StageSHIFT Case Studies
Post Merger Business Integration & Ecocentric Renewal
Energy Sector Takeover by Electricity of Gas Company
A national electricity company stabilising at orange-green purchased the national division of a global corporate stalled at amber-orange. The takeover would double the size of the company, turn it into a national organisation and enable a vertical integration of similar capabilities.
I joined the company to lead OD as the restructure was attempting to knit together a new national profit-focused yet values-based organisation. As a mature yet non-self-witnessing Synergist (no lean into 5th person perspective yet), I began to lead a culture integration at orange-green and was appointed GM People & Culture. The company enjoyed a leading employment brand yet ...
I learnt what it was to leave people behind and how to build bridges to bring along followers. The culture morphed into a series of silos notwithstanding a myriad of strategic evolutionary initiatives. While the heart of the organisation morphed, the top collided and collapsed. A new CEO and executive team focused on reining in costs created a new turning point for the company.
Business Services Merger in the Public Sector
The streamlining of the Public Service in New South Wales Australia involved centralising the business service functions into one services company with revenues of $180m and 1,000 people serving the needs of 22,000 employees across various government departments.
While the potential offered exceptional returns in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, the people felt betrayed. They had been taken away from their "home" involuntarily and directed to co-create a new "family" with people they hadn't met before. These strangers had different ways of doing their work and nothing really fit well together. Most of the workforce felt very disillusioned.
The CEO invited StageSHIFT to revitalise the culture, uplift everyone's engagement and become part of an exciting new enterprise with a new commercial focus on delighting customers.
A 2-3 year engagement ensued incorporating a multifaceted rollout of evolutionary initiatives to reset strategic direction, develop leadership, lift people and culture, and become values-based and process-driven from team charters at the heart of the enterprise to a new Board Report.
The whole organisation shifted from amber-orange to orange-green in Laloux speak. People Engagement rose 30% in 6 months and a quantum leap in Customer Satisfaction followed. It was an exhilarating experience listening into the organisation to engineer and cultivate emergence.
Anne Cosgrove Executive Director People & Culture
The StageSHIFT Program is unique in that it takes a holistic approach to transformation. Antoinette is a collaborative intuitive whose depth of knowledge in leadership development is unsurpassed.
In a short period of time, she has galvanised the organisation in a way that is remarkable due to her ability to engage with and understand how people operate. She has clear insight into what drives different behaviors that are manifested in the workplace and how to make momentous changes in perspective.
Her strong strategic focus, business acumen and gracious understanding of people mean that you will gain far more than you may expect. Did I say there was a whiff of culture change in the air? Well, I mean there is a gale force wind blowing and the organization and its people are the ultimate winners.
Pat Richards CEO
Antoinette was an engaging, skillful, intelligent, challenging and enthusiastic person to work with.
She integrated many new initiatives to transform our culture creating momentum from which results soon flowed.
The terrific speed of success was due to her great ability to engage with the leaders and ensure that the adopted strategies were well understood and effectively implemented to drive toward the desired outcomes.
She was a vital source of energy and inspiration in setting our new course and getting us going!
Phillip Richards Values & Culture Facilitator
It is rare to come across someone as dedicated and passionate about her work as Antoinette is.
I worked closely with Antoinette in a culture change program and learned immeasurably from the experience.
Her ability to manage multiple projects and tasks whilst skilfully leading a company-wide transformation program was a pleasure to watch and be a part of.
I truly miss her verve and enthusiasm and would recommend her to any organisation looking for a dedicated and passionate cultural transformation leader.
Ecocentric Merger in the Agricultural Sector
The clustering of inter-related individual government departments in New South Wales Australia activated an ecocentric context. Systemic complexity, cluster diversity, ambiguity in strategic direction and the uncertainty of impending job losses posed significant challenges.
Partnering with the newly minted CEO, we led the renewal of the cluster encompassing all parts to generate an interconnected whole. This included facilitating new purposeful strategic direction, defining value creation processes, facilitating team scorecards, embodying a new set of CONFIDENT values, leadership development and executive coaching.
The ecocentric orchestrated avenues for state-wide internal and external stakeholder engagement took the strategic business and culture transformation to a new level - late Synergist leadership. While not without its hiccoughs, leadership effectiveness increased by 20% in 18-months and the new organisation thrived and flourished.
Michael Bullen Deputy Director General
Antoinette instigated a terrific collaboration with us by leading a Strategic Off-Site for our new Executive Team. It was an invigorating and extremely productive two-day session to set our strategic direction and the leadership culture we wanted.
