What We Think

The past few years have seen the rise of social movements, with their pace, traction and impact indicating that traditional constructs of power, leadership and authority are no longer durable and that as a concept, they have been decoupled. In our latest white paper, Maximus propose the requirement for organisations to distribute accountability, unlock emotional commitment and ignite activism within the collective if they are to thrive in the new world.

Maximus • 3 minutes for introduction article; 20 minutes for Whitepaper (linked) Reading Time

Reaching strategic goals isn’t negotiable. It’s the reason for stakeholders and executives’ very being. It’s what business is all about. Yet according a recent study, just 53 percent of executives characterise their companies’ strategies as emphasising the creation of relative advantage over competitors; the rest say their strategies are better described as matching industry best practices and delivering operational imperatives1. In other words, just playing along.    

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A successful leader brings clarity and focus to complex topics; makes sure the right systems, strategies and people are in place; and positions their business to seize new opportunities. The relatively new discipline of human capital analytics supports these goals by distilling critical workforce insights, yet most of Australia’s CEOs are ignoring it.

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As humans, we lack the capacity and have a poor track record of predicting and modelling the future. To be truly future focused, we must stop looking in the rear-view mirror and depending on historical data to make future focused decisions: leaders must cease predicting the future, and instead, start creating it. Maximus Directors talk to building resilience and flexibility into the business planning process and how to successfully bring it to life it across your organisation, transferring ownership and accountability to your people.

The past few years have seen the rise of social movements, with their pace, traction and impact indicating that traditional constructs of power, leadership and authority are no longer durable: leadership and authority as a concept have been decoupled. For many organisations this shift in power dynamics has led to a conundrum, and as we move into the new normal with new opportunities and new operating models, democratised leadership will be critical to thrive in this new world. Maximus Directors Brent Duffy and Mark Sowden talk to the criticality of democratised leadership to survive in the new world, the systems which enable it, and how to set these up within your organisation.

Following on from ‘Democratising Leadership: Creating the Conditions and the Systems for Distributed Impact’, we move to explore the mindset required by individuals in your organisation to capitalise on the benefits of a system of democratised leadership.

The Coronavirus pandemic is the black swan event of our times. In his book, Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb sets the scene for understanding that the subsequent turmoil of black swan events is caused by fragility; and cultivating antifragility is the antidote.  

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During tough times, effective leaders make a quick and essential transition from crisis response to a positive reimagination of the organisation.

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Whether you’re transforming your capabilities or facing up to the fact that you are better off honing your skills in other directions, it’s all part of the journey. In this article, Vanessa Gavan discusses the three vital shifts for any leader intent on advancing to the C-Suite.

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As you get to the top layers of an organisation, you need to be much less boundary driven and more open, but few leaders have been trained for that transition. This thought piece discusses how leaders can look outside their organisations for growth opportunities through partnering and collaboration.

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As black-swan events go, COVID-19 is a pterodactyl – a mega event that threatens to blow up global economic drivers, known production paradigms, trade agreements, market values, our concept of critical industries and much more.

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In the emerging field of post-pandemic leadership, Maximus has identified three expected corporate phases of operation we can expect to see in the coming days, weeks, if not months… For the record, the first is over.

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Customers are your primary stakeholders. You need to understand how to live in their world in order to offer solutions that meet their needs. If you are not creating the biggest impact for your customers, then you are limiting yourself and your company’s potential. In order to develop your employees’ understanding of customer centricity, customer-centred coaching is necessary.

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The impact of COVID-19 is ostensible for organisations and leaders alike, and we know that the leadership community is being inundated with calls for help and time in areas well beyond their experience. In this livestream, Maximus Joint Managing Directors Vanessa Gavan and Brent Duffy discuss the criticality for leaders to gain control over, and get comfortable with the situation to lead from a place of confidence.

