How a Culture of Belongingness Can Drive Business Results

The need to belong is as old as humankind, but the understanding of how to enable belonging is relatively novel. Let’s explore the basic blueprint of organisational and team DNA — culture. Once we understand how cultures are developed and brought to life, we can begin to adjust our behaviours and best practices to enable connection. It is only when we set the foundation for belongingness that we can truly produce innovative and moving products. When we connect, we thrive!

Harnessing Unique Superpowers to Turbocharge Income & Outperform Your Competition

Kirsty Robertson has a revolutionary approach to building passion and high-performance in people. Her first-hand experience living in Ethiopia in her early career showed her that if you authentically care for your people, they will deliver back to you tenfold. Now CEO at the Not-For-Profit organisation Mary MacKillop Today, staff personal challenges such as chronic illness, disability, juggling parenthood, care of elderly parents and infertility are not seen as issues that need to be ‘managed’, but rather unique superpowers to build connection and inspire innovation!

The organisation’s commitment to its staff is authentic and unconditional. People who might have struggled to find work elsewhere make up the bulk of employees, and these amazing humans are at the centre of every decision made. People love working at Mary MacKillop Today as a result. A recent staff survey showed that 100% of employees say they could see themselves working at the organisation in 3 years’ time, and applications for jobs have inflated exponentially. But has this focus on people been to the detriment of high-performance and profit? Far from it! Mary MacKillop Today is outperforming its competitors, with income having increased 400% in the past 5 years and set to double again in the next 5 years!

You’ll leave this session with:

– Tangible ways to transform ‘caring for your people’ from an espoused value to an authentic reality in business

– An understanding of the barriers that stop your people for being ‘truly present’ when they’re working, and how to address them

– How to make flexible working really work – unique people have unique requirements!

Co-Creation Session: Looking Beyond Workplace Wellness – Making a Real Social Impact

For many years Karen Oldaker has led the discussion around the importance of health and wellbeing in the Australian workplace, and now she’s taking the conversation out of the boardroom and into the community. Why? Because our healthcare system is at a crisis point, with new data indicating for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children may have shorter life expectancies than their parents.

Karen believes now is the time for companies to take their ‘purpose’ further, with corporate Australia increasingly focussed on the social impact they can make and corporate boards seeking a ‘social licence to operate.’ With that in mind, what can leaders and executives do to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all?

Join this co-creation discussion with Karen to explore:

– What are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how can we harness them as the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future?

– Is there a social obligation for organisations to contribute to the health of all Australians?

– Creating policy change one organisation at a time, focussing on some of Medibank’s recent achievements with flexible working, parental leave, domestic and family violence leave and LiveBetter

– Working outside the silo and reaping the benefits of cross organisational health and wellbeing initiatives

As a Leader How You Can Co-Create a New Age Experience for Your People

Over the past 25 years, Peter T has had led some of Australia’s top consultancy businesses from start-up phase to maturity. Now head of a culturally-diverse and high performing team of 85 people at DXC, Peter has refined for himself what it means to be an authentic and effective leader today. He’s learned that in this ‘experience economy’ if he wants his talent to wake up in the morning and really want to come to work, the way to do that is by creating amazing experiences for them!

Harnessing his boundless passion for people, design and technology, Peter T will not only share what the people experience looks like in his own team, but he will co-create with YOU what an ideal employee experience might look like for YOUR own team or organisation. In this session, we will deep dive into the Human Centred Design tools and techniques to help you better understand your people, your vision and anticipated outcomes, and how you might take you on the journey to the achieve the ideal employee experience for your people.

You will leave this session with:

– Why Employee Experience is so critical for any team and organisation’s survival in this competitive market

– How to be an authentic leader in an ‘experience economy’ and an insight into what ‘Employee Experience’ looks like in Peter’s own team

– Human Centred Design techniques and tools to better understand YOUR people and strategy

– A Blueprint/Launchpad to take back to your workplace to accelerate journey to achieving your ideal employee experience

There is Always More to the Story! How One Leader’s Personal Journey is Transforming the Lives of Employees AND Customers at Xero

Craig’s journey to business leadership is not the conventional one. He has come from humble beginnings, not succeeding at school and always trying to prove others wrong. Craig’s journey has taken him to rock bottom a few times and to the lofty heights of professional sport representing NZ on the global stage.

Now Craig leads one of the most exciting companies to come out of NZ. But Craig has many scars both internally and externally that have moulded him into the human he is today. Harnessing this experience, Craig has taken a stand inside the four walls of the company with great effect, and now the company is is taking that same support to their customers too!

In this incredibly personal and inspiring story, Craig will be touching on resilience, self-discovery, re-invention, understanding those around you and finding ways to help them be their true selves. He will talk through the dreams and lessons already learned from rolling out the first programme of its type in the world!

