http://www.australiancoachingcollective.com.au/

GB Coaching & Consulting, Brisbane City (2026)

09/09/2026

Recovery from Retrenchment: A Personal Journey

Introduction
Anyone who has been retrenched will know it’s far from being a pleasant experience. Retrenchment is not only the loss of a job you may have enjoyed and found meaningful it also can mean the loss of friendships you have built up over years while facing the insecurity of an unknown future.

Retrenchment is the termination of employment when a worker’s position is no longer needed by the organisation not because of the employee’s poor performance but because of operational changes such as restructuring or technological developments. In Australia approximately 222,900 workers were retrenched in the twelve months leading up to February 2024.

I know from my own personal experience being retrenched can generate a variety of emotions such as depression, anxiety and anger. For me it happened when I was almost two years short of my expected retirement age from a job that I loved. At that age would I find another suitable and meaningful position? But being retrenched would undoubtedly be so much worse for workers of a much younger age with dependent children and mortgage commitments.

As I was writing this article there had been news of further retrenchments in the mining industry and from one of our big four Australian banks. And with the rapid advancement of AI technology in the workplace the chances are it won’t be long before most families will be impacted by retrenchment.

Steps to Recovery
From my own experience of going, surviving and then thriving through retrenchment here are some suggestions:

1. Don’t Repress Your Emotional Reactions
Feel the emotional pain - don’t repress it. Being retrenched can cause us to question our self-worth and as suggested in my Introduction generate a range of emotional reactions. For myself, apart from my initial anger my chief struggle was with depression. I felt so depressed that I needed psychological therapy. Whatever emotional reactions you might be facing my strong suggestion is to work through them and get whatever professional support you need. Experiencing retrenchment can be quite traumatic and there’s no shame in seeking help.

2. Explore Your Options
In addition to step 1 reframe your retrenchment as an opportunity to explore other options. For me this could have included early retirement (but I wasn’t ready to stop work), or return to a former role with another employer. However neither of these possibilities was attractive. Another option I began to consider was the possibility of launching my own leadership coaching and organisational consulting practice. (As you will see this was an option I later picked up and further developed in ‘retirement’.)

3. Be Open to the Unexpected
Experiencing retrenchment puts a person into a liminal space, a threshold - on the edge between the known past and an unknown future. It is a space where the unexpected can happen. While dealing with my feelings of depression I was also suffering from insomnia. For several weeks following the news I would be losing my job, I would wake up after about 5 hours sleep, worrying and praying about what had happened.

One night I experienced a powerful mental vision. Lying awake, in my mind I saw my hand firmly gripping one end of a mooring rope with the other end attached to the prow of a small boat. Then I heard in my mind a voice saying to me, “It’s alright Graham to let go.” But I was still strongly gripping the rope when I felt a hand taking my hand and gently prising my fingers, one by one, from the rope. In my mind’s eye I looked down and saw the rope lying loose in the palm of my open hand. Immediately I felt totally relaxed and fell back asleep. Six hours later after breakfast I received a phone call from a colleague who held a senior position in another but related major community service organisation. He asked me whether I would be open to a change management role in his organisation. Immediately, I said yes!

After completing the formal application process I was appointed to the position where I worked full time for the following five years. In that role I established and co-led an executive coaching accreditation program and developed the networks and experience to build my own coaching and consulting business in retirement.

Conclusion
Being retrenched is usually a traumatic experience both for workers themselves as well as their families and often their wider communities, especially in remote and regional areas. As a result it’s important that those affected seek professional support to be able to process their feelings and explore alternative possibilities.
Although traumatic, experiencing retrenchment can also be a time to become open to unexpected opportunities that you may not have otherwise considered.

07/09/2026

Communication that Connects: Messages that Engage the Hearts, Minds and Behaviours of Your Team

Whether you’re a CEO, Departmental Manager or Team Leader effective communication lies at the core of your role. Your communication connects with your intended audience when it captures the imagination, commitment, understanding and creativity of your people so that team members can excel. Here some thought about how that can happen.

Seven Steps for Communication that Connects

1. Know Your Message - Ensure you’re very clear about the core message you want to get across to your team. What do you want them to take away from your communication? What will they know, feel or do differently? Also, only cover one core message per communication. Otherwise the message is diluted and can easily generate confusion.