We know that leaders are currently experiencing highs and lows and that it is imperative to tune into your own emotions and those of your team to manage energy effectively. In this livestream, dual Olympian (and Maximus Principal Consultant), James Chapman, provides his unique perspective on building and effectively maintaining resilience, grit and mental toughness as gained during his career as an elite athlete.

As we transfer to a new normal, asynchronous cadence, authentic connection and the emotional commitment of your people will become essential for organisations to survive and thrive. Maximus’ Joint Managing Directors Vanessa Gavan and Brent Duffy discuss the mindset required to tap into ongoing productivity and the emotional health of the business to enable impactful performance in a different operating environment.

With change and reactivity as a constant, executives are finding themselves in a perpetual state of adjusting and pivoting whilst needing to remain aligned. With this comes an opportunity to actively reimagine culture, and in this session our Managing Directors Vanessa Gavan and Brent Duffy discuss how to find the bright spots and unlock impact at scale, creating and enabling a performance culture which is energised around the right business opportunities.

In the present climate of uncertainty, executives need to cut through the noise to see the signals and act upon them. In this livestream, Maximus Joint Managing Directors Vanessa Gavan and Brent Duffy talk to the requirement for senior leaders to obtain clarity quickly in this period of uncertainty. Our aim is to help you identify key issues to focus on, quickly assess options and make the decisions that count.

A great leader builds a company culture that engages both hearts and minds. As CEO, you are responsible for your company’s culture as well as its strategy and performance. High performance enterprises get all three right.

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Growing research over the past 15 years suggests that another key ingredient distinguishes good leaders from great leaders – Emotional Intelligence or EI. Having a good understanding of others’ EI will help you to attract, retain and grow a robust leadership pipeline.

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When CEOs prioritise the development of talent, their high potential employees develop into leaders, and their organisations grow. This article, originally published for CEO Magazine, looks at how to do that and what to focus on.

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Jeffrey Pfeffer is considered one of the world’s most influential management thinkers. He is the author of several best-selling books and a Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. We caught up with him ahead of his Australian trip for Fire Up The Future.

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This International Women’s Day we wanted to celebrate some of the incredible women shaping our world for the better.

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The future demands a new leader who inspires and trusts confidently turns toward technological change. Maximus explores why…

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The eye-popping success of the multi-billion-dollar enterprise software company Atlassian can largely be credited to the cultural foundation that has been built in the way they treat both staff and customers. The decision to share with the world the people playbook, detailing how it’s done, has been another masterstroke. Maximus talks to Dom Price, Atlassian’s inspiring work futurist, to discover more.

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We meet Agustin Chavez, reflect on his inspiring walk from Melbourne to Sydney and discover the purpose behind it.

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Economic growth, as we know it, is not sustainable for the world’s resources. Business leaders can play pivotal roles in driving a more balanced human and universally prosperous economy as part of future-proofing their organisations and the lives of those to come.

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Meet James Chapman, one of the dynamic leaders inside Maximus. Not so long ago he was an Olympic rower – twice over – and won a silver medal at the 2012 London Games. Like many of the exceptional people within Maximus, it is his attitude and human qualities that set him apart. The mindset for performance and the choices required of elite athletes offer lessons for the corporate world. Here, he shares some of them.

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You don’t have to work Margaret Thatcher hours to put your health, performance and teams at risk. If you’re sleeping less than seven hours a night, you’re not only stifling organisational growth, you’re harming your body and mental wellbeing,

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Australia has the chance to turn the urgent need for infrastructure, urban-renewal work and regional development into vision-fuelled projects to shape the future of our nation.

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“How much longer should you wait?” This might well be the most important thing business leaders need to ask themselves in the first half of this century and nowhere is it truer than when it comes to the issue of energy.

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In a world where the user is chooser, organisations must elevate the learning experience for employees and create a proactive learning culture delivering the right content to the right people at the right time.

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Deep within each organisation is a living, evolving organism. Natalie Filatoff delves into the latest Maximus whitepaper Curating Culture: Mobilising People in the Age of Disruption and explores the force that is culture.

