Resources
White Papers
Our periodic white papers dive into issues that we observe in workplaces across Australia (and beyond). We invite you to download them and share with colleagues.
Managing Change for Sustained Performance
A guide to understanding and managing change in the workplace. If you are contemplating change or are responsible for change in your organisation, this 18 page report is written for you. The misinformation and myths that surround change compromise our ability to achieve positive outcomes and the associated business results. Discover the myths and the reality, as well as the keys to successful change initiatives.
Learn moreWhy Everything You Know About Employee Engagement Is Wrong
Leaders are now beginning to consider what employee engagement means for their business. Rather than think of employee engagement as a group concept heavily influenced by the manager, they are realising it is an individual state of mind. Being engaged is driven by employee expectations and motivations as well as good leadership and management practices. It requires the employer to take interest in what the employee cares about and what they enjoy doing.
Learn moreHow to Choose Your Hiring Assessment
12 Things to Consider when Choosing an Assessment Based Hiring System. If you are planning to integrate assessments into your hiring process, this 11 page guide is written for you. The guide explores the questions that should be asked and the functionality that should be provided by assessment-based systems that assist recruitment decision-making and management. The good news is — businesses of any size can benefit from cost-effective and user friendly systems.
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Resource Library
Browse our library of resources that proven helpful to our clients. They are available for download and we encourage you to share them with your team and colleagues.
Build Performance Through your Communication of Strategy
What can make or break a customer or supplier partnership? Sink a potentially successful relationship? Cause confusion amongst stakeholders? The answer is: employee behaviour. Out-facing employees are the key to your successful strategy execution, and the key is the engagement, skill and focus of their staff. This short read outlines four steps to powerful, strategic communications.
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What Makes a High Performer? Focus
People who work with elite athletes, tense-situation negotiators and other high-achieving people notice clear characteristics that set high performers apart. How they plan, organise and execute their work each day has a strong impact on their performance. The most common characteristic is their ability to focus deeply on the tasks that they perform each day. This short read suggests a simple four step approach to improving your focus.
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The Art Of Powerful Questions
A classic paper. The usefulness of the knowledge we acquire and the effectiveness of the actions we take depend on the quality of the questions we ask. Questions open the door to dialogue and discovery. They are an invitation to creativity and breakthrough thinking. Questions can lead to movement and action on key issues; by generating creative insights, they can ignite change.
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Engagement is a Shared Responsibility
Traditional engagement surveys only focus on general levels of employee satisfaction and/or perceptions of the organisation and management. They don’t reveal the inner dynamics of engagement. Yet, insight into individual expectations, needs, priorities, aspirations, and motivations is required to increase engagement and retention.
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Rebuilding Business After a Crisis
Crises create unique conditions that cause us to (re)think and move, often more freely, to change. This guide was written during the Covid-19 restrictions, to help businesses adjust after the initial lockdown period. However, we realised that the content remains relevant for any business undergoing wholesale change or facing a crisis.
download reportAchieving Results Through Insights, People & Strategy
Most strategies and grand plans look picture perfect and flawless on paper; however when it comes to execution and implementation, it is not surprising that the plan may not turn out as expected. This paper looks at translating a strategy into execution, and implementing the plan effectively and successfully.
download reportThe 4 C’s Of Talent Assessment
This paper takes a cue from the approach to assessing and determining the quality and value of a diamond - commonly known as the 4C's: Carat, Clarity, Colour and Cut. When assessing talent, the 4 C's are Capability, Clarity, Character and Cut.
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Recommended Reading
These books are classics that have stood the test of time, and are ones that we recommend often. The books inspire your self-growth and can bring about powerful changes in your team, department or organisation. Look for them in bookshops, online or in your library.
Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations
Author: Kerry Patterson
These books provide powerful skills to ensure every conversation―especially difficult ones―lead to the results you want. Readers are taught how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, and how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up. The books offer powerful skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person.
Conversational Capacity, and Influence in Action
Author: Craig Weber
This pair of books provide the secret to building successful teams that perform when the pressure is on, do meaningful work, and make a powerful difference.
