levitt, Harold. J. – Corporate Pathfinders, 1987) describes leaders as Path-finders:
“the men and women who provide the vision, values, and determination that add soul and inspire success in corporations. They are the people who suggest new fields of development and inquiry, formulate long-range plans, and bring stimulating challenges to the work force at every level.”
Two Trains, one optimum organisational destination.
The conditions referred to within the Leadership at Work framework and the metaphor of the Leadership Train, could be considered as a unique carriage coupled together with other unique carriages containing the necessary knowledge, skills and tools.
Management activity, unlike Leadership, is focussed on achievement of results (task focussed) through the efforts of others (relationship focussed). Whilst the Leader focusses on the role of pathfinder, the Manager might be described as the Path-minder.
Like the conditions of leadership, Management skills and strategies can be regarded as unique, specialist carriages hitched to the Management Train, yet heading to exactly the same destination as the Leadership Train.
Each carriage is a specific skill-set.
Taking a look into the carriages we discover a specific set of skills necessary to become effective in the role. One such carriage, often missing from the Management Train, is delegation. Delegation can be a huge asset to a Manager when it is understood and applied appropriately. It can build confidence and promote extremely high performance in teams and individuals with high levels of technical proficiency. Conversely, it can be a generator of frustration and confusion when incorrectly applied. Organisations and those responsible for managing staff should explore whether they have the “delegation carriage” coupled up and if not, consider where and how this can occur.
Our focus is on your needs.
The Leadership At Work team is committed to upholding and enhancing their core value of growth. Under this mantra, we will be launching our Leadership and Management Train series of “carriage-specific” professional development sessions. These sessions will be delivered in half-day workshops in Ballarat and Geelong; the focus on specific skill sets (carriages) driven by either Management or Leadership. We look forward to offering you a whole range of options; stay tuned!
As Geelong and Ballarat people are swept into the annual frenzy of national football Grand Finals, its worthwhile asking ourselves the question:
If we were facing our organisational Grand Final, would we be ready? Who would be our most consistent and when it comes down to it, who can we absolutely rely on to get their job done?
Here is a helpful checklist that will get you on the path to glory:
1. Leadership At Work has sung the praises of Jim Collins’ formative book, Good to Great for several years and continue to chant the mantra:
Get the right people on the bus,
Get the wrong people off the bus.
Get the right people in the right seats.
2. Ensure the right match for all new appointments. Utilising advanced tools such as DISC behavioural profiling can provide the critical insight required to indicate the type of person (and behaviours) you need within your team.
3. Create Role Clarity. The GAMS tool (GOALS, ACTIONS, MEASURES) is possibly the most under-rated, under utilised gem in the world of Performance Management. Organisations willing to commit wholly to GAMs create individual and organisational role clarity – and reap the rewards of highly motivated, razor sharp teams ready to dominate the arena.
4. Encourage, recognise and reward Discretionary Effort. Discretionary effort is the domain of the one percent extras, that over time add up to make a huge positive impact on organisational culture and goals. Whilst we cannot all be Brownlow Medalists, each player on our team can choose to pitch in to do those extra little bits that drive us towards victory.
5. Revisit and retest your Vision, Mission and Values statements. Are they still relevant and appropriate now and into the future? Do the environmental conditions we experience validate or invalidate them? Are they being upheld?
The Leadership At Work team have more than 30 years of experience helping organisations build high performance teams using the five key points above. We invite you to get in touch with us for an obligation free chat about how we apply these points and the outcomes you can expect.
Organisations and Leaders throughout Australia are adopting the ideology of critical or 360 degree feedback methodology to build trust, accountability and shared power within teams in the name of performance improvement and sustainability.
It is important to recognise that the process of critical feedback is as valuable as the content; when mistakes are made, the proposition of effective organisational culture can spin into an ugly tangle of mistrust, conflict and under-performance. The critical feedback mechanism can become a forum of criticism and bullying, the direct opposite of the intention.
The key determinant to whether we maintain effective critical feedback or step onto the slippery slope of criticism is whether we focus on the individual’s personality or their observable performance. The process of critical feedback should commence by establishing clear intent;
“we are here to provide feedback on your performance”
followed by
“to discuss how we can support you to improve your performance”
and finally
“and create a plan of action that will guide you towards your goals”.
The content within the process should clearly, concisely outline the expected standard of performance, compared against the observed standard of performance:
“This is our expectation of your performance….”
followed by
“this is the performance we have observed….”
and then
“How do you view this situation?”
Asking the final question can allow the individual under the spot light to give insight into their performance that has potentially not been known and may perhaps provide key pieces of information to create a more achievable, relevant action plan.
Essentially, the platform of critical feedback must be based on trust, continuous improvement and mutual benefit. Without these elements in place, Managers should be encouraged to seek advice and support prior to commencing critical feedback programs. As always, the Leadership At Work team is here to provide the guidance, support and expertise that will significantly reduce the risk of turning a positive (yet possibly uncomfortable) experience into a giant, nasty monster.
A valuable resource for leaders to help foster and nurture strength within your workplace teams, join Robert Re and Cate Schreck Director of Just For Schools in an informative webinar to uncover insights such as
Simply click the link and enjoy!
The now famous Thai cave rescue holds valuable lessons from an organisation’s leadership and management change perspective.
Tony Abbot recently opined that Donald Trump didn’t have to be liked and didn’t have to be a Role Model – he had to be a leader.
Tony Abbot was wrong!!
Although leaders don’t always have to be liked, most research suggests that it does help. As for being a Role Model, we know that that is an intrinsic element of effective leadership.
