The team at Blacksmith want to say THANK YOU to everyone who came along to start the conversation about Conscious Capitalism right here in New Zealand.

We were joined by over 80 people, including small business owners, CEOs, not-for-profit leaders, and job seekers, to share our experiences from the global 2013 Conscious Capitalism Conference we attended in San Francisco and what we see as the huge opportunity for New Zealand businesses to use practices that combine purpose and profit motives to create shared value for ALL stakeholders.

The purpose of Rethinking Capitalism – Money, Meaning & a Better World was to share sound bites from the conference and introduce this new way of thinking to open the conversation and get people talking.

We were deeply heartened by the positive response and the enthusiasm of everyone to join in and as a team we have come away energised and inspired.  Your feedback, questions and contributions have given us lots of food for thought about the next steps to support people and businesses taking this journey themselves.

To help you ignite the conversation with colleagues, clients, suppliers, friends and family, here are some of the resources we talked about and promised to share.

Thanks again for helping us live our values and start a movement.

Kate, Paul & Anneke  –  The Blacksmith Team

Conscious Capitalism Resources

Some bedtime reading

Here are some of the great books that have helped shape our thinking and understanding of Conscious Capitalism:

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t – Jim Collins
• It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For – Roy M Spence
• The Method Method – Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry
• Conscious Capitalism – John Mackey and Raj Sisodia
• Firms of Endearment – Raj Sisodia, David B Wolfe and Jag Sheth
• 2011 Culture Book – Zappos

Videos you need to watch

• Reimagining Capitalism with Higher Consciousness – Raj Sisodia at TEDx New England
• Panera Bread – Live Consciously, Eat Deliciously
• Mean Stinks campaign and presentation video – Secret

Businesses that are already doing it

• The Method Method
• Southwest Airlines
• The Purpose Institute
• The Container Store 
• Patagonia
• Whole Foods
• Zappos

The research we talked about

Edelman Good Purpose Study

Presso resources

Our slideshow

LinkedIN 

Join the Conscious Capitalism LinkedIn Group

Photos from the night

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blacksmithnz/

About Blacksmith Sessions

We’re all about connecting people and ideas.  Rather than just getting ‘talked at’, we like to create opportunities for action oriented conversation, connection and collaboration. Think of it as networking without the “cringe factor”.

We focus on topical issues, presenting new information in a way that engages, empowers and excites you to go back into your business and have a different conversation. Blacksmith Sessions are generally limited to 20 guests but this time we kept it open to allow anyone who connected with the message to come.  Thanks for being part of it!

Connect with us at Paul.Leacock@Blacksmith.co.nz or on 09 974 3917if you’re interested in attending future Blacksmith sessions and want to chat more about what we do. 

Sound Bites from the 2013 Conscious Capitalism Conference San Francisco, USA

IMPORTANT - Please note due to the very positive interest in this event we have had to move to a bigger venue:

New Location: Kingston Room, Rydges Hotel - 59 Federal Street, Cnr Kingston Street, Central City Auckland 1010

HBR and Forbes are writing about it. Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter is teaching it. Blacksmith are doing it. Meaningful work and conscious business practices that combine purpose and profit motives to create shared value for ALL stakeholders are no longer a farfetched dream.

Let’s face it, there’s no other single thing you spend more of your waking hours doing than being at work – yet many people, including LEADERS, view work as suffering, ‘corporates’ as things to be escaped and profit motivated business as bad.

The Blacksmith Co-Founders have been searching for ‘a better way’ and we believe this better way could just be Conscious Capitalism, an emerging paradigm for doing business in our brave new world based on profit, purpose and creating shared value.

We were curious and wanted to know more, direct from those business leaders who are putting it into action, so we jumped on a plane and flew to San Francisco to attend the annual, global Conscious Capitalism Conference in April of this year.  What we found inspired us, renewed our faith that purpose and profit can co-exist, connected us to a global network of thought leaders and business innovators, and demonstrated that businesses embracing the tenants of Conscious Capitalism out-perform their competitors and the market by staggering amounts especially during ‘The Great Recession’.

Pretty cool, huh? We think so!

Join us for this special Blacksmith Session where we will share what we experienced including:

• Why the time is NOW for a different approach to business
• The Pillars of Conscious Capitalism
• Conscious Leadership – combining personal mastery, authenticity, courage and more
• Conscious Culture – CEO’s of high profile, multi-billion $$$ businesses like Patagonia, Whole Foods Markets, Method and The Container Store say their cultures are built on LOVE!
• Purpose Marketing – how companies are leading with purpose in positioning their organisational brand and offerings
• Stakeholder Integration – stop making trade-offs and create win-win-win-win-win-win outcomes
• The results that businesses who embrace Conscious Capitalism experience
• What could the challenges and benefits be for New Zealand businesses?