A More Beautiful Question: the Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
Author: Warren Berger
In this fascinating exploration of the power of questioning, innovation guru Berger reveals that many successful businesses are fuelled by the ability to ask fundamental, game-changing questions. Using an inspiring framework, he shows how to approach questioning with an open, curious mind and a willingness to work through a series of “Why,” “What if,” and “How” queries.
The Art of Asking: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers
Author: Richard Fadem
Ask questions ought to solve problems to build a more effective, collaborative organisation in which everyone learns from experience, and nobody's too intimidated to tell the truth. To succeed in both, you need to ask the right questions in the right ways.
Who Moved My Cheese
Author: Dr Spenser Johnson
This classic book from 1999, is the amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a maze and look for cheese to nourish them and make them happy. Cheese represents what you want to have in life, for example a good job. The maze is where you look for what you want, perhaps the organisation you work in. The problem is that the cheese keeps moving.
Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change
Author: Lawrence Polsky
Polsky has a series of "Perfect Phrases" books which provide thousands of ready-to-use phrases for a range of situations. This book focuses on maintaining focus and productivity during organisational change. Have a look at the For Performance Reviews, and For Setting Performance Goals in the same series.
4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
Author: Chris McChesney
The Four Disciplines allow leaders to create strategies that require a change in behaviour. Only by ensuring that everyone on the team understands the goals, knows what to do to reach them and knows whether progress is being made, will a leader produce consistent breakthrough results while sustaining the urgent work of what Covey calls the Whirlwind.
Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results
Author: Morten T. Hansen
Company-wide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realised. Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through a practical framework and set of tools that managers can use.
Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships
Author: James W. Tamm
Collaborative skills have never been more important to a company’s success and these skills are essential for every leader today. Radical Collaboration is a how-to-manual for creating trusting, cooperative environments, and transforming groups into motivated and empowered teams. The book provides tools that help you increase your ability to work successfully with others, learn to be more aware of colleagues, and better problem-solve and negotiate.
Atomic Habits
Author: James Clear
James Clear knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions - doing 2 push-ups a day, waking up 5 minutes earlier, or reading just one more page. He calls them atomic habits. He delves into psychology and neuroscience to explain why simple life hacks such as habit stacking and the Two Minute Rule really matter.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Author: Patrick Lencioni
This is an easy-to-read, realistic fable that follows the travails of CEO Kathryn as she faces a leadership crisis. She unites a team in such disarray that it threatens to derail the company. This book reveals five behavioural tendencies that explain why even the best teams struggle, with a guide for overcoming them so that every one is rowing in the same direction. Other books by the same author are also worth reading.
The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey
Author: Kenneth Blanchard
Don't take on a problem if it isn't yours! One of the most liberating books in the extraordinary One Minute Manager Library teaches managers an unforgettable lesson: how to have time to do what they want and need to do.It explains why managers who accept every problem given them by their staff become hopeless bottlenecks, and shows how managers can free themselves from doing everyone else's job. Also read Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager.
You're in Charge - Now What
Author: Thomas J. Neff
An older book, but still very relevant. It offers an eight-point plan to show you how to lay the groundwork for long-term momentum and great performance.
The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter
Author: Michael D. Watkins
In this book, author Michael Watkins gives you the keys to successfully negotiating your next move, whether you're on-boarding into a new company, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment.
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Author: Susan Jeffers
This is the phenomenal classic on moving from a place of paralysis, pain and indecision to one of energy, enthusiasm and action. We are easily paralysed by fear of the things we need to do from driving or public speaking to making tough decisions or asking for what we want or need. Whatever your anxieties, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway teaches you how to handle what life throws at you, allowing you to take control, move forward and live the life you envision.
Perfectionism: A Sure Cure for Happiness
Author: J. Clayton Lafferty
This sometimes hard-to-find book is addressed to anyone caught up in the illusory pursuit of the unrealistic (and unattainable) standard of perfection. It presents a clear understanding of perfectionism's causes, manifestations, and effects, and provides proven suggestions and techniques leading to awareness and correction of this problem.