Having conducted Leadership and Management Development Programs for thirty years we emphasise the essential difference between leadership and management:
Leadership gives people a sense of why they get out of bed in the morning to go to work. Management gives people guidance and clarity about what they should focus on once they get to work
Much of our leadership and Management Development Programs focus on the competencies of good leadership and importantly on the conditions leaders create.
In 2016, alone we have conducted Leadership Programs in China, Rome, Australia’s Capital cities and regionally in Geelong, Ballarat, Warrnambool and Portland.
Competencies include Emotional Intelligence, in particular Self Awareness and Relationship Management.
Leaders should exhibit a respectful closeness and an appropriate distance!
Perhaps you’ve seen this recent statement in business news?
“CEO’s face skills worry”.
The latest PwC annual CEO Survey of 1379 CEOs from 79 countries show a huge 77% of them are concerned about skills shortages in their workplaces.
Specifically, Creativity and Innovation ,Leadership and Emotional Intelligence were the most sought after skills.
We at Leadership At Work share the CEO’s concerns. In addition we are concerned about the skill levels in these critical areas amongst the CEOs themselves and their Executive teams!
For some time now we have conducted a tailored Leadership At The Top Workshop designed to equip CEOs and their Executive teams with the necessary skills to lead and manage their organisations.
This Workshop combined with our popular Leadership At Work Program targeting middle and first line managers has proven to be the most effective method of enhancing critical leadership and management skills which in turn leads to improved organisational performance.
To discuss, free and no obligation, your organisation’s L and D needs contact us today. We specialise in conducting in house programs in Geelong, Ballarat, Melbourne and regional Victoria.
Robert Re – 0418 518 667
Belinda Fyffe – 0408 000 267
Brad Clarke (Geelong) – 0425 205 696
Its a potentially expensive process and one that many of us have had trouble getting right. Using all of our experience, intuition and due-diligence measures, we still go into staff appointments with limited knowledge of how the new appointee will behave, or more importantly, how they will behave relative to the requirements of the role they’re being appointed to.
There are of course generic or stereotypical behaviour sets that we require and expect of our appointee, e.g.:
Accountants – meticulous and conscientious;
Sales Executives – determined and dynamic;
Personal Carers – empathic and kind…
Whilst these stereotypes (as most stereotypes) give a ‘vibe’ for the behavioural requirements, they do not deliver a picture that takes into account individual organisational (team) culture, local market variables and other factors that significantly influence the true behavioural and operational requirements of the role you are filling.
Leadership At Work has been a very strong advocate for the DISC Behavioural Profiling Tool for over thirty years. Its power is its ability to provide us with qualitative, valid data on an individual’s preferred working conditions and default (or likely) behaviours within these environments. One limitation of personal DISC profiles is it cannot analyse an individual against a given set of environmental conditions, like the environment that they are set to be employed into, for example.
But wait, we have the solution…. and yes, it is DISC, just DISC as you’ve perhaps never seen it.
Introducing DISC Job Profiling
DISC Job Profiling helps us create an analysis of an individual’s DISC profile against a specific job profile that takes into account some of the variables discussed earlier (organisational culture, local environment etc). Through a process of collaboration and facilitated debate, Employers and the key stakeholders in the recruitment process (Supervisor, HR Manager etc.) can complete a DISC Job Profile Questionnaire in a few hours and have the completed report by the end of the day (including an assessment of individual candidates against the Job Profile).
Its an exceptional tool. Its one worth exploring. Its fast and inexpensive. Most importantly, it will give you insight into whether your preferred candidates will likely behave within the requirements of the role they are being considered for.
Want to know more?
Give us a call and we talk you through the process.
Robert Re – 0418 518 667
Brad Clarke – 0425 205 696
Belinda Fyffe – 0408 000 267
During more than 30 years in Leadership, Management and Organisational Development I kept noticing the same theme repeating itself. Regardless of the industry, size of the organisation, profit or not for profit and other variables at play THE crucial factor which relates to organisation success was, and is, the character and behaviour of the Leadership Group, and, in particular, the CEO.
Not surprising you may think, but in all those 30 or so odd years and the literally many hundreds of leaders I have encountered very few truly exhibited what I would call great leadership behaviours.
Those behaviours are well known (and research continues to back this up!)
They include of course,
Honesty and integrity
Visionary
Long term strategic thinking
Empowerment of others
Humility, and
Being Values driven
I would have to confess at this stage that these behaviours, or perhaps attributes, can’t really be ‘trained’ into people. They can be enhanced by a decent development program but the truth is that some people ‘get it’ and others don’t!
Daniel Goleman cites self awareness as the foundation competency of Emotional Intelligence and I agree with him!
Further competencies described by Goleman, and other luminaries are at the essence of those people who do really great things.
Those truly great things might be in the relationships people have, in the impact people have on their organisations and within their workplaces, or it may be the impact on the community, the environment or indeed the planet.
Whilst few of us might achieve greatness in our lives I believe we are all capable of having a positive impact and leaving a legacy that makes our lives worthwhile, meaningful and indeed purposeful.
H.E.L.P!
We have been running a powerful two and a half day program called How to Explore Your Life’s Purpose (HELP). The Program is based on a simple process which allows each participant, or each couple, to examine what is truly important to them, their values and to what purpose they would like to direct those values.
Join a small group of like minded individuals who wish to become the best they can be in order to do their best to improve their world
Stay with us at the beautiful Forest Resort and explore the possibilities already existing within you.
Return home after two and a half days with an enhanced perspective on life and a personalised plan to make a real difference to your world.
Explore what you need to change in yourself in order to discover what you want to change in your world
The program includes:
Two and a half day workshop
Two nights accommodation and meals
A DISC Behavioural Profile
An assessment of your Emotional and Higher Intelligences
Maximum of 8 participants per session.
Individual and private sessions also available.