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For almost 60 years Dr Jane Goodall PhD, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace, has been campaigning for the environment as a leader of passion, purpose and a firm focus on the future. Maximus talks to Dr Goodall about what it means to enact change today.

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Company cultures have a life of their own, argues world-renowned expert Stan Slap. A culture is not to be controlled, but when treated with respect and empathy it will drive astounding success. Here, Slap shares his compelling philosophy with Maximus…

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The environment of your company needs to be a strategically established setting for optimum output. Maximus looks at how to achieve that.

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Building for a secure future means organisations and leaders need to play a role in nurturing the right education pathways to successful learning.

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Maximus looks at how financial services can approach motivation differently and refocus the business towards impact and customer centricity.

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Senior leaders are under a microscope. Public expectations of them are at an all-time high, so getting the right team at the top is paramount – to success and survival.

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Maximus explores the changing demands of leaders forcing them to abandon traditional learning programs. More than ever, they are required to lead with purpose, adapt confidently and make bold decisions within the volatile and uncertain business arena.

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Maximus partnered with ANZ on a novel and innovative solution to raise awareness of the New Ways of Leading at ANZ. Read the case study to learn more about social-led leader learning.

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Ecosystems that endorse creative collaboration and an innovative-friendly environment are vital for Australia to advance as a nation. Maximus spotlights four inspiring examples of innovation in action, to encourage leaders to break down traditional operating models and deploy adaptive thinking in this technological epoch.

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There is no denying the last 12 months have been the most disruptive, mutable, and influential in recent times. We have seen the light on leaders go from a spotlight to a floodlight – presenting them with the ultimate burning platform

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At Maximus, we focus on equipping leaders with the mindset to navigate complexity, and with the current global economic landscape so definitively disrupted, we ask if we as leaders are ‘match fit’ to ride the aftershocks of COVID-19.

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We examine the inevitable influence of technology, and how leaders should elevate their humanity to safeguard a prosperous and thriving future, a theme that has risen to the surface of almost every conversation we’ve had with Australian executives.

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For our third issue of M Magazine, we chose a theme that has surfaced again and again in client discussions with Australian executives: how do we future-proof growth for our organisations and more broadly, our nation?  

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Much of our work at Maximus focuses on developing leadership capabilities in this era of rapid change, so our second issue of M Magazine is dedicated to tackling the thorny topic of ‘innovation as a threat to Australia’, head-on.

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At Maximus we focus our energy on creating experiences that promote future-focused thinking, enable purpose-led leadership and unlock partnering and collaboration. To this end, we have created M Magazine, a rich collection of material that’s inspirational and aspirational with genuine utility for leaders globally.

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We live in a world where ‘digital’ is no longer a glorified marketing department in a company, or an economic sector on its own, but a layer over everything. Whilst digital technologies are a remarkable tool for improving human lives in a truly transformational manner, leaders must critically think about the ethical implications of their decisions in the midst of the increasingly growing and powerful tech landscape.

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In a new world of rapidly changing employee environments and potential redundancies in every industry, Maximus asks, what are you doing to ensure that your people have a job in the future?

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From finance to marketing to human resources, across business, government and not-for-profits, today’s savviest leaders are immersing themselves in the principles of the previously niche field of behavioural economics. Maximus finds out why.

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When it comes to planning for the future, some metropolises are ahead of the curve, embedding innovation into their way of life. Maximus looks at four such locations…

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Development experiences must blaze new paths in order to prepare future-fit leaders. Director of Maximus, Brent Duffy, shares some ideas on how to do it.

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Taronga Zoo’s CEO Cameron Kerr ignores the advice never to work with children and animals. Here, he talks about finding balance heading up a complex operation that’s under wide scrutiny and never sleeps.

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Call it the captain’s juggle: leaders are being asked to achieve two seemingly contradictory outcomes: improve the mental health and well-being of their teams and increase productivity. Maximus explores how better organisational design can put your people in the low state and your organisation on the up.

