Meet Robert
Robert is a founder member of McKinsey’s Performance Leadership Institute. He was designer, coach and lead facilitator on the ANZ companywide transformation program that is generally regarded as one of the most successful culture change programs ever run in Australia. Over the course of the program, ‘staff satisfaction’ went up from 49% to 85%, and ‘employee engagement’ reached 64%, making the workforce one of the most engaged of any large banking organisation.
For 10 years Robert worked with McKinsey clients here in Australia, in NZ, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, North and South America and the UK. He has over 20 years’ experience coaching C Suite and senior executives across a wide range of industries including mining, legal, finance, insurance, IT, engineering, construction, telecommunications, retail and energy.
Areas of Expertise
- Executive coaching
- Culture change in organisations and teams
- Leadership development
- Presentation skills
- Mindfulness and meditation
- Stress management
- Emotional intelligence
- Personal profiling
- Career progression
Business Background and Experience
Robert was the leader of the British Meditation Society from 1978-81-managing the UK organisation, training teachers and leading national seminars. Robert came to Australia in 1981 and joined Self Transformations, a personal development organisation, as lead facilitator and personal counselor and coach.
In parallel with working at ST, Robert and his business partner John Esam, developed Conscious Trekking, an adventure travel company specialising in trekking the Himalayas, absorbing the "Spirit of Place".
From 1990-1998, Robert worked closely with his friend and colleague, Carolyn Taylor, at Corporate Vision. Corporate Vision was one of the first companies offering culture change and leadership development in Australia.
In 1998 Robert worked with McKinsey, as a founder member of a new department, McKinsey's Performance Leadership Institute, focussing on creating and building organisational culture.
Robert now acts as a specialist executive coach and facilitator for a range of corporate clients.
Approach
Coaching
Robert has an integral style of coaching – meaning inclusive, working with both external and internal factors, some of which may be systemic, some developmental and some personal as needed. He has the ability to get to the core of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a situation or dilemma and move rapidly to the ’how to’ for change or action that is required to achieve the desired outcome.
Facilitating
Robert emphasises that his style is not "chalk and talk". Instead he favours conversational and interactive engagement, focussing on extracting the core of theory and assisting the group to develop real, tangible take away skills.
Qualifications and Memberships
- Accreditations in The Leadership Circle profile
- Accredited Lifestyles Inventory (LSI),
- Accredited DiSC profiling
- Stress Management and Resilience Training,
- Accreditation in Meditation and Mindfulness
- Somatics and Psychotherapy
- Train the Trainer.
Sample Client Engagements
- Senior leader in Government Infrastructure dept - coached for next level in career development.
- COO - ‘Mission Critical’ services company - coached to deal with overwhelm, stress managment and ‘what next?’.
- CEO - commercial property organisation - coached on reconciling differing personal and business directions.
- Group Programs - Bank - Delivered 2 x 8 week customised organisational Mindfulness programs to major Australian bank.
- Organisational Program - Bank - facilitator on roll out of nation-wide values program for one of the ‘Big 4’.
- Culture Change - Energy sector -Design and lead facilitator on company wide culture change initiative with major oil and gas company.
- CFO - international aviation company - coached to change leadership/management style.
