Our Services

We have been providing leadership, management, business and education consultancy services to the public sector, tertiary institutions and private sector organisations for many years and offer consultancy services and development programs that meet many of the new challenges facing today’s leaders.

We are specialists in:

• leadership development for the knowledge era
• critical and strategic thinking
• organisational psychology and learning
• systems thinking
• values-based development initiatives
• relationship management
• change management
• Psychometric assessment and feedback (diagnostic)
• management skills development
• executive coaching and mentoring
• workplace learning
• alignment of personal values and organisational values

Leadership

The mission of the Centre is to influence aspiring leaders to provide a compelling vision for their organisation through effective stewardship, amplified consciousness and self knowledge. In a workplace shaped by values-centred leadership, the goals and values of the people who work there directly influence the organisation's goals and values, with the ultimate purpose of meaningful alignment. This is critical to motivation and retention of the workforce.

Track Record of Service Delivery

The following projects demonstrate CLE’s track record of service delivery:

• Graduate Diploma in Transformation Leadership (2009-10) – This is an accelerated leadership program that we offer publicly. We examine how the changing global environment has had a dynamic impact on organisations and individuals and the responsibility that leaders have to envision the future for their ‘tribes’, to manage uncertainty and to pilot the way through these changing times. We provide leaders with cutting edge knowledge and skills to refine and further develop leadership excellence to successfully achieve individual and organisational outcomes. Participants include CEOs, APS SES and Managing Directors of companies.
• Executive Coaching services (since 2002) with several APS agencies, the higher education sector and private sector organisations. We are currently providing this service to the AFP, Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, Attorney-General’s Department, University of Auckland and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
• Divisional Senior Executive teams (since 2005) – delivery of psychometric services. These teams utilise their understanding of self and others through psychometrics to create a common language and enhance their insight, decision making and functioning as a high level leadership team and in leading high performance teams.
• Attorney-General’s Department (2005/6) – facilitation of “Strategic Thinking: Navigating the Future” with the SES Band 2 group. This group rarely met for professional development or informally. We held a series of strategic conversations and constructed from their experience a shared vision of the agency for the future. Outputs included documentation with illustrations that each officer could take back to their respective Divisions as tools for further leadership discussions, both with their Band 1s and EL2s.

Strategic Management

Our facilitators have extensive experience in strategic management, particularly the integration of strategic thinking and strategic planning, and future planning. We use scenario planning and other foresight approaches that include environmental scanning, trend analysis and causal layered analysis. The aim is to develop strategy that is flexible yet robust enough to deal with future challenges as they arise.

Our work has included the Australian Public Service, the private sector, not-for-profit and the university sector. A commitment to knowledge transfer to build a foresight capacity in individuals is a fundamental driver of our work. Our lead facilitators present regularly at conferences and workshops in Australia and overseas. Our approach focuses attention on the possible implications of trends and drivers of change (environmental scanning), systematic thinking about possible responses to those external forces (strategic thinking) and decisions about action to take today (strategic planning).

Feedback from participants in these workshops/webinars has included comments such as:

• -- Great informal, participative facilitation. Thank you!
• -- Thanks again for facilitating our … workshops. You were able to provide direction and structure to the meetings that allowed us to broach this subject with two groups that each has their own sensitivities.
• -- Thank you again for the great presentations and setting the scene for the workshop. We did get some great ideas out of the groups, and it also became apparent that the strategic plans needed some work.
• -- I think you’re a fabulous facilitator…I think it was hard to keep people on track and you kept us in check very well, and on time.
• -- Thanks for your good work as Facilitator for the recent…workshop. There is one detrimental effect from doing such a great job; you get requested to do it again.
• -- Facilitator to be congratulated for reading the group and feeding back.
• -- One of the better planning sessions I have attended and I have attended many!!
• -- Thank you for the obvious care you put into preparing and facilitating the workshop. It served its purpose admirably.

Change Management

We use a range of well-researched and useable tools to facilitate change management planning and processes which include the analysis of organisational change impacts, the preparation of detailed impact assessments and the determination of business readiness. The process also assists in developing appropriate communication, training and post deployment solutions via the ADKAR process.

We have found that project management and change management are synergistic with both sets of tools and skills supporting the other. We often use a training needs analysis approach to gauge the requirements at the beginning of a training program and evaluate the changes that occurred at the end of the program.

In addition to this complete toolkit for implementing and managing the change process, the CLE uses coaching techniques to facilitate leaders to lead change and to communicate with an influencing style of leadership.

We also use the Kirton Adaption-Innovation (KAI) psychometric tool to elicit the creative thinking style of people involved in the change process.

Track Record of Service Delivery

Our track record can be demonstrated by the following examples:

• Commonwealth Bank Retail Services Branch (2008 and ongoing) - change program Phase One. This involved providing gap analysis via the undertaking of surveys and focus groups to establish the current state in order to move to Phase Two design and development followed by a Phase Three delivery strategy.
• Attorney-General’s Department (2008–10) – training in understanding and managing the change process for levels 1-6, EL1 and EL2 throughout the organisation.
• Australian Government Solicitors (2006-2007) – development of a marketing strategy to change internal attitudes. Feedback received from the National Manager of Client Relations was that our lead facilitator effectively challenged the thinking of everyone from the CEO down, resulting in lawyers (who are often very set in their ways) to consider new approaches and perspectives.
• Formation of a Change Management Community of Practice - initiated in 2008 with Change Management champions in various agencies who have commenced the ADKAR change management model.

