Traditional board effectiveness and evaluation processes tend to focus predominantly on the “hard” content of corporate governance and the fulfilment of the various codes. At Centre for Conscious Leadership we have moved away from the traditional corporate governance by introducing the “people side” of a board and their interactions with the executives they work with. It is our view that many of the iconic corporate failures arise out of what is at times a “tick-the box” exercise and adherence to the letter of these codes and not to their spirit. In our experience it is the exception rather than the rule that boards optimise their effectiveness though incorporating a focus on the “soft underbelly” of the process and spirit of governance. Typically the trip-wires that we have seen over the years in this area include a whole range of elements that are not addressed by conventional governance codes; essentially the “people side” of a board, and its own internal dynamics and interactions and alignment with the executive team it works with.

We draw on key methodological approaches such as the importance of self-awareness amongst others in our approach to leadership and team development.

The need to embed any leadership intervention in the organisation’s strategic context;
The importance of self-awareness and inter-personal awareness;
The belief that organisations don’t transform, but that people do;
The belief that any transformation process has to start with the leadership group;
The need to build ongoing reflection and learning processes;
The need to understand a depth approach to development which is based on the assumption that our past influences our present behaviour, and that our behaviour is often based on unconscious or irrational drivers;

The need to build on the leader’s ability to deal creatively with the fluidity of the present and the uncertainty of the future;

Some examples of our work in this area include:

Centre for Conscious Leadership designed and implemented development and supervision processes for OD practitioners and facilitators, for individuals, open groups and specific organisations. We focus on advanced facilitation, design and facilitation of organisational interventions such as strategic planning, organisational design, large group facilitation, depth facilitation, and facilitation of team alignment and development processes.

We customise our strategic planning process to suit the individual and corporate needs of our clients. We do this by working with the CEO’s and Exco teams in small and large group formats for up to 500 people to determine these needs. Some of the strategic tools we use include environmental scanning, scenario development, development of current and ideal futures and strategic choice structuring among others.

We enable teams to define collective vision and performance outputs, align team accountabilities and agree appropriate team structures and processes. This assists in building aligned insights, choice and action by improving the quality of dialogue, relationships and collective thinking. We have a clinical approach to rational and irrational drivers of human behaviour that are often unconscious and over looked.