My approach
People are saying that the pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.
I work alongside teams at all levels of an organisation to help them to develop new ways of working that are the right fit for the stage of the organisation, and a match for the pace of change in the world around us.
I have worked with over 30 different organisations - from startups to some of NZ’s largest corporates. And I draw on my experience at the leadership table, on lean and agile principles, systems and design thinking - to help teams develop these newer ways of working that mean they can get out of analysis paralysis, avoid the crisis, make tough trade-off decisions and find focus and momentum - so that we can bring those ideas and strategies to life.
I can help in the following ways.
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Exploring organisational agilityI work with executives, teams and individuals to bring Agile and Lean principles to life to enable organisations to be responsive to change and to execute faster than their competition. It is critical that a Coach not only provides expert advice, but also builds capability. The role of the Coach is to support Leaders, Teams and Champions to build on existing key capabilities and enable further transformational shifts.
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Workshop design and facilitationI am an accomplished facilitator with a wide range of experience. I am skilled in co-designing a focused session, creating an environment where the people in the room can engage in healthy debate, and making good use of people’s valuable time to ensure we get the outcomes we need. I have facilitated a wide range of workshops - from strategy days to go/no-go decisions on strategic initiatives. From Leadership Alignment Workshops to initiative approach design workshops and planning of every shape and size.
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Strategy into actionThe truth is that I got involved in strategy out of frustration. So many great ideas are talked about, but never brought to life. That might be because the decision is bold and it keeps getting kicked down the road with requests for more data and analysis. It might be because the focus is on the short-term and there is no appetite to create something large that doesn't payback quickly. Or it might be because that large programme was created but it got mired down and never delivered the potential value. I support teams (both leadership and delivery teams) to develop ways of working that help them to keep moving forward - to lean into the complexity and the challenge of acting on incomplete information. Ways to test and learn. To think big, start small and act fast.
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Individual and team coachingIn my last coaching role, I was described as the ‘cheerleader and challenger’. My style is to enable people to better understand their own motivations. I encourage them to try new things, I support them in both success and failure and I challenge them to be honest with themselves and to keep setting the bar higher. With teams it is about clear direction and building trust. Low trust environments are slow environments. If we want high-performance, we need to build alignment of purpose, and take the time to understand each other - complements and conflicts - so that people will back each other and take the risks that are critical in an Agile organisation.
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Safe-to-fail experimentsExperiments mitigate risk, engage teams with the problem they are solving, show results early, and ease the difficulty of gaining agreement for major decisions. You only really start to eliminate risk when you create an actual ‘buy/use’ opportunity. This is the nirvana of experimentation - but there are also all sorts of experiments that can uncover insights and learning along the way. Safe-to-fail experiments are a key mechanism for enabling us to "Think big, start small, act fast."
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Training and developmentI love designing and facilitating learning experiences that enable people to engage with new ideas, expand their thinking, fit new tools to their context, rise to the challenge and feel energised by the opportunity of new ways of working. I run training as part of my coaching with organisations, as part of leadership development programmes with CVL and in my work with Hypr. These workshops cover topics such as Executing Strategy with Experiments, Agile Essentials, Agile Leadership, Experiment Bootcamp, Startup in a Day, Scrum, Kanban and Visual Management.