Wellbeing Transformation from the Top: Two Contrasting Examples from the Legal Industry

A 2015 study showed that Lawyers have the lowest health and wellbeing of all white-collar workers in all of Australia. Another more recent study ranked the legal profession fourth on the list of most stressful jobs! These dire statistics have spurred many legal firms into action, including legal firm Managing Partners Mary Digiglio and Melinda Upton. Both Mary and Melinda hail from very different law firms – Mary’s firm is based in Sydney and has fewer than 100 employees, whereas Melinda’s has more than 11,000 employees globally. However, both are insistent that for real change to happen in an organisation, it MUST come from the top echelons of leadership.

Join this revealing interview with both Mary and Melinda to discover:

– Why is it vital for top leaders to take responsibility for their people’s wellbeing?

– How do we as leaders authentically promote wellbeing?

– Where does a leader start to make change – in both a big, and a smaller organisation?

– How do we truly embed wellbeing in the culture of an organisation?

– What changes have you made in your own legal firms which have made the biggest impact on your people?

High Conflict People: Learning to Stop Them Before They Start!

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a Senior Leader who hasn’t struggled with the all-consuming and utterly exhausting process of dealing with a high conflict person in their team or organisation” – Paul Gretton-Watson

The presence of ‘high conflict’ individuals in the workplace is not a new phenomenon but we somehow keep recruiting them. They were impressive at interview so what went wrong? Why are they different to your garden-variety difficult employee? Typically, high conflict employees wear out their line manager, junior HR business partner and everyone else in between who tries to ‘manage’ their behaviour. Then, invariably it ends up with you as a now escalated mess. By now, they’re aggressively defensive and had a toxic impact on others – triggering one worker’s compensation claim and another colleague off work indefinitely. What are you dealing with here? This is not normal.

“They can break even the best operators, which is why we need a different set of skills, support and approaches to manage them effectively.”

In Paul’s entertaining presentation, you’ll learn how to:

– Recognise high conflict individuals earlier so you can…

– Deploy different skills and strategies to manage their behaviour. Better still…

– You will learn about a cutting-edge recruitment tool Converge International has developed to identify high-conflict candidates at the time of recruitment, to help avoid making a poor recruitment choice.

How Nature & Augmented Reality Collide to Create an Environment Where People Can Truly Thrive

Open plan, flexible workplaces are now ubiquitous throughout Australia and the world. Although these spaces offer numerous benefits including improved collaboration and decreased costs, research shows they bring with them a new set of issues – including distraction, lack of focus and lower productivity for workers. There is also now a fundamental disconnect between our inherent human needs and today’s open office; technology and our modern lifestyle have taken us away from nature. The average person spends a whopping 87% of their time indoors and only 8% of their time in nature.

Perhaps we can look to nature for the answer to reduce distractions and increase personal wellbeing at work? Enter the next evolution of office design – biophilic experience. By harnessing the power of nature, we can restore energy, sharpen thinking and reduce stress for our people. Join this session to discover how many organisations are now using technology and augmented reality to transform their open office space into a holistic, natural experience with minimal distraction.

Inclusive Love for an Inclusive World – Creating an Inclusive Organisation Where Diversity Thrives

Dr Elizabeth Shoesmith is Founder and CEO of The Inclusive Foundation and is on a mission to create a world where everyone is included and valued for their difference.

It was after indirectly experiencing the exclusion and discrimination of her husband, who is profoundly Deaf, that she committed her career to inclusion. Combining her 20+ years of expertise in organisational transformation for Asia Pacific’s most notable organisations, a PhD in organisational culture and behaviour, and passion for inclusion; she has set the global benchmark for inclusion.

Through sharing her personal story in dealing with her own bias and journey of personal transformation, Elizabeth will facilitate a workshop session where we will;

– Throw away the labels of diversity

– Experience exclusion

– Uncover the 18 principles for inclusion within an organisation

– Identify real actions to create inclusion

The VITAL Leader – Creating a Culture of Self Care, Connections, Creativity & Avoiding Burnout

Now a Senior Leader in the Property Industry, Michelle’s journey climbing the corporate ladder was not a smooth one. In this session, Michelle will open up about her many highs and lows since beginning her career – including juggling twin toddlers, a triple pregnancy loss, financial ruin, thyroid cancer and a surprise pregnancy at 40! Through it all, Michelle has realised that one of the most important traits in a truly great leader is the ability to prioritise self-care and wellbeing. As a consequence of her own experience, Michelle is very passionate about supporting other corporate Leaders to bring more vitality into their life!

Many Leaders do not prioritise their own self care – failing to understand the role this has not only on their own health and wellbeing, but also the impact that this has on others, whether it be with the family or colleagues. Being a Leader it is now more than ever important to role model self care, bringing authenticity, connection and vulnerability to the workplace. And in return, high performance and positive commercial outcomes will be your reward!