2. Know Your Audience - In order to achieve #1 you need to know the people to whom your communication is addressed. Use language, words, and stories that they can connect with. Avoid any phrase, experience or expression they are likely to react to or find offensive. If you’re seeking to communicate technical information to people who are not subject proficient avoid jargon, technical terms or unnecessary details that would be alien to them.

3. Limit You Slides - If making a slide presentation, limit your slides to no more than 8; one title slide, one for introduction, three to five for your key points and one for the conclusion/recommendation. Disengagement by slide overload can be a very real risk.

4. Set Timing & Context - A critical concern is to identify when it’s strategic to make the communication. Timing is important. Too soon can risk it being forgotten when it needs to be implemented. Too late reduces opportunity for questions and comments and can come across as autocratic. Also important is the context and how the communication is to take place. For example in a town hall meeting open to all employees on a specified day, give notice of the event via a notice on the organisation’s intranet perhaps with Q&A sessions at different times to follow the town hall meeting, or via individual managers to their teams. Much will depend on the degree of employee ownership and engagement.

5. Highlight the Benefits – In your presentation include the benefits of the proposal by showing how it addresses a particular recognised problem or need. But be realistic - avoid claiming too much.

6. Provide Opportunities for Engagement - If appropriate, make time available for people to ask questions either in the meeting (if that’s the context of your communication) or afterwards with you individually or as a group.

7. Comprehensive Report - If appropriate, have a fully detailed report including an executive summary available either in paper form or digitally on request. This will enable those who want details to gain more information.

Conclusion
If the content of your message requires approved report on its progress at appropriate times. And also make it clear you would welcome feedback.

02/09/2026

Raising the Care Quotient in Your Team

Introduction
As a rule caring teams are effective teams. Such teams contribute to a psychologically safe workplace environment, facilitate communication and collaboration, include and equip new members and as a result enhance team productivity.
As leader, you are the key person for lifting the care quotient in your team. Your modelling, communication and the systems you establish play an important role in enabling that. Here are some suggestions:

1. Know Your People
Without being intrusive get to know the members of your team. If you recruited some of them you would have discovered something of their background during the selection process. Listen to their informal sharing in the workplace, make it clear, without intruding on their privacy, you would like to know them as a whole person as far as they are comfortable to share. That could include family members and their names, plus the interests, sports and hobbies of your employees. Being aware of the needs and life situations of their team members enables managers to be better positioned to respond to particular concerns and requests.

2. The Huge Potential of One on One’s
Regular (weekly or fortnightly) one on one’s provide an excellent context for building a positive and mutually trusting relationship between managers and their direct reports. As far as each is comfortable encourage your people to share something of their life story. Model this by starting with sharing appropriately from your own life story. Furthermore, I suggest in each session ask how things are going in their world as well as in their work responsibilities. Remember also to follow up on any concerns both work and life related shared last time.

3. Management by Walking Around
But just don’t wait for the next coaching session to follow up on personal concerns shared in a previous one on one. For example, if an employee mentioned their partner had a job interview ask the next day how it went. Such concerns demonstrates genuine care. In addition as you occasionally walk around the workplace offer to support any employee who seems to be having a problem and compliment where there’s progress.

4. Supportive Team Meetings
By encouraging team problem solving whenever a member willingly shares a difficulty or concern encourages mutual care and support. Also, I suggest in meetings, except for the 7-10 minute daily check in, open the meeting with an icebreaker to enable all members to get to know one another and thereby build the foundation for trust and collaboration.

5. Support New Members
Providing particular support to help new members settle in contributes to building team cohesion and organisational loyalty.

6. Regular Training Workshops
By establishing regular workshops to sharpen the skills members need to be productive in their roles helps build their confidence and capacity and powerfully signals to them their manager is supportive and wants them to succeed.

7. Career Mentoring
Research shows that a key desire of many younger employees is that their manager proactively supports them in their career development. I suggest this can happen through scheduling every fourth one on one session as a career development focus. Also managers can help to link a mentoring connection between team members and other leaders in the organisation whose roles are relevant to their employees’ career ambitions.

Conclusion
By modelling caring behaviour and encouraging mutual support as leader you help create a caring and supportive team environment. Positive and consistent leadership behaviour is the single most important factor in achieving that.
It’s a fine line however between offering care and coming across as intrusive or inquisitive. Leaders need to develop their emotional intelligence so that they are sensitive to each person’s needs and preferences.