Investment: $40 + GST – Refreshments and nibbles provided

New Location: Kingston Room, Rydges Hotel - 59 Federal Street, Cnr Kingston Street, Central City Auckland 1010

Date: 23rd May 2013 

Time: 3.30pm – 6.30pm

REGISTER today if you’d like to join us as capacity is limited. 

About Blacksmith Sessions - One of our values is connecting people and ideas. Rather than just getting ‘talked at’, we like to create opportunities for action oriented conversation, connection and collaboration – think of it as a mini-workshop. Blacksmith Sessions are designed to create opportunities for networking without the ‘cringe factor’ as we focus on topical issues, presenting new information in a way that engages, inspires and excites you to go back into your world of work and have a different conversation.

Every one of us wants to be liked; it’s all part of being human. And with this comes another very human experience – that anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know you need to bring up a sensitive subject with another person. Perhaps it’s an under-performing member of your team, or a colleague who undermined you in a meeting in front of your peers. Or, it could be a close friend or family member.  We can all identify with this experience.

Courageous conversations are necessary if we want people to know where we stand or when they have behaved unacceptably, yet we manage to justify to ourselves why they can be avoided. Mark Twain once said “I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened”. This sums up the anxiety that can get in the way of having a courageous conversation – a fear of things that, in all likelihood, will not become a reality.

Why is it important?

Confidence in organisational leadership is one of the top drivers of employee engagement in NZⁱ. In a world of constant change people look to their leaders to tackle the challenges facing an organisation in a way that demonstrates “care, support and appreciation”ⁱⁱ.

A study by Dr Rhema Vaithianathan from the University of Auckland posed the question “Are bad bosses holding NZ back?”. The research found that compared with other OECD countries NZ managers lack courage and that as a country we are far too polite. As a result our leaders aren’t having the tough conversations. In our earlier blog on The Art of Feedback we suggested a number of reasons why we owe it to ourselves and those around us to tackle our fears and find the courage to speak up when we need to.

When working with Managers we ask them to identify the consequences or risks if they don’t speak up. This is often a “bullet between the eyes” moment for people as these consequences may have implications for the individual, the team, and even the organisation. When we don’t address the elephant in the room or let people know where they stand, tension and speculation build and confidence in leadership is questioned.  By turning a blind eye we miss an opportunity, and avoid our responsibility as leaders, to help the person, the team, and the organisation.

Once people accept that they cannot avoid conversations it’s important to ensure they are equipped with the capability they need to deliver the message in a constructive and supportive way that ensures the recipient can learn and grow from the situation.

What good looks like

Dr Vaithianathan tell us we need to “be brave” and take more personal responsibility as courage is a core competency of great leaders. Key to this is recognising our fears and personalising them – what is it that we are really afraid of?

When we work with People Managers we ask them what courageous conversations they need to have at work, then we challenge them to delve into the fears that are getting in the way. The intention is to understand what is going on for them at a personal level and take ownership for it. What follows is a moment of truth when people recognise that their fears are focused on themselves and that the reality is that their fears are excuses, not reasons, to avoid the conversation. An effective leader is one who can acknowledge their fears and act in spite of them for the greater good.

Something we’ve found works well is a suggestion from Daisy Wademan Dowling in her article 7 Tips for Difficult Conversations to “put the difficult conversation in perspective by thinking about the future”. Most of the fears people share are about the immediate consequences, such as a person getting emotional. Not only does the conversation become less daunting, the focus shifts to the longer term benefits of speaking up.

Once we have taken ownership of our fears and recognised the consequences of avoiding an issue, the planning part is easy when you have the right tools to plan. We guide people through planning and practicing their conversation using a proven tool that ensures they consider all the right things, from timing and location, to the message itself.

The bigger picture is that if every one of your leaders was able to tackle their fears and say what needs to be said in a people-centric way, your organisation has an opportunity to build greater confidence in its Leaders, a driving factor in employee engagement.

Tools for the job

Courageous Conversations is a half-day workshop that is part of the TakeON! Management Matters manager development programme. This theme is about your People Managers gaining the confidence, capability and the tools to:

• Acknowledge our fears that are getting in the way
• Recognise the consequences of turning a blind eye
• Give better, more objective and constructive feedback
• Let people know where they stand and keep them informed
• Remove roadblocks to better performance and more effective relationships

Want to know more?