Friday: PM
Saturday: AM
Saturday: PM
Sunday: AM
Sunday: PM
PROBLEM SOLVING THAT WORKS!
Dr. W Edwards Deming in the 1970s developed what he famously called 14 Points For Management.
Some may say ..”the 1970s is old hat, haven’t you got something a bit more contemporary?” It is interesting to note though, that when the Leadership At Work Team run this module today and we ask practising managers how many of these points are relevant to their organisation they invariably say “pretty much all of them.” And the most relevant of the 14 points that is usually ranked number one by participants is point 5.
POINT NUMBER 5
Find Problems. It is management’s job to work continually on the system.
After all 85% of the problems in organisations are what Deming referred to as Systems Problems.
Since Deming of course we have had TQM, Six Sigma, 5S, Lean and many other improvement methodologies. Most of these are variations on the earlier tools and techniques of productivity and quality improvement.
During this period Paul Carey put together a Problem Solving 10 step model incorporating all the essential tools of Problem Solving and Decision Making. These included Data Gathering and Analysis, Kepner Tregoe techniques, root cause analysis, the 5 Whys, brainstorming, lateral thinking etc. What’s really interesting about this comprehensive model has been when it has been applied in a wide array of industries and problems the results have been truly remarkable! Serious ongoing and stubborn problems have been solved, measurable and significant improvements to quality have been recorded and literally millions of dollars have been saved and customer complaints eliminated or greatly reduced, using the 10 Problem Solving Steps.
10 Problem Solving Steps
So here are the 10 Steps
1 Agreeing on the problem
2 Agreeing on the goal
3 Getting facts about the problem
4 Looking for causes
5 Picking the most likely causes
6 Checking most likely cause against the facts
7 Thinking up possible ways of problem solving
8 Picking the best way
9 Checking the best way against the goal
10 Putting the best way into action
Importantly within each of the 10 Steps is a checklist question set to ensure the correct data is being collected, the right people are working on the problem, the root cause analysis is being correctly applied and the whole process is being rigorously followed.
The Leadership At Work Team is available to facilitate the 10 Step process on your current issues and even train your work teams to apply the process in the future.
We are currently putting the whole process on line for clients to purchase the package but in the meantime we can assist either directly or virtually.
Regards
Robert J Re
Principal
The Leadership at Work Team is pleased to make two announcements which we believe will be of great interest to our valued Clients.
The first announcement is that the Problem Busting 10 step process which has been used countless times, with large financial returns to clients, is now in the final stages of going online! Utilising all the tried and true problem-solving tools and techniques which have been applied in all organisations large and small to bring about improvements in quality, productivity and morale, clients will be able to apply these to real problems inhouse.
You are encouraged to talk to Belinda, Brad or Robert to see how you can use this process to bring about real returns to your organisation.
The second announcement is to advise of the upcoming release of our new book, “The Business of Life.”
Outlining the proven pathways to personal and organisational effectiveness this book is a practical how to guide for anyone looking to improve their life at work or at home (or both!).
As a special offering you can purchase The Business of Life, Leadership at Work and Belinda’s book “Cutting Through the Staff Maze” all for an amazing total of just $75!
Call Robert on 0418 518 667 to order today!
We are pleased to announce The Business of Life program which will be conducted on 23, 24 July 2020. Based on our popular Leadership in Life workshops conducted over the last 5 years, this program is the new workshop applying the 6 Practices outlined in the new book “The Business of Life”. Call Robert on 0418 518 667 for more information.
We are delighted to be back in business helping our Clients to be more effective Leaders and Managers at work and beyond.
Regards
Robert J Re
Principal
There has been a lot written about how the Melbourne hotel quarantine system went so wrong. Leaders need to manage and have operational plans and policies in place that are effective.
COVID has arguably brought out the best in our leaders. Both the Premier of Victoria and the Prime Minster have ticked all the boxes of what leaders need to do. That is, to articulate:
– A shared honest view of the current reality
– A shared vision of where we want to get to
– A shared set of values and behaviours of the things we all need to do to keep ourselves and our community safe
– A shared feeling of power that we can play a key role in getting to the other end of the virus.
However, leaders must do more than just lead. They also need to manage and have operational plans and policies in place that are effective. It would appear that the events surrounding the Ruby Princess and the Melbourne Hotel Quarantine debacles have shown a disastrous lack of managerial and organisational capability.
Management is defined as getting things done through other people. While we await the outcome of the Victorian Judicial Enquiry it would seem clear that the following organisational and managerial principles were not followed:
• The security personnel did not exhibit the culture and ethos required to perform their role. They were neither appropriately trained and equipped nor were they the most appropriate source of personnel for the task at hand;
• The right accountability structure was not established at the outset of the quarantine process;
• The right system of checks and balances was not established to ensure that the first line of control was operating effectively; and
• The right resources were not provided to do the job effectively and safely.
In my experience, managerial effectiveness requires:
• Proper delegation, with clear lines of authority, responsibility and accountability;
• Strict role clarity with no overlaps for each person involved; and
• An appropriate management style of direct instructions and strict supervision. The critical situation called for no less.
The above items comprise the criteria crucial to operational effectiveness. Hopefully the judicial enquiry and other internal departmental reviews will closely examine the events that lead to the deadly second outbreak in the light of these criteria.
This is not an exercise in blame, but it is a necessary examination of accountability so that the regrettable events never happen again!
Robert J Re
Robert Re is a Leadership and Management Consultant with over 35 years’ experience both in Australia and Overseas. He is the Co-Author THE BUSINESS OF LIFE: Proven pathways to personal and organisational effectiveness
An excellent article by Adele Ferguson in The Age, Saturday September 12, citing the move by Rio Tinto Board to take actions against three top executives, is a lesson for all organisations, both large and small. She noted further that a number of well known and not so well-known organisations had lost key executives after becoming engulfed in behaviour that did not meet community standards. This has led to a crisis of confidence in many Australian institutions.