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When Maximus designed Fire Up The Future, the vision was simple: disrupt leaders – pushing their personal and professional boundaries – so they can lead into a more authentic, holistic future.  

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It’s often easy to take technology for granted. But when the largest coal power plant in the country suddenly went offline, the Tesla battery was able to supply enough electricity to power 30,000 homes in the blink of an eye.

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The opportunities being created by innovation and disruption are immense. Leaders must adapt and learn to be positioned to successfully ride this speeding, changing wave rather than be dumped by it.

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In our whitepaper, Maximus examine the relationship between culture and strategy in the age of disruption, the role of the leader as culture curator, and the criticality of getting culture right to mobile people and organisations.

Maximus • 2 minutes for introduction article; 20 minutes for Whitepaper (linked) Reading Time

Maximus examines the effects of seismic shifts in technology and institutional trust on Australian leaders, and recommends ways in which organisations can develop their leaders to meet the challenges.

Maximus • 4 minutes for introduction article; 20 minutes for Whitepaper (linked) Reading Time

After decades of leadership development modelled on higher education, frustrated executives and HR professionals are seeking a new way forward. Maximus has been working with leading Australian organisations on a new, innovative approach to compliment the current model: social leadership learning.

Maximus • 3 minutes for introduction article; 15 minutes for Whitepaper (linked) Reading Time

The business world is more competitive and the rate of change accelerating faster than at any time in history. Perhaps counter-intuitively, that means that it is crucial to deliberately build and execute business strategies with a future-focused vision.

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Maximus has been collaborating with Chip Heath for some years. Recently, we took the opportunity to discuss how his latest organisational psychology principles are turning customer-satisfaction ratings from “average” to “advocate”.

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The importance of special moments in our lives is the clue: memorable moments connect with customers. It looks simple, but it requires genuine heart.

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Executives know there’s a huge wave of change across all industries. Being across the future of work is the difference between riding it or being dumped.

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If you want to lead a high-performing organisation, it’s important to create the right conditions for everyone to thrive — you, your team and your employees. Find out how.

Maximus • 5 minutes for introduction article; 15 minutes for Whitepaper (linked) Reading Time

Thanks to globalisation, the importance of having leaders who can bridge the cultural divide is paramount. As CEO, your aim should be twofold: to ensure you and your people have the skills and capabilities to compete on the world stage; and to build a business strategy, infrastructure and approach that make it easy to seize every chance to trade across borders. This might mean, for example, reviewing your products with overseas opportunities in mind

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Most companies are adept at developing strategies to differentiate and describe how they will win in the marketplace. Where they fail is often in the execution of those strategies. This article, originally published for CEO Magazine, looks at three ways to successfully execute strategy.

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In 1859, a keen hunter released 24 imported rabbits into the Australian bush, where none had roamed before. Ten years later, Australia’s wild rabbit population was in the millions and by 1920, there were 10 billion.

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Many Millennials are rejecting a linear career path in favour of building a portfolio of consulting, freelancing, contracting, entrepreneurial and in-house employment experience. This opens the door for CEOs and HR directors to move towards a portfolio approach to employment that is a better fit for the dynamic modern marketplace than the traditional employer-as-owner model.

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Traditional learning is historically driven out of programs and training sessions. This type of learning is a structured intervention that aims to change and improve specific areas of employee productivity. However, not everything needs to be a training course or a 70-20-10. Employee training and learning needs to be creative.

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Traditional corporate learning doesn’t leave much to the imagination, and existing learning methods often fail to truly shift an employee’s way of thinking. It is necessary for companies to get creative, collaborative, and turn learning on its head.

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You know it’s that time of the year when all of a sudden HR and Managers start reminding you of the cool stuff they did this year. The great parties, the awesome rewards, that new training program… It’s engagement survey time.

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Early 2017 is the right time to get your Internal Career Systems working in order retain employees and allow you to have more sophisticated Performance Reviews combined with career progression conversations.