Click here if you’d like to know more about this TakeON! Management Matters theme. Or connect with the Blacksmith team at Paul.Leacock@blacksmith.co.nz or on 09 974 3917.

________________________________

ⁱ Kenexa JRA. (April 2012). Strengthening your roots: Growing an engaged workforce through growing leaders, p. 7.

ⁱⁱ Kenexa JRA. (April 2012). Strengthening your roots: Growing an engaged workforce through growing leaders , p. 11.

Register now!

During challenging economic times, it becomes more crucial than ever to work smarter, and get the most out of every dollar you spend. 

For insights into maximising your productivity, including: 

• Key drivers of productivity, and the single lever that controls all the others 
• Developing leaders who can get the best out of their teams 
• Why traditional methods don’t work 
• A new approach to leadership development 

Join us for 30 minutes (20 minutes presentation plus an optional 10 minutes of Q&A) in this free live webinar from TakeON! 

Head of Partner Capability Jes Smith and Head of Product Development Chrissy Marshall share a selection of powerful tools and concepts that have transformed company performance around the world. These include: 

• Maximising return on learning and development investment 
• Tips on taking action that will help to develop more effective leaders 
• The key to getting commitment, rather than just compliance, from your people 

Whether you’re a senior executive or an HR/Learning specialist, there’s something for everyone in this distilled, insightful half-hour session.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

View System Requirements

Should you not be able to make the live Webinar a link to the live recording will be sent to you some time after the session

“Make sure that team members know they are working with you, not for you.” – John Wooden, NBA Hall of Fame Coach

A sport coach’s job is to create champions – their success is reflected through the athlete’s success.  The coach guides their athletes to set goals, and works closely with them to make these goals a reality. Successful coaches go beyond focusing on mastery of the sport, and get to truly know each athlete as an individual – what makes them tick, how they respond to feedback, what self-beliefs hold them back – in order to develop the person as a whole.

In the workplace, this is no different to the role of your People Managers. In our post, The Art of Feedback, we proposed that a Manager’s chief responsibility is to get the most out of their team. One of the most powerful skills that will enable them to do this is their ability to partner with their team members as a coach.

We know coaching is important and we know it works when done well, yet few Managers are even clear about what it truly means. To best define what it is, let’s start with what it isn’t. Coaching isn’t telling, or threatening, or incentivising. It’s not about the Manager’s agenda, nor is it something “done to” a person; rather, it is done in partnership. This idea of partnership was emphasised by a recent study of Olympic athletes that found the coach–athlete relationship is “a crucial factor in winning an Olympic medal or producing a personal best”[i]. This has implications for your People Managers and the relationships they build with their teams as the foundation for effective coaching.

Why is it important?

Each day every one of your team members brings with them to work their own unique skills, passions, experiences, intrinsic drivers, and vision for their career. Productivity is unleashed when people are committed to a set of goals that incorporates these elements along with a clear idea about how to get there and the support available to them to do so. This is what coaching is all about.

Coaching plays an important role in developing both the will (are they motivated?) and the skill (can they do it?) within your team so each person can add value to the organisation by giving their best.

As a Manager, your role is to partner with your people to encourage insight, discovery, and action so they are motivated to reach their full potential. Coaching develops self-awareness by enabling people to gain greater insight into their strengths, weaknesses and self-beliefs, discover hidden passions and talents, and then take action. When we own our goals we are more motivated to achieve them.

Each year organisations dedicate a significant portion of their L&D budget to training courses and workshops with the expectation that employees will then have the skills and knowledge they need to be better at their job. The initial impact is a lift in performance, but the benefits quickly fade and performance returns to the status quo. The good news is that when supported back on-the-job with coaching, the retention and application of this new learning increases. Coaching is one the most important factors in making learning stick.

What good looks like

The earlier mentioned Olympic athlete study found that the most effective coaches adapted their style for each person, and they were able to do this because they got to know their athletes. We challenge the People Managers we work with by getting them to think honestly about their relationship with their team members. Do you know what your team members are passionate about? What are their career goals? Do they feel connected to your organisation’s vision and purpose? And if you can’t answer these questions, why haven’t you asked them?

We encourage Managers to develop this mutual understanding to form the foundation of coaching partnerships with their team members. By taking this approach, people begin to view coaching as an opportunity rather than as remedial action. Our clients tell us that by taking this approach, they have more willing and informed coachees who are active participants in what is now a “team” activity.