31/08/2026

The Challenge of Change Fatigue

Introduction
In today’s highly competitive and fast paced world organisations are constantly pressured to be agile, adapt, innovate and change to be able to keep ahead of the game. While overall, change is a good thing - a given reality in both life and business if you want to survive - constant and especially discontinuous change if not managed effectively becomes destructive. It can cause depression, burnout and constant physical and emotional tiredness leading to a condition known as ‘change fatigue’. Left ignored and untreated change fatigue can cause employee disengagement resulting in lowering morale, resignations, team breakdown and reduced productivity. (And with McKinsey research showing 75% of employees are already disengaged that should be a huge concern for all organisations!)

While a recent study by the Gartner Company found 74% of workers expressed openness to change only 43% felt they were equipped to do so. As a result these workers often felt overwhelmed and disconnected.

I’ve found this feeling of disengagement and disconnection from senior management is especially the case when employees, having invested considerable time, skill and creative energy in developing a product or new system, are told the project they had been working on has been shelved or worst still, discontinued. As a leadership coach I have seen how such repeated decisions by senior management breed cynicism, disrespect, disengagement and a rise in employee resignations.

In this article I describe seven management practices that positively address the challenges of change fatigue.

1. Affirm What Won’t Change
When organisations start experiencing constant change it’s important for senior management to regularly remind their employees what won’t change. Those practices that won’t change should be centred on the organisation’s missional DNA - its foundational purpose or mission, basic beliefs, core values and motivational vision. These dynamics provide the framework for how the organisation should operate and how employees should treat one another and be treated by management. Any infringement needs to be promptly addressed. Of course this will need to have already been well established within an organisation’s culture for employees to take such assurances seriously.

2. Identify Change Vulnerabilities
Given the ‘normality’ of constant and discontinuous change it’s wise for organisations to appoint a cross functional team to analyse areas of particular vulnerability across the business. Such areas of vulnerability are likely to vary from industry to industry. For example, in manufacturing organisations it might be in systems related to production, in a marketing business changes in and impacts upon different demographics, for a community service organisation changes in government funding.

3. Get Ahead of the Game
Advance preparation can often be a game changer for organisations and/or their constituent parts that are particularly vulnerable to change fatigue. The cross functional team mentioned in point 2 could be an ideal group to bring recommended change fatigue strategies to senior management to minimise potential negative impact.

4. Develop Change Fatigue Resilience
In addition to developing strategies it is also important for organisations to develop resilience to the physical, mental and emotional impact of change upon its staff. Naturally this would apply to those employees working in particularly vulnerable parts of the business (eg. as identified in point 2). But given the endemic nature and consistency of change such resilience is an important attribute for all employees, especially those in management roles. Therefore giving attention to employing managers and specialist staff who have resilient personalities is important.

5. Provide Accessible Training and Mentoring Support
When change initiatives are about to be introduced a comprehensive training, support and mentoring framework needs to be established to equip employees who have to operate or will be affected by the planned change. This should not be just a one off provision but rather should provide readily accessible support and mentoring until employees become familiar and confident with using the new systems.

6. Deploy Cross Functional Teams for Introducing Change
I introduced the potential benefit of a cross functional team in point 2. As well as bringing a wider skill set to address change fatigue such a team also brings a variety of perspectives on how change could impact diverse sections of the organisation. With such expertise a cross functional team could be a valuable resource for introducing the change itself as well as the associated change fatigue minimisation strategies as suggested in point 3.

7. Practice Transparent, Redundant & Responsive Communication
With all change initiatives honest and transparent communication is critical. Open and advanced communication helps employees prepare themselves for the coming change, facilitates a willingness to be open to embracing the change and gives them the knowledge and understanding of what the change will mean for them personally and for their individual teams. However, to be effective such communication needs to be redundant (i.e. regular and via different methods) with genuine opportunities for Q & A and afterwards feedback from on the ground users that is taken seriously and appropriate modifications are enacted.

Finally…
The number one priority before introducing any change initiative is to establish, as much as possible, a strong and mutually respectful relational culture among employees and their immediate managers. Line managers are the greatest ‘resource’ any organisation has to help employees positively engage with organisational priorities. Managers who trust and respect their direct reports and who priorities their employees’ job satisfaction will develop a culture of respect, trust and collaboration across their teams resulting in increased productivity and reduced employee turnover.