Personal and Team Development

Personal development is the basis of all of the CLE courses, programs, workshops, seminars and experiences. Our personnel are well versed in facilitating personal development for our clients to assist them to understand and successfully manage themselves especially through times of change and to maximise their relationship management skills.

The CLE’s genesis lies in our values-based research and workplace experiences in the subject of values, behaviour (values-in-action) and ethics. We are particularly adept at strengthening the team building agenda for our customers and adapting to a range of contexts and scenarios to support an organisation’s cultural imperative.

Track Record of Service Delivery

Our track record can be demonstrated by the following examples:

• Australian Federal Police (2011) – facilitation of Senior Executive and Divisional team management and leadership workshops.
• Murray Darling Basin Authority (2011) – provision of training for Harassment Officers and facilitation of fraud awareness programs.
• Attorney-General’s Department (since 2005) – extensive range of personal and professional development and team building programs at all levels of the agency.
• Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (2008, 2010) - facilitation of a communications strategy for the Communications Unit. This was in relation to an overseas project with related face-to-face visits. In 2010 we facilitated the development of the corporate division’s brand, ethos and strategic plan.
• Team Charter development (ongoing) – this is an ethical framework under which work groups decide to operate. Core values are elicited followed by guided values conversations on what behaviours demonstrate those values in action. The team purpose, core values and agreed behaviours eventually form the Team Charter. Recent clients have included the Attorney-General’s Department, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the University of Auckland and the Association for Tertiary Education Management.
• Research and facilitation of workshops, seminars and presentations at conferences nationally and internationally in the field of values and ethics since 2005.
• Australian Customs Service – development of a comprehensive training package for trainers on cultural awareness and conflict management. This 2.5 day program was designed to assist senior trainers in their support of managers and clients in diverse country and metropolitan regions throughout Australia. Trainers are replicating this program in their respective regions.
• Sessions on multiple intelligences, emotional intelligence, limiting beliefs, adult learning styles, reflective learning and the leadership brain are presented as part of our Transformational Leadership Program, NLP training and Certificate IV in Training and Assessment accreditation courses.
• We provide individual and small group coaching and utilise a number of frameworks for the overall coaching process. Our coaches refer to a wide range of tools and models that relate to the particular matters of relevance in the coaching conversation. These are drawn from a wide variety of leadership, management and learning resources, including working with the models of client organisations and integrating them with our own frameworks.

Building Capacity

The foundation of the Centre for Leadership Excellence is building capability in people which in turn builds the capability of organisations. In addition, we work in partnership with our clients to transition learning into the work situation. We do this by coaching on an individual and group basis and through delivering short seminars on broader topics that provide context to their work. Building capability and transitioning skills involves individual commitment as well as collaborative learning practices.

Track Record of Service Delivery

The following projects demonstrate CLE’s track record of service delivery:

• Attorney-General’s Department (2005-6)– “Think first, write smarter” project. Our approach was to provide different interventions to different people in different parts of the organisation. We utilised a voluntary working group to explore the issue of client expectations on writing. They spoke with a number of stakeholders and gathered examples of best-practice written work. We provided individual executive coaching with senior managers to give them the opportunity to work through the details of their concerns. This identified process issues and a series of group discussions were held with middle managers and other staff to engage and explore their perspectives on the issues. A series of meetings with staff in work groups were held to organise the changes in work practice and to discuss the implications of those changes. In each phase of the project we provided some form of support that included diagnosis, facilitation, process mapping, individual coaching and group training. We evaluated the effectiveness of those changes and supported staff and managers in the change process. The client commented that their staff were good writers and that traditional writing courses had not helped the problems but that our understanding of their specific needs and collaborative approach had resulted in a major breakthrough for the organisation.
• Provision of psychometric services for individual self awareness and team capacity and capability building. Numerous clients including the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), Attorney-General’s Department, ACT Magistrate’s Court, NSW Police, Australian Centre of International Agriculture and Research (ACIAR) and FaHCSIA.
• Alignment of personal values with organisational values in individual coaching sessions as well as team building sessions; the latter also involved development of team value statements in alignment with organisational value statements. Recent work has included the Attorney-General’s Department, Department of Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and the University of Auckland.
• Management and Professional Coaching groups (2005-2008) - the Attorney-General’s Department for EL2s and EL1s over a 6 month period per program. These programs were designed to accelerate learning for participants and build a community of practice within Divisions. We further supported participants with the development and training of a Divisional mentor program to accelerate their learning and to develop professional networks across the Division.
• The First 90 Days coaching program for new managers/leaders. This program specifically focuses on 10 tips to accelerate learning with a 4 phase strategy to meet new challenges successfully. Effectively implemented in most of our client organisations.