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By reframing strategic planning meetings to strategic decision exercises and designing meetings with an acknowledgement of the power and limits of the human mind, organisations can do a significantly better job executing strategic planning and decision making as a foundational management exercise.

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Australian organisations face unprecedented challenges: they must think more innovatively and strategically. This special report shows that the current state of leadership development in Australia is not sufficient to meet these challenges.

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Internal career mobility and career pathing are supposed to be winners for all involved – the proverbial slam dunk. But it doesn’t seem to be working. Surveys indicate that satisfaction with career opportunities hasn’t improved. So what’s going on here and what’s to be done?

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Vanessa Gavan sat down with Telstra’s Head of Design Practice, Cecilia Hill, to talk about how ‘design thinking’ and what it can do for organisations.

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The best of the best! We’ve selected 10 of the best TED talks from 2016 for leaders. Essential viewing for leaders thinking about the future of their organisations and their teams.

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In uncertain times, it can be easy to put innovation on the back burner as too expensive, too time-consuming, and too risky. Yet controlled, ROI-driven innovation is an essential element of a successful business growth strategy and can generate ideas worth millions of dollars. In our experience, fresh thinking is essential to take organisations to new heights at any stage of the economic cycle.

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The concept of working from home isn’t exactly new. Managers have been managing virtual and remote teams over multiple geographies for some time, particularly within agencies, consultancies, media companies, and IT/tech companies. However, it’s an evolving model — one that’s now starting to become business-as-usual for bigger corporate players.  

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Gender diversity has a legitimate place in governance and, quite rightly so, it gets a lot of airtime. However, the value of diversity goes beyond addressing under-represented social groups. It makes different types of thinking available to solve complex business problems, optimise boardroom performance, and drive transformational business change.

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No business is immune from silo syndrome — a potentially terminal condition in which interdepartmental barriers prevent growth. The cure is to adopt a top-down change program that reshapes your fragmented organisation into a collaborative, cooperative, and innovative whole to help you regain your competitive edge.

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Creating world-class business leadership solutions is our speciality at Maximus. We draw on our top talent as well as deep market insights to develop solutions that are customised and tailored to our clients’ needs. To do this, we utilise a variety of strategies that truly personalise our approach.

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Fire up the Future brings faculty from Stanford and INSEAD together with high-profile Australian business leaders to create global development experiences right in Sydney.

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On my recent holiday I read Dan Pink’s new book, To Sell is Human. The chapters argue the growing importance of sales skills in both traditional and non-traditional sales roles. Dan’s perspective runs against the viewpoints of many that believe the art of sales is in decline. In a world full of information that is so easily accessible through technology, many think digital and social marketing is replacing the role of the traditional “salesman”

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On Friday, 9 September, more than 700 HR professionals converged on The Star Sydney to recognise the best of the best in people management at the third annual Australian HR Awards. Among the 19 award winners announced on the night, we are very proud to have partnered with seven of the finalists, including three of the winners.

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Strategic alignment is the process of bringing an entire organisation — including various business divisions, different levels of management, diverse employee groups, and the numerous supporting systems and processes — in line with its overarching strategic objectives. It’s the process of onboarding every individual person and process to ensure that they are all striving toward a shared purpose.

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Technology has transformed the workplace. We use it to develop smarter strategies, improve our customer service, and communicate instantly. However, there’s a downside to it, too. If you’re a typical executive, the sheer volume of information you deal with every day makes it hard to focus on what’s important. There are too many distractions, there’s too little time to prioritise, and there’s too much fear of missing that vital piece of information.  

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Your management style is a reflection of your personal strengths, weaknesses, attitudes and the values that you have build up over the course of your life. Because of this, there are as many kinds of leadership as there are leaders. From the autocratic to the democratic, from the conceptual to the task-oriented, managers come in all shapes and sizes – with varying levels of effectiveness.

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