Solution: In consultation with key stakeholders, the Stockwell Bretton team designed and delivered a new performance management system, designed to manage individual performance, but align to and cascade business and organisational objectives to identify and reinforce line of sight and individual contribution to those objectives. It also included a strong behavioural and learning/development component.

To implement this system, the team designed and facilitated training workshops with executive and senior managers, then all teams throughout regional and rural Queensland (700 staff) and were designed to:

Introduce the new system and develop performance plans for each team member.

Develop standardised objectives and KPIs for inclusion in plans for teams.

Train and coach managers in in the provision of effective performance and behavioural feedback, the use of effective coaching techniques and managing poor performance.

Result: Feedback from participants about the workshops was outstanding and the success of the training program was recognised by the Executive and the Board with an achievement award. Over the longer term, the organisation experienced a significant improvement in participation in the performance management system and significant enhancement to the performance culture.

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One of the global stories that’s been impossible to ignore of course is North Korea’s missile testing and the escalating war of words between North Korea and other world leaders, including our own. It makes me think back to an interview with Dr. Keith Suter, Foreign Affairs Editor for Chanel 7 on this subject some months ago now. He said he firmly believes we’ve lost the art of agreeing to disagree, and that we’ve become increasingly combative as a society, citing a recent study from here at home where at least 20% of Australians said it was OK to use violence if there was a disagreement.

One of the other guests blamed our tribal culture, saying it was human nature – we’re a tribal people and we grow up with the strong beliefs and paradigms of our tribe. He said that when we encounter another tribe with very different paradigms, we cannot reconcile the two, it is not in our nature.

Yes, our beliefs are built in very early on in life, and are dependent on the type of upbringing we have, our education and the diversity of our experiences. But strongly held beliefs and paradigms shouldn’t stop us from practicing some open-mindedness. It’s not just about listening to the views of others but really seeking to understand. If we enter into all of our interactions and conversations with a true intent to actually understand and take on board a different opinion, then we might just learn something new and perhaps broaden our thinking. In doing so we’ve taken the time to, as the saying goes, ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’. This doesn’t mean we’ve had to change our opinions, just that we’ve demonstrated our humanity, and our emotional intelligence.

We practice this in the workplace every day, or at least we should be. Part of any positive organisational culture and any high-functioning team is conflict and effective resolution of that conflict, sometimes through agreeing to disagree. Conflict is handled differently in different cultures and we all see it differently as individuals. Depending on our personal style, some of us relish a good argument, whilst others would prefer to become invisible or be sucked into the earth around us rather than engage in any form of conflict. Regardless of how we feel about it, most of us have the skills to manage it effectively, more often than not we just need to acknowledge the emotion for what it is and get on with it. Easier said than done when we’re dealing with strongly held beliefs or matters close to the heart, but certainly not impossible.

Let’s hear it for agreeing to disagree, for open-mindedness and for showing our humanity this festive season.

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Solution: We designed a bespoke program to prepare participants for advancement to Executive Level (EL) roles within the APS and improve advancement rates, creating a professionalised pipeline of Indigenous employees for executive roles, improving retention and job satisfaction.

Working with a Reference Group of Indigenous leaders from across the APS, we identified critical capabilities, experiences and attributes required for advancement to EL roles in different departments/agencies. Then we identified and analysed current capability and experience gaps to inform key focus areas for the program, and the most appropriate delivery approaches.

Result: Using those inputs, we designed a modularised leadership development program to be delivered in 8 modules, for which development will soon commence. To support the program, the team also designed a merit selection process for inclusion in the program that considers past performance and potential as well as a range of critical capabilities, experiences, personal attributes and aspirations.

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Solution: Working with the HR Team, we designed job families and work streams for the organisation and assigned roles to those. Drawing on best practice research and our experience with capability development, we developed a set of core capabilities for application to all of the families, defining how each capability is demonstrated for different role levels. We analysed key roles to develop a set of job-specific capabilities for each work stream, tested and refined those with managers and team leaders.

We interviewed a selection of employees, mapped their career pathways inside the organisation and told their stories as part of the framework. Finally, we desk-top published the framework to ensure it was engaging and included a range of guides and tools for managers and employees for implementation purposes.

Result: The result was a comprehensive, engaging and practical capability framework that articulated key capabilities for promotion and encouraged employees to consider and plan their career pathway within the organisation via lateral movement and promotion.

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Solution: We used a range of facilitation techniques, including DiSC behavioural styles profiling to build emotional intelligence and enhance team dynamics, as well as provide an environment for all team members to contribute to business improvement and apply innovative thinking to design of the future state. Working together, each team designed their future state culture and developed supporting behaviours as well as action plans to realise cultural change.

Result: The workshops were very successful with production of a range of innovative, but practical action plans and business cases, which have been approved and are currently being implemented by each state.