We ran a values program around CONFIDENT Leaders designed and led by Antoinette that enabled the top 75 leaders become more self-aware and develop the courageous authenticity and team accountability we needed to uplift our performance.
Antoinette’s broad strategic perspective and deep insights into mindfulness, emotional intelligence and personal power stimulated a significant shift in our capacity to collaborate with our business partners to build a thriving sustainable agricultural sector in NSW.
MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
Strategic Leadership Assessment Asia Pacific
As the Head of Leadership Capital Solutions Asia Pacific, I discovered the intricate subtleties of the leadership assessment of strategic leaders. The research of Brousseau and Driver predicated vertical development and set the scene for insightful assessments related to role level and role type.
Over 300 Management Assessments for Executive Search, Talent Management, Succession and M&A across all sectors dominated by resources, telecoms and financial services.
Marc Swaels, Exec Director Leadership Capital Solutions EUR Korn Ferry International
I have read your latest proposal with great interest. I found it so good that I have communicated it widely to our Management Assessment dedicated consultants in Europe, suggesting that they use part of it for future proposals and presentations. Congratulations on this very professional document reflecting a deep understanding of our integrated leadership capital solutions!
Executive Development Program Australia
Hudson led the Leadership Assessment and Development Program for 400 of the most senior leaders in the public sector in NSW Australia. It was designed to assess and then strengthen strategic leadership capability to deliver major reform and foster the talent of potential future chief executives.
At the outset of this program, Antoinette Braks initiated a partnership with Hudson to set up and build an Executive Coaching Division. This context, together with private sector, set the scene for the StageSHIFT Research Project on the coaching efficacy of strategic leaders in terms of vertical development.
Christine Broad Senior Consultant Hudson Talent
It has been really lovely working with you this past two weeks. I am not the only person to have noticed your high intellect and ability to get to the core of things quickly, underpinned by a generosity of spirit in giving support to those who were not able to absorb everything so quickly.
FROM LOCAL ENTERPRISES TO GLOBAL ORGANISATIONS
Uplifting Culture & Igniting Performance
Mathias Trading was a highly profitable trading company with around 50 people. The founding CEO decided it was time to give some focus to energise the People and Culture function.
New uplifting business, culture and talent frameworks and processes to facilitate mature orange-green, were implemented. They were the seed of StageSHIFT's later interventions.
Three weeks following a 3-month implementation, trading revenues more than doubled. The CEO was astonished as was I.
The new empowered decision-making and freshly set aspirations of the same trading team had led them to entirely new heights of performance. The same administrative team managed double the workload while meeting all deadlines. They were thrilled!
Engaging People Across Latin America & Africa
Venturing into a typical Catalyst cross-boundary role responsible for interconnecting eight regional hubs with central services and processes, global initiatives and policies, to build community.
Gain experience across remuneration policy, incentives and equity participation, talent reviews in the light diversity, career ladders, leadership development and global mobility; as well as information systems and employee services.
Traveling across the region one week in every two was a mesmerising, daunting, exciting yet emotionally challenging experience. Key performance criteria were people engagement, and particularly outcomes in relation to inclusion and diversity.
This global collision of perspectives expedited vertical evolution.
Meet Dr Antoinette Braks, Founder of StageSHIFT
Antoinette Braks is a Master Certified Leadership Coach and Founder of StageSHIFT Coaching. She completed her PhD in Transformative Coaching in Vertical Leadership Development and authored Executive Coaching in Strategic Holistic Leadership: The Drivers and Dynamics of Vertical Development (2020). Antoinette was awarded the CEO Today Management Consulting Award in Leadership Coaching.
Her previous experience includes C-suite leadership of People & Culture in the energy sector; Regional HR Management with Shell International; Head of Leadership Capital Solutions with Korn Ferry Asia Pacific; and Founder of the Coaching Division for Hudson Talent Management Australia.
Antoinette is highly purposeful in her intention to contribute to creating a more sustainable, healthy, equitable and joyful world. She designs and leads global transformative enterprise evolution and vertical leadership development to guide C-suite and strategic leaders to realise their potential to Synergist and Alchemist, and enterprises to Green and Teal incorporating all levels and stages of vertical evolution.
"The higher our self-expression and the deeper our self-awareness,
The richer our life experience and the greater our soul evolution." ~
Antoinette Braks