Ms Ferguson adds, ‘The day companies could get away with blaming systemic failures or flawed corporate governance on a few bad apples, errors and other lame excuses dreamt up by PR Teams are all but over’.
During my Leadership workshops I am often asked; ‘Has Corporate Culture become worse in recent times as the pressure for profit at all costs becomes more morally and ethically superior to earlier periods?’
I am unsure of the answers to those questions. History tells us of earlier Workplace Practices that were both ethical and supporting while at the same time other workplaces were not much better than slave labour, environmentally irresponsible and were avaricious.
I think what has changed is societies’ expectations of the obligations of organisations to meet socially responsible, ethical and environmental standards. Since the 1800’s we no longer accept the poking of small ten-year-old boys up chimneys!
In 2018, I participated in a National Conference in Canberra in which these higher expectations were clearly spelt out.
The Symposium titled; ‘Regenerating Integrity and Trust in Australian Institutions, where delegates from Business, Unions, Academia, Journalism, and Governments were of one mind.
Following the breathtaking examples of corporate malfeasance, it was time Australian Institutions ‘lifted their game’.
It was up to the leaders of Australian institutions, including Government and Corporations, to lead us to a more sustainable and ethical future. Boards and CEO’s not only have the power to do so, they are paid often grossly excessive salaries to be in such privileged positions. In fact, the ABS has been reported as finding CEO’s salaries are over one hundred times the average salary in the country.
As Adele Ferguson concluded in her article, ‘It raises a bigger issue about Boards in Australia and the flawed governance too many of them oversee. There is too little accountability, too little transparency, still far too much reliance on bonusses linked to financial incentives and too much Corporate box ticking’.
The times are changing and we now expect our leaders to lead with integrity, clear vision and ethical behaviour.
The leadership model which has stood the test over many generations now outlines the four conditions created by a leader:
This is not ‘management speak’ or the latest fad. It is what authentic leaders actually do!
So, who will lead us out of this crisis?
Penned by:
Robert J Re
13/10/2020
We need REAL Leadership – not delusional followership!
I’m a slow learner, I’ll admit it! My first gig as a leadership and management consultant occurred in New Zealand exactly 40 years ago (I landed in New Zealand the day after Greg Chappell introduced a new bowling technique against the Kiwis!). For the next 40 years, along with my associates in Leadership at Work, I have been conducting leadership and management development workshops throughout Australia and indeed, in Europe and Asia.
Although our programs, designed to enhance both leadership and management skills, have received very positive feedback, repeat business and referrals, we sometimes query their absolute effectiveness. Studies conducted globally also imply that the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in such programs have not resulted in a commensurate return on investment.
We continue to run our leadership programs as we believe that people in positions of authority in organisations and workplaces deserve support in these matters. However, a shift in emphasis is now appropriate—a shift that encompasses those of us who are leaders within a family unit and those who are managers and team leaders within their organisation or community.
I recall one of the earlier definitions of leadership was “the inverse of followership”. In other words, if people are prepared to follow, then the person whom they are following must be a leader! Recent events globally, and in Australia, and now brought into sharp focus in the USA, have put the spotlight on followers. Be they Republican politicians still supporting the criminally delusional POTUS, party supporters and a range of others in the USA, we keep asking the question: WHY?
Our more recent focus has been on conducting workshops for people who act both as leaders of a team and followers of organisational executives. The emphasis of these workshops is ‘self-leadership’ and how this quality can assist in both your personal and professional life. Titled ‘Leadership in Life’, these workshops are now being expanded to cater for people who have a leadership role in their family or a followership role in their workplace. The workshops highlight the four conditions all leaders need to create in order to fulfil their role – and which all followers need to understand in order to engage with leaders in an effective manner. In our view, leadership is about creating the following four conditions:
For an exceedingly long time now, we have joined in the chorus clambering for better leadership in our political and business worlds. While we will continue to do so, we also believe society as a whole would benefit if more family leaders and organisational members at all levels were better informed about what it means to be a leader and how to apply the principles of self-leadership. The more we can understand and apply leadership in our own life, the more we will be able to shape the leaders of the future and recognise real leaders in our family and community.
Want to know more or give us your feedback, we invite you to contact us at www.leadershipatwork.com.au or call 0418 518 667.
Robert Re, Author – The Business of Life
The Business Of Life brings together the six timeless practices of organisational and personal effectiveness.
It explores the deep connection that exists between self-leadership and organisational leadership.
The issue regarding Australia Day goes much deeper than the date 26th of January.
Much of the rhetoric (noise) has been dominated repeatedly by the extreme views put forward from both ends of the spectrum: (either it’s a very good date or it’s a very bad date.) It’s either great to celebrate what is good about Australia whist the opposing viewpoint calls it Invasion, even Holocaust Day!
‘Either Or’ thinking rarely achieves mutually satisfactory outcomes.
Stephen Covey author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People urged us some time ago to ‘Think Win/Win.’ While not always possible to achieve Win/Win it is always possible to Think ‘Win/Win’ and to work towards that end. However, to achieve this a process is required.
The process we use in Organisational Development starts with an honest assessment of the current reality, and to confront the brutal facts and to consider what has led us to this point. During a proper SWOT Analysis both the Strengths and Weaknesses of the current situation are tabled, as well as the Opportunities and Threats which face us in the future. Properly facilitated this can lead to a greater understanding of all legitimate points of view.
The process then continues with a Shared Vision of what is the future we wish to create which will again incorporate a wide range of views as to what is possible.