We also ask Managers to think critically about who does most of the talking during their coaching sessions, and most often they will admit they do. An underpinning principle of coaching is to “ask, don’t tell”, so we ensure we provide opportunity for practice supported with in-the-moment coaching and feedback. A client recently admitted his big insight was that “coaching is different to what I thought it was”. Up until that point he had done all the talking and coaching sessions had been about his agenda.

This approach is supported by the research of David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, front-runners in applying neuroscience to leadership. They found that to be effective, coaching should “focus people on solutions instead of problems and let the coachee come to their own answers”[ii] in order to foster moments of insight. These insights drive behaviour change as the brain literally rewires itself and creates new connections. When done well, your Managers will have the power to change the way your people think and behave.

Tools for the job

This half-day workshop is about your People Managers gaining the confidence, capability, and the tools to:

• Understand the difference between coaching and telling
• Structure a coaching conversation
• Encourage the coachee to explore their own performance
• Ask effective questions that provoke insight, discovery and action
• Guide the coachee to sort the facts from emotions and overcome limiting beliefs
• Listen attentively to the coachee and focus on their agenda

Want to know more?

Click here if you’d like to know more about this TakeON! Management Matters theme. Or connect with the Blacksmith team at Paul.Leacock@blacksmith.co.nz or on 09 974 3917.

About Blacksmith Sessions

Our Sessions are all about connecting people and ideas.  Rather than just getting ‘talked at’, we like to create opportunities for action oriented conversation, connection and collaboration – think of it as a mini-workshop.  Blacksmith Sessions are strictly limited to 20 guests and designed to create opportunities for networking without the ‘cringe factor’.  We focus on topical issues, presenting new information in a way that engages, empowers and excites you to go back into your business and have a different conversation.

Parking

Nice and easy in the Auckland City Car Park building right next to us.  Entry to the car park in on Mercury Lane, just opposite the Mercury Plaza.

If you’d like to be kept informed about upcoming events along with news, views and information on culture, engagement and business performance – then sign up for our newsletter

At Blacksmith we’re all about making the world a better work place and working with NZ businesses to be GOOD and do better.  One of our values is ‘connecting people and ideas’ and we’re always looking for ways to bring that to life and here’s a new one!

Jerome Tairi and his Team at BNZ K Road (129 Karangahape Road, Auckland) invite you to join them and the Blacksmith Team for a BNZ Connect session from 5.30-7.30pm on Tuesday 5th of February.  BNZ Connect sessions are run around NZ and are designed to connect business owners and leaders so they can share ideas, knowledge, experiences and recommendations.

What’s it about?

In our next BNZ Connect session guest speaker Kate Billing will share new data and insights around the nature of our changing world and business environment to illustrate the ‘purpose reset’ our world is experiencing.

There is a new way of doing business that starts with understanding and articulating your PURPOSE to all stakeholders – yourself, your people, your customers, your investors, your suppliers and partners – to the world.  AND it’s not just about being a bleeding heart do-gooder.  In our brave new world doing business ‘on purpose’ means growing a strong, sustainable business that makes more PROFIT and delivers greater value to all. 

In this session Kate will share:

• Global and NZ data and trends
• Insights gleaned from her work with NZ business leaders
• Some useful models to use in reflecting on your business
• The principles of Conscious Capitalism, a new way of doing business fit for the future; and
• Her personal story of moving from making money to magic in the worst recession in 80 years.

Our Guest Speaker: Kate Billing

Kate is a Co-founder and the Lead Consultant for Blacksmith, a K Road based business dedicated to making the world a better work place.  The Blacksmith Team work with NZ companies to create conscious, connected cultures that engage hearts and minds because its great for their business, their people and their brand.

Since returning to NZ in 1996 from her OE, Kate has worked in and with many of our country’s leading businesses working with CEO’s, leadership teams and people leaders at all levels to unlock latent performance potential and create purpose led, values based organisations that make a difference AND a dollar.

Shaping behaviour to unlock the potential in your people

It’s easy to look at successful people around us – business leaders, athletes, musicians – and assume they simply got lucky when the talent was being dished out. The reality is that something sets them apart. Dig a little deeper and it is clear that successful people know what their strengths are, and are acutely aware of where they have room for growth and change. What sets them apart is that they gained this insight by proactively seeking, being open to, and acting upon, feedback. Yet for many of us, feedback has become something to dread. 

