Why is it important
We believe a principal component of a leaders role is to create the conditions for engagement and performance in any given set of circumstances. Day to day this can be challenging enough but it is especially important at significant ‘pivot points’ in an organisation’s journey such as merger or acquisition, change in CEO, a new strategy or values roll out, significant market shift due to disruption or competition, moving to an activity-based workplace and more.
Simply moving from good performance to great performance is a huge challenge for individuals and organisations. James C. Collins (author of Good to Great) said “Good is the enemy of great” and we’ve certainly seen the performance limiting impact of the complacency that comes with good or even adequate performance.
What we do
James C. Collins also said “Greatness is not a matter of circumstances. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discpline.” To us this speaks to the place of personal leadership, grit and a growth mindset, a feedback culture and clear connection to purpose and strategy to enable effective decision making.
We believe performance depends on being deeply connected to the organisations objectives at a human level (both logical and emotional) along with understanding the operational plans and cultural environment that will deliver results. Every individual needs to have a direct line of sight from their personal contribution (both their being AND doing) to the big picture and know that their leaders are serious, that they mean business, when it comes to their own visible leadership and personal practices.
Our approach is to work with leaders to develop both the intra-personal and inter-personal conditions required to optimise their own, their team’s and ultimately the organisations performance.
Video case study
Watch the client case study video on Vodafone’s performance programme call ‘Leading in the Vodafone Way’ below.
Our partnership with Blacksmith has been truly collaborative, challenging, provocative, and it has made us see things and evolve the programme as we go. It feels like we’ve worked together for a long time. It’s been a great success as a result.
Antony Welton, HR Director - Vodafone NZ
Without Blacksmith the journey that DTL is now on would have been a lot harder
Scott Brownlee, Chief Executive - DTL
We can definitely credit Blacksmith with a large part of that turnaround. It’s a very different organisation from the one that I joined in 2012
Margaret Nimmo, General Manager Human Resources - New Zealand Cricket
