The AltusQ Blog
News, upcoming events and articles written by our coaches
What Google learnt from its quest to build the perfect team
What Google learnt from its quest to build the perfect team A team at Google spent over three years researching to understand why some of their teams performed better than others. The results revealed that whilst clear goals and equal voices were significant, what was most critical to higher performing teams was the ability to…
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It’s not me, it’s you
It’s not me, it’s you Ever gathered with like-minded colleagues after a formal meeting to have the ‘real’ meeting and share what you really think? Probably more common than you realise with most of us more comfortable with the terra firma of sharing our honest thoughts with others who think like us. Not surprising when…
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What’s the one question every team should be able to answer?
What’s the one question every team should be able to answer? Organisations are more than ever relying on teams to achieve their strategic agenda’s yet are increasingly frustrated by the failure of teams to live up to the promise of their collective capability. Teams so often look good on paper, individuals with the right mix…
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Growing Pain #3: Culture.
Growing Pain #3: Culture. A common growing pain for any business is a failure to adjust the culture as the business gets bigger. The reason culture is hard is because it is typically made up of the ‘unwritten rules’ and can be difficult to clearly define, let alone implement. Choosing a culture should always be done…
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AltusQ team coaching front and centre on the European stage
AltusQ team coaching front and centre on the European stage Jill Arkell from AltusQ’s Sydney office and Akram Sabbagh from our Perth office were privileged to be invited to speak at the European Mentoring and Coaching annual conference in Edinburgh last month on team coaching. As specialist team coaches this was a fantastic opportunity to share with…
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Growing Pain #2: Structure. Just do what the ants do!
Growing Pain #2: Structure. Just do what the ants do! I stumbled across an article on ant colonies and how they organise themselves, here is an excerpt.. “Ant colonies are a superorganism. Just like no single cell is in control of your body, no ant controls the colony. Each colony has very specific roles. Queens are…
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Growing Pain #1 – Leadership
Growing Pain #1 – Leadership As we discussed last time, the three most common Growing Pains for Businesses are Leadership, Structure and Systems/processes. All three need to keep evolving as the Business grows. The leadership skills, structure and processes required for a Business turning over $3 million is different to a $20 m Business, and different again to…
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3 Key Growing Pains For All Businesses
3 Key Growing Pains For All Businesses We recently built a new house – it was a painful 12-month process but we made it and we are very happy with the end product. Aside from everything being ‘new’, the best aspect is the size. We can actually move around in comfort. We were a family of…
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Creating your own economy
Create your own economy In his timeless “Oh the places you’ll go” Dr. Seuss provides a simple yet powerful guide to traversing life’s “lurches and slumps” for people of all ages. His “waiting room” analogy (“Oh the most useless place of all”) is particularly poignant. We’ve all been there; waiting for the new client call,…
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Why teams that embrace conflict outperform others
Why teams that embrace conflict outperform others Ask most people what they think is the thing that most often gets in the way of team work and they will probably answer trust. Trust is definitely the foundation of any high performing team. Teams that work seamlessly together in energetic pursuit of challenging common goals work…
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Innovation on the inside
Innovation on the inside In business, growth tends to be the general focus. What we know is that when growth occurs, things change. Getting caught up in that growth often means that we can forget that we can outgrow what got us here in the first place. A recent example was a highly successful business we’ve worked…
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Do your customers understand you?
Do your customers understand you? It’s a complicated world we live in, and it’s tempting to believe that success comes from doing a better job of mastering that complexity than your competitors. Yet the reality is that merely doing the simple things consistently right will usually put you well ahead of the pack. Marketing is…
Read MoreIs your organisation hitting its targets?
Is your organisation hitting its targets? The recent Study of Australian Leadership survey showed that many Australian organisations are underperforming – their leaders and managers don’t know the basics of business and they are not innovative enough to survive in the global marketplace. More than 40 per cent of organisations did not meet their performance targets for return on…
Read MoreAre you losing the art of conversation?
Are you losing the art of conversation? Really great to present to an enthused group of Canberrans recently at our Thank Gods It’s Monday event. We all learn from these experiences – one thing I learned was to be reminded how important conversations are, particularly connected ones. Maybe you’ll like the quote I read recently –…
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