The third step in the process revolves around discussions on values and ethos. The word Values is often tossed about without any real dialogue about what those values are and what they look like in practice.
Finally, consultation on a wide scale will ensure people from all parts of society feel empowered to have an important input into the process.
After implementing the exhaustive process, as outlined above, then we can have a conversation about what is the best date to celebrate Australia Day.
At least we will know what we are celebrating!
11/02/2021
Robert Re is a Leadership and Management Consultant with over 35 years’ experience both in Australia and Overseas.
He is the author of 2 books: LEADERSHIP AT WORK
and Co-Author of THE BUSINESS OF LIFE: Proven pathways to personal and organisational effectiveness
When will we ever learn?
As a keen cricket fan and follower of the Australian Cricket Team I had finally convinced myself to come back to support the men in the baggy green hats in their battles against the Indian Cricket Team in late 2020.
Long before the ’Sandpaper Gate’ disgrace of March 2018, I found myself embarrassed by the unsportsmanship antics of some members of the Australian Cricket Team. Of course, I have never been in the cauldron of the pressure of representing my country in cricket or any other sport for that matter, so was I being a bit soft, or a bit ‘precious’, as some acquaintances suggested?
Wasn’t Shane Warne a hero who only wanted to win for Australia at all costs?
So, his many indiscretions should be tolerated. Yes?
NO!
In the same team we had Adam Gilchrist who was just as passionate about winning for Australia, just as competitive, just as determined however his sportsmanship was impeccable.
Sir Donald Bradman, as chairman of selectors of the Australian Cricket Team in 1985 famously said, ‘When considering the stature of an athlete, I place great store on certain qualities which I believe to be essential in addition to skill. They are that a person conducts life with dignity with integrity, with courage and perhaps most of all modesty. These virtues are totally compatible with pride, determination and competitiveness.’
Now we fast forward to the Third Test in Sydney in January 2021 where we observe the Australian Cricket Captain exhibit a petulant ‘dummy spit’, firstly swearing at the umpire and following up the next day with puerile abuses to an Indian batsman. (He also dropped three catches which possibly cost Australia the match!)
As a role model to millions of Australians and particularly our children, I believe he should be held to account. As distinct from the view of the Australian coach who uttered that he should be ‘cut some slack’.
Leaders as role models must always be held to account. When will we ever learn!
Sorry, but “Come on India’!!
Robert J Re
26/01/2021
Can’t Find a Good Leader? Try Leading Yourself!
In the Leadership and Management Development space we often lament the lack of authentic and effective leadership.
Since the Karpin Report of 1995, study after study keeps tossing up the same theme.
‘We need better leadership!’
In our own experience, over 30 years in organisational life throughout Australia, we have also found the need for more effective leadership.
As we continue to run leadership and management courses, and indeed write books on the subject, we are now considering a slightly different approach.
With talk going around about wellness, resilience and self-leadership, we have designed and are currently delivering our latest program, Leadership in Life.
The Program gives participants practical tools and techniques to take control of their lives, bring back balance and develop plans for a more productive and satisfying life. And isn’t that something that we all desire?
Talk to Robert today about the details on 0418518667.
Announcement #1
Robert’s recently published book; The Business of Life is now available at Readings famous book store in Lygon Street, Carlton. Why not pop in next time you are in the vicinity and pick up your copy of the book?
Announcement #2
Our new on-line training module, Problem Busters is now available to purchase.
Containing all the proven techniques of; root cause analysis, data gathering and
team decision making etc, this valuable on-line tool is a must for organisations who are serious about Continuous Improvement in Productivity and Quality.
Robert Re
Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash
Some years ago, Peter Senge wrote his seminal work, ‘The Fifth Discipline’. It was subtitled The Art and Practice of The Learning Organisation. I am not entirely sure what a learning organisation is but I think I will know one when I see one!
To me a Learning Organisation will have at least most of the following features:
A number of organisations would claim to tick the three points above but how would they go with the fourth and arguably the most critical point!?
4. The Organisation builds on previous learnings rather than ‘dump’ them for the latest fad, determined by the new CEO or People or other members of the Senior Leadership Team.
Learning is a cumulative* activity where layers of learning add to previous layers of learning in order to ensure no valuable previous learning gets lost. It can also involve unlearning to ensure past mistakes are not repeated.
The true Learning Organisations, rare in my experience, gain maximum value from cumulative learning and are more likely to be more effective than their non-learning counterparts.
My first ever client, in 1987, was very much a Learning Organisation. The CEO from that organisation, today remains a client and is still on the learning journey 3 organisations later. He takes his learnings from one organisation to another and builds on the learnings each time.
One wonders whether the organisations he has left behind have retained much of the cumulative learnings?
Wherever variation occurs in a process, out of specifications results will also likely occur. At a recent Root Cause Analysis session I facilitated we discovered 38 possible causes to a problem occurring in a food processing plant. The multi departmental problem solving team eventually narrowed it down to the two most likely causes and using data analysis eventually discovered the root cause.
The Team used all of the 10 Problem Solving steps listed below. These same steps have been applied to countless problems over several decades with very impressive results.
The key step, as is often the case, was the Getting The Facts Stage. The Team recognised the importance of gathering and sharing facts throughout the entire process and have now built up a valuable data base for use should the problem ever reoccur.
Not only was the particular problem solved but the organisation is now well equipped to head off any problems into the future.
Leadership At Work has now developed an online tool called Problem Buster so clients can DIY when future problems occur.
We are still available to facilitate on site workshops but can also supply the total Problem Busting program for a fraction of the cost.
For further information, please click here. You are also welcome to call us directly to discuss Problem Buster or any of our Leadership development products and services.