This uneasy feeling, suggests Cannon and Witherspoon (2005)[i], is often the result of experiencing feedback that was both delivered and received badly. It may have been unspecific or based on opinion rather than fact; or perhaps it felt like a personal attack on character, rather than focusing on behaviour. Unsurprisingly, feedback like this can often provoke a strong emotional response.

Your People Managers are responsible for getting the most out of their teams, and when done well, feedback can be a powerful mechanism for achieving this. By equipping your managers with the confidence, capability, and the tools to give effective feedback, their teams will become more receptive to it, and begin to tap into their potential.

Why is it important?

Every one of your people plays their part in helping your business reach its goals. By shaping the desired behaviours that contribute to individual, team, and organisational goals, your people are better supported to perform to their potential. In short, high performing people contribute to a high performing organisation.

Disappointingly however, New Zealand managers are poor at giving regular, timely, specific feedback. In an earlier blog, Are bad bosses holding NZ back?, we reported the insights from the research of Dr Rhema Vaithianathan on New Zealand Managers. Her research uncovered that our managers lack courage and are not addressing poor performance, but when they do, they tend to focus on the person, not the issue. On top of this, they are not good at nurturing the potential in their people through the simple act of letting them know how they’re doing. In other words, they are just not great at giving feedback.

To unlock the potential in people and achieve business results, our managers need to get better at giving regular, timely feedback to either redirect or change behaviour, or to reinforce the good stuff so they keep doing it. We’re not talking about the big, hairy performance management conversations – these are just the little tweaks along the way so it never has to get there in the first place.

A client recently shared a story with us that gave another perspective for why it is important to ensure Managers are able to give feedback effectively. They told of a personal experience where a leader gave them harsh, character-focused feedback in a public forum that can only be described as destructive, and had far-reaching consequences. People Managers have a responsibility, not just to the people they lead, but also to their families and the flow-on effects of giving feedback. A person’s sense of worth at work can impact on how they are when they leave and go home to their family and community.

A good feedback session, whether its purpose is to redirect or reinforce, is an opportunity for personal and professional growth. It is a driver for achieving results, both individually and as an organisation.

What good looks like

We encourage our clients to reframe their ideas about feedback and to think of it as an opportunity to unlock the potential within their teams. Effective feedback has several components to it. The first is acknowledging what is stopping them from giving feedback in the first place. Very quickly it becomes clear that the things that get in the way – “I’m too busy”, “I’m worried about how they will react” – are excuses, not reasons.

The second part is to know how to plan and prepare a feedback session – easily done when you have the right tools. And finally… practice. Feedback really can be thought of as an art. And honing a craft requires thought, planning, practice, and reflection.

Reflect on the last time you gave someone feedback. Who did most of the talking? When we ask our clients to consider this, more often than not the answer will be “me”. One of the biggest AHA moments our clients have is the moment they realise that it should be a two-way conversation.

Clients often suggest that “no news is good news” is a reason to avoid giving feedback. We just have to refer them to our guest post, Love Me, Hate Me, Just Don’t Ignore Me, from Paul Stewart, CEO of ON-Brand Partners. Paul tells us that the research is clear – not giving feedback can be more damaging than negative feedback. We are social creatures and as such, “the attention paid to us by others is pivotal to our sense of belonging and happiness”. Getting better at this is good for us and it’s good for business.

Tools for the job

This half-day workshop is about your People Managers gaining the confidence, capability, and the tools to:

• Understand the power of feedback and overcome the excuses we use to avoid it
• Plan and prepare feedback discussions
• Structure effective feedback using a simple tool
• Understand how social styles can affect feedback, and
• Deliver and receive positive and developmental feedback effectively.

Want to know more?

Click here if you’d like to know more about this TakeON! Management Matters theme. Or connect with the Blacksmith team at Paul.Leacock@blacksmith.co.nz or on 09 974 3917.

We keep hearing how competitive the marketplace has gotten. With the economy not quite up to scratch and globalization accelerating the speed of business, leaders find themselves scrambling to stay ahead of things with their strategy efforts. Gaining a competitive advantage can be product innovation, entering new markets, diversifying product lines…the list goes on and on. One of the things that is a constant, no matter your strategy. One thing that consistently makes each one of those plans, initiatives, projects, or whatever you want to call them, actually come to life. Human beings.

In this context, I prefer the word human being over people. When we say it there is an underlying current of reverence for the sanctity of life. A sentient being whose existence has value and matters, whether we are able to define it or not. In all of the clamoring for profit, the fundamental purpose of business which I wholly support, there is a quiet reality that rests at the center of it all. A human being. And it is this collective group of human beings which makes business even possible.