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Solution: Our team facilitated focus groups with a cross-section of managers and staff to review the existing values. Through those workshops we worked to understand the level of engagement with the existing values, key drivers for change and opportunities for improvement. We tested a range of concepts to identify key themes and confirm language preferences.

We designed a number of new values options and worked with the HR Team to refine and shortlist those and develop a set of draft behaviours to support and demonstrate the values in action. We tested those with the Executive, refined and re-tested via a final focus group.

Result: The Executive were extremely happy with the new Values and Behaviours, and they were quickly approved by the Board. Team members engaged during the process provided really positive feedback about the process and were grateful to be involved. The values and behaviours were launched at an all-staff forum, with incredibly positive feedback from all teams.

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Solution: After conducting interviews with key executive stakeholders, our team facilitated a series of workshops with functional HR teams, to identify key business and change drivers, critical HR initiatives, key outcomes, strategies and success criteria.

Based on those outputs, we worked with the HR Executive to draft the 3 year HR Roadmap. The Roadmap considered the strategic, tactical and operational priorities required to support the achievement of university objectives. It included development of a new Vision, Key Result Areas, Objectives, Strategies and Performance Measures.

Once endorsed, the draft Roadmap formed the basis for a business planning workshop with the HR group, which produced ‘project plans on a page’ for high priority initiatives and strategies to operationalise Year 1 of the Strategic Roadmap. Through the workshop series, we guided the team through effective strategic and business planning practice and applied our specialist HR expertise to ensure that the plan was realistic, achievable and would deliver on key business objectives, while reflecting industry best practice.

Result: The Roadmap and business planning workshop established the platform for the HR team to deliver on its commitments and make a meaningful contribution to the achievement of university objectives. The project empowered the teams to identify, prioritise and commit resources to high value activities and commence their journey towards a more effective strategic service delivery model, supported by greater automation of administrative functions.

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Solution: Consulting extensively with the organisation Stockwell Bretton developed a detailed change and communication strategy that would guide activities throughout the reform. This strategy provided key reform milestones and mapped associated change and communication activities to support these objectives. To address the internal and external executive interest we also developed a stakeholder analysis and engagement strategy. This strategy articulating the perceived risks associated with the project and management strategies to ensure positive engagement with these stakeholders.

Result: Our successful partnering with the organisation and external stakeholders ensured that the reform could be successfully undertaken with no reputational damage for the organisation or engaged providers. Through consistent and positive messaging that was adjusted to meet customer feedback Stockwell Bretton reduced resistance; internal stakeholders had an improved understanding of the reform while customers could readily identify the benefits this initiative offered.

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Succession planning is critical. It identifies future leaders, and recognises and develops promising candidates for positions within the organisation via a methodical evaluation process and strategic preparation and coaching.

In my opinion, succession planning establishes leadership continuity, it maintains and develops intellectual capital, and encourages individual growth and improvement. Ultimately, without a well-developed succession plan, the impact on organisational continuity can be damaging. Although succession planning has always appeared to be aimed towards top executives or high-level management, this should not be the case. In order for a business to succeed, all levels within an organisation or business should have a strategic succession planning process in place. This allows recognition of entry-level staff who have the talent to be great supervisors, and supervisors who have the potential to be exceptional department heads, contributing strong potential future leaders to the workforce.

Below are some key steps to consider when looking to the future and planning for unexpected changes in staffing:

• Establish and implement a strategic succession plan/process, ensuring reviews and updates are regularly undertaken;
• Build professional development plans and strengthen the importance of development for all employees – encourage staff to take an interest in duties and tasks beyond their normal scope and role;
• Reassess recruitment activities to ensure alignment with succession plans and processes;
• Mentor and coach identified staff in the succession plan in line with their development needs as outlined in the plans, ensuring adequate time is provided to prepare the talent; and
• Always keep in mind that succession plans are a unique reflection of your organisation or business, and they will vary and differ from each other as do the organisations and businesses for which they are developed.

By adopting a strategic succession planning process, you will set up an environment to respond to change more productively and ensure leadership continuity. It will contribute to the ongoing health and longevity of your organisation and finally, succession planning is a powerful process for recognising, developing and retaining top talent within your team.

So, why not make the time and take this opportunity to reflect on your role, pen a succession plan for your team, and encourage a workplace culture that embraces position change through learning, career development and effective succession planning?

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Dan Kilpatrick has joined our team as a Senior Consultant.  Dan brings more than 12 years of experience as a Senior Psychological Examiner in the Australian Army.  During his career in Defence, Dan has been involved in a myriad of complex and challenging projects, focused on the delivery of high-quality organisational psychologyand mental health services nationally, and also abroad during several operational deployments.

Dan has led teams and programs focused on workforce optimisation, change management, selection suitability, capability management and a wide range of organisational psychology and mental health programs. Dan has a Masters degree in Project Management from the University of New South Wales.

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