Regards
Robert
Robert J Re
Principal
Robert J Re & Associates
34 Loch Avenue, Ballarat, 3350
Call (03) 5331 3650
Mobile 0418 518 667
REFLECTIONS!
2022 records 35 years of the business known as Robert J Re and Associates: Leadership At Work.
The aim in 1987 was to assist Managers to become more effective in their roles by enhancing their Leadership and Management skills.
Several thousand people have participated in various programs over the years and have hopefully benefited from applying some of the tools and techniques they acquired along the way. These tools and techniques were based on timeless principles that are fundamental to effective leadership and management. They not only transcend time, they also apply equally to all organisations and businesses and in all cultures. Whether here across all States in Australia or in New Zealand, Italy, Norway, Malaysia, China , Indonesia, Hong Kong and beyond, managers have put into practice their learnings from the masters, current and old, with great success.
Which is why we often say, “ Before you ask what’s new in Leadership, ask what’s true!
People often ask me about when do I intend to retire, as it is obvious that only a swift glance in my direction would show that I am well over the notional retirement age! My reply goes something like this : “ When I find an activity which gives me as much pleasure as this one, takes me all over the globe, helps people in their personal and professional effectiveness, and rewards me financially and stimulates and energises me personally, then I will definitely consider it!”
As Daniel Pink explains, the 3 keys to intrinsic motivation are Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. I am fortunate to have all three in my life and am grateful for that.
We urge our clients to seek those elements in their working lives and importantly to try and create those same 3 conditions for all the people in their organisations.
It is possible if you create a dialogue in your organisation and adopt a culture of a growth and learning mindset!
Check out www.leadershipatwork.com.au for our current programs.
Problem Buster © uses an array of effective problem solving tools to assist in determining the root cause of problems that don’t seem to go away. Until the problem-solving group can identify the root cause of a problem it is highly unlikely that they will come to a successful solution.
The tools used in Problem Buster include Pareto Charts, Run Charts, Histograms, Flow Charts and Scatterplots amongst others. But by favourite tool is The Force Field Diagram.
Below is an example of the Force Field Diagram applied to the reason Problem Solving groups are ineffective in their pursuits:
Competing forces are captured using this tool
The Force Field Diagram was originally developed by Kurt Lewin, a brilliant psychologist of the 20th Century.
The diagram shows clearly the equal and opposing forces, Driving and Restraining, which are preventing a certain project from moving ahead. By recognising and identifying these forces, steps can be taken to decrease the power of the Restraining forces, and increase the power of the Driving forces, so that the project can move ahead.
Regards,
Robert
Want to know more about busting problems using our unique approach? Click here to discover more about our online Problem Busting package.
We’ve just released two new Leading and Managing Teams public courses for Ballarat (see below).
This 5-day course can be considered as a foundation for emerging Leaders or a refresher for those looking to “sharpen the knife” and keep their leadership and management skills cutting through.
Click here to view the program overview or click here to download a registration for these courses.
We offer our courses across the State! Please contact us directly to chat about how we can bring Leadership At Work to your people.
Ever wondered why do the same problems keep recurring?
Well there are two good reasons for this annoying and often expensive problem.
Firstly, problems often appear in the first instance as symptoms or problem effects. For example a headache is often a symptom of a deeper problem. Taking a painkiller will only at best hide the problem for a while, but it will most likely come back again after the painkiller has worn off. A good GP or alternative health practitioner will ask a series of questions to get to the source of the problem. Those questions will often start with What, When, Where or Why.
In Problem Solving in workplaces we always start by asking What, When, Where and Why. This enables us to get to the real problem and then if we keep asking Why often enough, we are likely to get to the root cause. Eliminating the root cause is the key!
The second reason problems keep recurring is that when we have found a solution to our problem we fail to make sure all documents and materials leading to the previous way of doing things have been eliminated. Recording and documenting solutions for future reference and for future personnel will ensure the problem stays fixed!
Our new online tool, Problem Busters, has all the necessary steps to ensure once a problem is solved properly it stays solved!!
Want to know more about busting problems using our unique approach? Click here to discover more about our online Problem Busting package.
Image by Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
So, you’re (reasonably) well paid and have a job title that demonstrates you’ve been progressing nicely through your vocational journey, and you’re now reaping the fruits of your labour. Life it seems, is under control, yet for some strange reason, the destination just isn’t what the brochure promised!
This story is one we hear regularly. So many successful people are looking for a more meaningful life either at work, post work or outside of work. It is more of a feeling that “there is more to life than my work is currently providing”, maybe some inner feeling of uncertainty, certainly some dissatisfaction at the way their organisation is led and run.
We, as predominantly professional people, are socialized into a journey of professional progression (equating to success). This in turn often can lead us away from our passion, particularly as we move further up the rungs of corporate hierarchy. In truth, the higher we climb, the further away we often feel from who we want to be, papering over it with increasingly levels of authority, responsibility and, well, stuff.
If you are one who is experiencing professional success whilst concurrently feeling uncertain, dissatisfied or even lost, perhaps its time to re-connect and take some small steps down the path to rediscovering who you really wish to be?
We’d recommend you ask yourself (and answer) two critical self-leadership questions, as highlighted in Robert’s latest book, The Business of Life:
Ironically, these two questions are the very same two we should be asking when leading organisations and teams. Without knowing where we are and where we wish to go, we’ll walk around in the wilderness for ever more…
I recently attended a business seminar where one of the key speakers made the point loudly and frequently; Profit is not a dirty word!
We agree but would add a significant rider—Until it is!
The speaker went on to attest that the No. 1 reason to be in business is to make a profit and the most important thing for a business to do is make a profit. However, we see profit as a result, an important one, but not necessarily a reason. Profit may well be the reason that the owner stakeholder is in business for, but there are other stakeholders who have other reasons for the business to exist and to keep existing.