The potential for each human being to develop to a place where their innate talent is forefront in their efforts and responsibilities is an important part to professional development. Is this how you lead and develop the human beings in your organization? It should be. That untapped potential will make your organization electrified in its efforts. Providing an outlet within your organization for people to be who they know they can be is a powerful statement that will pay dividends year over year.

Here are a 4 reasons human potential should infect your organization and how to make it happen.

• Human beings ALWAYS have purpose – It is in our nature to want to make a positive contribution to something bigger than ourselves. We want what we do to matter in some way that is meaningful to us. We MUST have purpose, or we begin looking for it somewhere else. Instead of trying to train the humanity out of those in your organization, let their humanity infect your organization. Imagine that. Human beings interacting with other human beings to meet the needs of a lot human beings. The atmosphere of your organization doesn’t need to be much more complicated than that.
• Human potential doesn’t recognize limits – When human beings get to operate in their “zone”, they are completely unstoppable. Everything becomes a possibility. No one can demand that kind of dedication and focus, no matter how well written the job description is. Ask those human beings you’re leading what would excite them about doing their job. Then…shut up and just listen. Seriously consider whatever they say. You may be surprised by the creativity you discover.
• The pursuit of human potential is contagious – You don’t have to get everyone on board to make this work! Find some influential human beings in your organization and let them loose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There have to be some form of boundaries, but don’t get so hung up on them. Let them be guard rails so they can take a curve a bit faster than normal without the fear of going over the edge. Once others see the freedom and gratification that comes with it, as well as the support from leadership, they’ll come around soon enough.
• Human potential frees up leadership – So often leaders read about how they should be interacting with others. YOU are a human being too. How would you like to have the freedom to explore and hunt down your potential? Not to tame or subdue it, but interact with it and learn to run wild with it. The best part about being a leader is you get to lead by example. Be an example of human potential gone wild. Infect your organization with your human potential.

Every human being on this planet has something amazing to bring to the world. We also have some very ugly things to bring to the world as well. Great leadership recognizes that amazing bit of human potential and helps clear a space for it to thrive and choke out the ugly bits. That’s your responsibility to the human beings in your organization. I don’t think I need to point out the profit that can come from this…you already get that.

Celebrate and empower human potential. Run wild. Be profitable.

We would love to hear your comments on this…human to human so post your view below or connect with the Blacksmith team at Paul.Leacock@blacksmith.co.nz or on 09 974 3917.

Susan Bradley, People Development Manager, and Sarah Mannion, Chief HR Officer, from Fisher & Paykel Finance described how:

• The topics align with what is important to Fisher and Paykel Finance, such as our vision and purpose, driving results, and having courageous conversations
• The programme has increased connection and collaboration for their leaders, giving them a shared forum to have leadership conversations
• They know it’s working, based on their engagement survey results as well as feedback from the participants, and
• They are harnessing the momentum to keep things going in this positive direction.

The FPF team shared how they are proud about how far they’ve come and the engagement the programme has created. They are now looking at how they journey will continue into 2013 and beyond, and Blacksmith are excited to be part of this.

If you’ve visited us you’ll know that Blacksmith HQ is a lil bit different (but then, so are we!) making it the perfect space for creating action-oriented conversation, connection, and collaboration. We made the most of this by splitting everyone into teams that moved around the space to different stations to take part in a series of facilitated conversations about:

• Transferring learning from the classroom the workplace – what’s worked for you?
• The benefits of a cross-business leaders forum – why bring your leaders together?
• Burning business issues – what’s going on in your organisation right now?
• Manager development programmes – what does good look like?

Some great ideas (like Jucy’s “Culture Queen”!) came out of the discussions so we decided to share them with you here or watch the edited highlights of the presentation below…

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Plug for our Caterer

Everyone RAVED about the food at the event so we have to mention our caterer, Passion Eat. The goats cheese puffs with rosemary honey dip and the rare roast beef pinchos were a particular hit! Get in touch with Jackie at Passion Eat next time you’re arranging catering.

About Blacksmith Sessions

We’re all about connecting people and ideas.  Rather than just getting ‘talked at’, we like to create opportunities for action oriented conversation, connection and collaboration. Think of it as networking without the “cringe factor”.

We focus on topical issues, presenting new information in a way that engages, empowers and excites you to go back into your business and have a different conversation. Blacksmith Sessions are strictly limited to 20 guests.

Connect with us at Paul.Leacock@blacksmith.co.nz or on 09 974 3917if you’re interested in attending future Blacksmith sessions.