Upskilling “Adaptability” – the Key to Change Leadership (The skills you can learn here today that change everything)

Guest Speaker: Rich Alderton (NZ)

Background and Introduction:

For the last 30 years we’ve been change managing our organisations one project at a time. That approach is great at changing what people do, but rubbish at developing their attitude to change. That’s a problem because any organisation whose internal environment is moving slower than its external environment will fall behind until it falls over.

The mandate is clear: for survival and growth we need to develop our people proactively and deliberately to be more adaptable, so they’re ready to make the most of whatever happens next. So please read on.

Workshop Content:

 In this session, we will discuss why, even though the likes of the HBR, global recruiter Hays and the Wharton School highlight adaptability as a key leadership skill, most leaders don’t have enough of it.

Most organisations aren’t doing anything effective about that. They just practice “carrying on regardless” So we’ll be discussing practical ways to develop this critical set for effective leaders and reveal some surprising benefits that accrue.

 We will explore:

• The toxic effect of resistance to change on every aspect of organisational effectiveness
• (The above includes Strategy, operations, and culture ie “Everything we do around here”)
• Why the traditional solution of Change Management is too little, too late these days
• How to change behaviour by turning perceptions of change on their head – from it being a threat to our security to being our best chance to make a positive difference
• Getting to grips with a roadmap towards mastering adaptability, including actionable practical antidotes to the reasons we resist change, and stimulants to boost the reasons we love it

Outcomes

A clearer understanding that:

• adaptability is a crucial non-negotiable key leadership skill
• we are approaching change the wrong way by invariably “avoiding and carrying on regardless”.
• there are tangible practical tools to help us change how we think and feel about change itself
• we can all acquire the requisite skills to confidently embrace and manage change.
• We can dispel distracting conscious or hidden fears that can inhibit our growth and development.
• Embracing change through adaptability is a pre-requisite to achieving key potential performance improvement as the trigger for success at both organisational and personal levels      

Rich Alderton Speaker Profile

Rich has been leading change for over 25 years in some of the world’s most innovative organisations, from big pharma (GlaxoSmithKline) to start-ups (e.g. UBCO – EV motorcycles).

On his journey from the factory shopfloor to the board of a listed company (Sea Dragon – omega-3 nutraceuticals), notable roles included running a $1b global supply chain based in Sweden (DE Laval) and as CEO of the NZ operations for the world’s largest dairy equipment provider.

What struck Rich most was that irrespective of status or background, most people resist most change most of the time. So, in 2014 he set up his own consultancy – High Performance Change – to help leadership teams become more adaptable and collaborative so they can enjoy rather than endure a life of change that surely lies ahead for us all.

Clients include Datacom – Australasia’s largest IT firm, Norwood – NZ’s largest agri distributor and a growing list of UK clients that spans for example the legal, life sciences and construction sectors.