Those stakeholders include the customers, the suppliers, the employees and the community. So, for instance, the customers may want the business to exist in order to provide quality goods and services at a fair price. The suppliers may wish to have fair dealings and mutually beneficial ongoing relationships. The employees may wish to have meaningful work, a safe workplace, fair treatment and opportunities for learning, growth and development. The community may wish for no negative impact on the environment, the culture and safety of its citizens.
So when we see organisations being constantly hauled before regulatory bodies such a ASIC, APRA, EPA, WorkCover etc. and fined hundreds of millions of dollars because of breaches of laws and unconscionable conduct, purely in the pursuit of profit, then we easily understand there is more than one reason for an organisation to exist.
Let’s take a look at how some of these stakeholders, other than the owner, see certain businesses:
Customers of banks, insurance companies and casinos don’t want to be gouged with excessive fees, especially if they are dead! or conned into buying products and services they can’t afford. They also don’t want these businesses to facilitate money laundering by organised crime. Suppliers of clothing at big retailers don’t want to be subject to slave like unsafe working conditions common in poorer third world countries. Employees don’t want to be subject to bullying or harassment, unfairly treated in unsafe and toxic workplaces. Communities don’t want to have polluted soils and water supplies or want tens of thousands of years of cultural heritage destroyed by mining companies and other industries.
All in the name of profit.
There is no doubt that 90% of businesses do the right thing by ALL of their stakeholders, not just the owners, but the 10% that pursue profit at all costs cause irreparable damage to people, organisations and society.
The really clever business owners know that to continue to exist and to thrive in the long term that they will balance the needs of all of their stakeholders.
Now that’s good business sense!
Image by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay
This is the motto of the modern Olympic Games. Translated (faster – higher – stronger), it is an interesting insight into a culture that focusses on, and certainly celebrates performance through the lens of physical capability beyond that of the normal human. By extension, it perhaps also points to, in part, the apparent rise of performance enhancing drugs, in pursuit of super-human performance at the expense of moral or ethical codes of conduct.
We may may never be certain of a “clean” Olympics again, however, we are perhaps witnessing a new paradigm of performance, where athletes are being selected and nurtured on aspects beyond genetic superiority and super-human capabilities. The Australian Basketball team, the Boomers, are one such example.
The team, much maligned for their apparent failures on the international court over the generations, are developing a team culture that is showing signs that glory is closer than ever before. Sure, they are working on becoming faster, higher, stronger etc, but so too are they concentrating on the human side of performance, that being personal values aligned to professional standards of behaviour and the way in which they “fit” together as humans, not just exceptional individual athletes.
What we can see and hear regularly from the Boomers camp, is genuine care for each other. Don’t get me wrong, they want (perhaps expect) success. And it is being driven my extraordinarily talented individuals. There is one unique difference, they are absolutely committed to each other, to a common goal and a very clearly aligned set of ‘human’ standards, well beyond the realm of running, jumping and lifting. They genuinely care, as demonstrated by Boomers player, Patty Mills, following the decision of NBA superstar, Ben Simmonds, not to participate in the Boomers Olympic campaign (ref: Fox Sports news July 2021).
Another of our sporting greats, Sir Don Bradman, captured the essence of the direction being taken when he stated:
When considering the stature of an athlete or for that matter any person, I set great store in certain qualities which I believe to be essential in addition to skill. They are that the person conducts his or her life with dignity, with integrity, courage, and perhaps most of all, with modesty. These virtues are totally compatible with pride, ambition, and competitiveness.
The lessons here are as true for sporting teams as they are for our workplaces. If technical performance is the only lever we use to recruit and measure performance, we are exposed to potential and increasing risk-taking behaviours (ref 2008, GFC…). If we can find / facilitate a balance between technical expertise and human alignment, we may just be bound for glory.
Want to hear more? We’re experts in this field (yes, some might say Super-humans) and we can definitely help you on your path towards the results you expect from your teams.
Practically all of us involved in Organisational Improvement Programs have witnessed the lack of sustainable change and the inexorable reversion to “the way things were” despite the best efforts of both internal and external change agents.
This workshop explains why sustainable change is difficult but more importantly what can be done to really achieve organisational improvement.
Robert has over 30 years’ experience in Organisational Development and brings together two powerful forces for sustainable improvement. It is now becoming obvious, that in order to bring about real and lasting improvement, the entire Leadership Team needs to codesign and drive the process.
Aspiring to Greatness, Dennis Pratt’s great work which set the scene for organisational improvement in the last decade of the 20th century, AND
The First XI – Winning Organisations in Australia, this book is a result of the Mt Eliza Business School three-year study of high performing organisations in Australia.
PRE-READING AND PRE-WORK: The Business of Life – Robert J. Re with Allan Meers – copy included with your enrolment.
CONTENT:
INVESTMENT: Two-day workshop includes all the tools and techniques to apply immediately into participant’s or their client’s workplaces.
Guaranteed more instructive and effective than many post-graduate academic courses which cost thousands of dollars more and take months or years to complete.
Investment: $1,500 + GST Venue: Ballarat, Victoria Dates: 10 /11 November 2021
Venue: Geelong, Victoria Dates: 18 / 19 November 2021
To contact Robert Re: robert@leadershipatwork.com.au 0418 518 667
Belinda Fyffe: belinda@leadershipatwork.com.au 0408 000 267
Brad Clarke: brad@leadershipatwork.com.au 0425 205 696
Recruitment is a minefield; it’s difficult and time-consuming navigating your way through the observable dangers, let alone those that are hidden from our view.
Leadership At Work has a unique, highly effective approach to exposing some of those hidden dangers, using the behavioural profiling tool, DISC, to profile the position you are recruiting for.
