Why is it important

When it comes to organisational change, failure continues to be more common than success. In a survey of over 3000 leaders, McKinsey discovered the failure rate to be over 60% whilst Harvard Business Review’s research indicated the number of transformation efforts that fail is over 70%.

So what’s going on? Harvard suggest there is a clear pattern. Diligent leaders spend hours and deploy huge resource to plan perfect change management initiatives but they forget one crucial thing – they and their people’s humanness. Committing to a level of personal transformation is table stakes for organisational change to stick.

What we do

We believe that leaders need to be more aware of and engaged in the human experience of change, not just the process. People are change weary, their resilience is down and stress levels are rising as they struggle to cope with multiple changes, at home and at work. None of this will diminish as the new world emerges and our ability to not just handle change but powerfully create it is tested.

Our work with leaders, their teams and organisations supports their ability to be more adaptive and experimental as they seek to reshape themselves at pace. We provide leaders with development experiences that increase their awareness, confidence and capability, along with frameworks, tools and resources to effectively facilitate leader-led change at scale.

Our approach is to partner with leaders to develop themselves and their people through change. We support leaders to enrol their people in change by clearly connecting each and every person to the WHY of change and to the context in which the change is unfolding. Leaders build new or deeper levels of trust amongst themselves and with their teams. They provide authorship to their people by identifying opportunities to change things within their sphere of control thereby reducing anxiety and increasing a sense of real ownership. Leaders begin to see the change environment as an opportunity to build engagement and innovation not lose it, and to understand how human nature can work for or against them and their people.

Video case study

Watch the client case study video on Ballance Agri-Nutrients change programme below.

What clients say

Blacksmith have been inspiring. They have been very challenging. They have sought to understand our context really, really well. They have been really creative, and have taught us lots along the way

Edith Sykes, General Manager People and Capability - Ballance Agri-Nutrients

Blacksmith provided a great combination of rigour and flexibility, thought leadership and fun, a supportive environment combined with a real sense of edge

Katie Williams, Head of Human Resources Centre of Expertise - Vodafone New Zealand

We found Blacksmith really easy to deal with. They’re really good listeners and understood what we wanted to get from the programme. They were adaptable and agile when we changed things, and they always delivered with enthusiasm

Pete Boyle, Chief Executive - AJ Park