You’ll Leave This Session With:

– An exploration of the VITAL Principles: Vision, Initiate & Integrate, Time, Accountability & Agility, Self Leadership A Thriving Leader Starts with You – How are you prioritising your self care?

– How to create a culture of other thriving leaders – the art of role modelling, building a community Of VITAL leaders, planting seeds and creating a ripple effect

– Be contagious – your impact leaves an impact – if you are not thriving you are in surviving mode – how your impact impacts your team, your clients, your Customers, your family – the burn out signs and how to avoid them and how to detect them in others

Creating Mentally Healthy Workplaces – Insights and Tools for People Leaders

As the Nominal Insurer for workers compensation in NSW, icare has a unique insight into what’s actually happening in workplaces across New South Wales. Backed by current data on workplace psychological injuries in NSW and Australia, and insights from icare mental health specialists, this session will help leaders:

– Understand the extent and trends of workplace psychological injuries

– Understand what cultures support psychological health and safety

– Gain insight from icare’s Respect & Resilience (occupational violence) research

– Challenge the stigma around mental health

– Develop strategies that encourage early return to work when a psychological injury occurs.

How to Be a Leadership Maverick & Empower Your People to Thrive Whatever Your Role!

For the past 20 years, Sam Hatherly has worked in finance in Federal Government as both a consultant and public servant. Now an Assistant Secretary, even though the accountability for taking care of the wellbeing of the people in his team is not in his job description, Sam is passionate that as a Leader ‘managing down’ is just as vital as ‘managing up’!

Inspired by the stories and ideas he discovered at previous Thriving Workplace Events, Sam has initiated a wellness revolution at the Department of Home Affairs starting with his own team of 100 Finance professionals. The impact of the low-cost, low-time initiatives that Sam has already run with his team has been profound – and has simply compounded the urgent need for Leaders everywhere to make the wellbeing of their people a priority!

You’ll leave this session with:

– Why all Leaders should ‘break out’ of their job description and be passionate about caring for their people

– Low cost, low time initiatives that Sam has successfully trialled in his team – and some unexpected results

– How to keep the momentum for change high when wellbeing is not your core role

Connect the Dots From Your Experience & Grow Your Mojo for Change!

You’ve just spent two days with an awesome group of humans discovering new ways that you as a leader, your team and your organisation can thrive. You’re leaving with an inspired mind, a full heart and a notebook full of ideas and learnings. But wait!! How will you make sure you put all of this into practice in the ‘real world’? Where will you even start? And how will you grow your leadership mojo so that you can make long-lasting positive impact?

Let’s face it, as leaders today, we are navigating through incredibly challenging times in business. A successful leader needs to be able to solve challenges with never-seen-before levels of complexity, keep pace with an ever-changing technology landscape, lead teams with a high expectations of empowerment, care and meaningful work, and contribute to repairing the low levels of trust in business. Leading without Mojo in business today is like running in roller-skates – it’s messy, hard and people are likely to get hurt! Conversely, when you lead with strong Mojo, you are inspired and you’re are able to inspire those around you!

Join this co-creation session with Cassandra Goodman – a mindful senior executive with 20 years of international experience in People & Culture, Operations, Chief Customer Office, Marketing and Transformation – to set yourself up with the inspiration, zest and vitality you need to be a changemaker in this crazy world!

You’ll leave this session with:

– Based on everything you’ve discovered in this 2-day experience, you’ll create a visual blueprint for change that you can put into practice straight away!

– A fresh perspective on why Mojo is the secret sauce to courageous, whole-hearted, inspiring leadership. Plus the chance to reflect on your current levels of Mojo

– Simple, powerful practical tools you can start to play around with to grow your Mojo

Unwavering Leadership in Times of Crisis: What We Can All Learn from Detective John Breda

Detective John Breda has been a member of the NSW Police force for the past 22 years, dealing with serious criminal offence involving gangs, drugs, guns, murder and more recently, physical and sexual offences against children.

John Breda became a household name in January 2018 when he was seriously injured in the process of arresting an alleged child sex offender. John suffered multiple stab wounds through his diaphragm, lung and his kidney, which was effectively sliced into two. Despite these immense injuries, John remained conscious until the ambulance arrived, directing two bystanders how to put pressure on his stab wounds. John lost his entire blood volume three times – requiring more than 98 bags of blood during surgery. It was a miracle he even survived. But he did more than just survive, one year on and he is thriving!

John started rehabilitation just four days after the incident and left hospital within 21 days. He now competes in Spartan Races, is fundraising for the hospital that performed his life-saving surgery, spreads the word about the importance of blood donation and gives speeches in schools. What’s the secret to John’s success to his miraculous recovery? Gratitude, purpose and forgiveness.

Join this incredible session with John to discover how he overcame adversity and used resilience to fight back to health both physically and mentally – and what we can all as leaders, learn from John’s experiences.