The application of a rigorous, collaborative investigation of the ‘human’ (as compared to technical) requirements of the role, leads us to an extremely useful report framed within the four behavioural domains of DISC: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance.
Here is a sample:
When combined with, and compared to an individual (candidate) profile, we have real insight into data that would otherwise be hidden from our selection considerations:
Our standard rate for behavioural profiling is $350 (ex GST). This can be paired with a fully facilitated program, by one of our highly experienced consultants (2-hours; $600) and individual Candidate Profiles ($250 each).
For the period August 1st – September 30th 2021, you can receive one fully facilitated Job Profile, plus one Candidate Profile, for $750 (ex. GST).
This package is normally priced at $1200.
To redeem this offer, or to discuss Job Profiling in more detail, please email or call us before September 30th2021.
Click here for our contact details.
Like any good CSI investigation, collecting the facts about a given problem from everyone who is affected by the problem is a key component in effective problem solving. But it is often a step that is skipped. It is seen as taking too long. And we need an answer ‘now’! Unfortunately as any crime scene investigator will tell you, it’s the small details that will make or break a case – the same can be said for problem solving.
Interestingly, the answer is normally within the organisation – someone, somewhere will know something that will be the key to unlocking a major problem for the organisation. We have worked with dozens of companies using our robust problem solving process to solve systemic, recurring problems that have saved our clients Millions of dollars – literally!
Our new online version of this tried and true training program means that you will have access to the 10 step Problem Solving Process for 12 months, to use as many times as you want to to solve problems that are literally causing you sleepless nights.
Contact us today for more information.
Firstly what is Organisation Development? There are many different views!
Let’s go with, “a critical process that enables organisations build their capacity to change and achieve greater effectiveness by developing, improving and reinforcing strategies, structures and processes”. Strategies include Culture, Leadership and People.
OD is so comprehensive that it is well beyond the realms of Training alone, although training could form part of the intervention.
The model we use at Leadership At Work consists of six practices.
They are:
1 Current Reality – where are we now
2 Vision – creating a shared view of the future
3.Drivers – energising the organisation
4 Enablers – preparing the way forward
5 Action – where planning meets performance
6 Review and Renew – the key to sustained effectiveness
These 6 Practices are supported by 3 key Principles embodied in these questions:
1 Do we have top management commitment to change?
2 Are we sure we have top management commitment?
3 Are we absolutely bloody certain that we have top management commitment?
If yes is the answer to these 3 questions then consultants can codesign with the Senior Leadership Team a process incorporating the 6 Practices.
Without that partnership between the Senior Leaders and the Consultant the OD intervention will surely go the way that most “ restructure “ exercises go attested by weary staff who have heard it all before with the same lame results.
BOHICA* is the mournful cry from people in organisations subjected to one change program after another with little to show for their efforts.
BOHICA: Bend over here it comes again!
P.S. A comprehensive outline of the 6 Practices are outlined in our book, The Business Of Life.
Copies can be purchased through our website www.leadershipatwork.com.au
P.P.S. And yes Leadership At Work consult in the OD space!!
Just in case you missed it, Saturday September 4th was International Leaders Day!
And while we are all crying out for signs of leadership, any signs at all, we are not overly optimistic that the Messiah is to be seen on the horizon.
In the meantime, we can take solace in the research showing that organisations can at least, become more effective if there is a cohesive leadership team. Their role is to unite and drive the organisation towards achieving great results for their customers and other key stakeholders. Some twenty years ago the Mt Eliza Business School decided to fund a ground breaking, three-year research project into Winning Organisational Practice, seeking answers to the questions, who are the best organisations over the long term in Australia and what are their practices?
This study resulted in the book titled: The First XI Winning Organisations in Australia.
Of the nine practices, practice number 5, Leadership, Not Leaders was the most instructive!
We could not get away from the conclusion that leadership is one of the keys. It is often the decision of leaders that start the journey, but it is not a single charismatic leader whose own actions are cause of the success. While there are plenty of examples here of significant leaders, it is the actions leadership takes as a group to build the organisation, not the personalities of the individual leaders, that are critical.
Further evidence, if it’s needed, comes from Patrick Lencioni the successful author of 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.
Lencioni posits that when members of the Senior Leadership Team meet, they should put aside their individual portfolio or departmental hats and concentrate on those strategic issues that will benefit the sustainability of the whole organisation.
We saw a fleeting glimpse of it when The National Cabinet first convened but sadly it didn’t last long!
So, while we are awaiting the next batch of Messiahs to descend upon us, lets get the Senior Leadership Team working as one and inspiring other leaders to emerge to turbo charge the achievement of great results!
Leadership at Work has designed and successfully conducted a tailored program for the Senior Leadership Team, Leadership at the Top, with significant results for the organisation.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
As the old joke goes
Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: Bit by bit, one piece at a time.
Sounds logical when you see it like that doesn’t it? Problem solving is very similar. You need to break down this large, seemingly insurmountable problem that is recurring, systemic and causing lots of hassle and expense in the business. This process is not for little problems that are easily solved, it is for the 10% of problems that keep coming back, no matter how many fixes you put in place, you just can’t seem to nail it.
Instead of attributing blame for a problem recurring, why not work in a cross-functional, cross-departmental group to get to the root cause and address that, so that the problem can be torn out by the roots, and never come back?
Sound good? Our proven 10-Step Problem Solving process delivers just that. With millions of dollars saved for clients already, it is either a facilitated face-to-face process to work with you to sort out a specific problem, or now we have an online version ‘Problem Busters’ available, where for a one off cost you get 12-months to use the process as many times as you like – offering the opportunity to address many systemic, recurring issues in your organisation for a one off cost. Now that’s value.
Contact us today for more information.