I previously quoted the statistic that 75% of employees are disengaged - they see their manager as the most stressful factor in their work. Therefore it is essential that organisations recruit managers with the emotional intelligence and track record to provide such leadership as well as develop and promote into management roles staff who exhibit such potential.

24/08/2026

The Heart of Motivation

Every organisation and every team leader wants motivated workers. Highly motivated employees increase productivity, reduce staff turnover, enhance co-operation and collaboration, build customer satisfaction and minimise team conflict.
In this article I outline the four elements that strengthen employee motivation:

1. Meaning Matters
Enabling employees to discover a sense of purpose in their work is foundational for building motivation. When workers:
• realise how their role contributes to achieving their organisation’s mission and vision;
• appreciate the alignment between their personal values and those of their employer and
• can take pride in how their work contributes to the well-being of people and/or the planet
they are motivated to give their heart to their job.

2. Capacity Counts
Knowing they have the ability to do their work at the required standard also helps employees to remain motivated. In addition, when inexperienced employees know their manager believes they have the capacity to be proficient and they are given the appropriate training and support to grow into their role employees who currently lack the required competency are also likely to be highly motivated to excel.

3. Freedom with Accountability
Unless they are still learning the job, motivated workers want to be able to do their work without unnecessary influence. While realising they need to operate within appropriate boundaries (eg. the organisation’s values, systems, policies, and management priorities) they want the freedom to do their job without being micromanaged.

4. Support Is Essential
Employees are motivated to do their best when they know their manager, and the organisation overall, support and back them. Support is experienced through having:
• a trusting relationship with their immediate manager;
• regular one on one coaching sessions;
• relevant training and personal/career development;
• the necessary resources to do their work well;
• are being paid fairly for their job and
• are part of a collaborative and mutually supportive team.

Finally…
From an organisational perspective, the ultimate reason motivation matters is because motivation leads to commitment. Motivated employees become committed to the success of their team and organisation. Their work also provides them with a sense of significance and purpose that inspires them to bring their best selves to their role.

Nevertheless, when employees experience the exigencies of life such as a family crisis, financial difficulties or health challenges motivation can flag. It’s on such occasions when they experience care, support and empathy from their manager, employees discover their motivation can be reignited.

20/08/2026

Managing Problem People

You don’t have to be a manager for too long before you’ll find at least one problem person in your team. Someone who has trouble following instructions, or always needing your permission, or wanting your approval, or always coming up with excuses for not completing their tasks on time. Problem people can soak up much of your time as well as being a source of frustration to yourself and often your other direct reports. What’s the answer to dealing with them?

Here are some tips to try:

1. Check Your Attitude
It’s so easy to become frustrated with a problem personality. And when you become frustrated it’s very difficult not to communicate your frustration to the person concerned especially through your tone of voice and body language, if not your actual words. The problem is if the person senses you’re frustrated with them that will usually cause them to feel more insecure and hence become more of an annoyance. Hence it’s important to be empathetic and caring in dealing with them.

2. Establish Boundaries with Your Team
Work with your direct reports to establish the standards, values and boundaries that determine how you all will work together as a team. In order that team members don’t forget them I recommend they be written down into an agreement or covenant, signed by every member and a copy given to each person. This then becomes a resource that you as leader, as well as all members can hold one another accountable to if needed. (For further information on team covenants see my two articles on this site.)

3. Hold Regular One on One’s with Team Members
Holding regular (weekly or at least fortnightly) one on one coaching and mentoring sessions is a wonderful system to help your direct reports solve problems and develop their skills and capacities. It’s also an opportunity to address unsociable or problem behaviour and help the team member work on it.

4. Use Performance Management
If you are finding the behaviour of your problem employee is not changing as a result of the goals established under point 3 you may need to resort to strict performance management. Under this process leaders identify specific disciplines the direct report needs to engage. You warn him/her their behaviour is unacceptable and identify specific instances (notwithstanding that several of these behaviours would probably have been identified under point 3.) More stringent boundaries are then put in place and you meet together regularly to monitor progress. You explain clearly that unless the person’s behaviour improves their employment may be terminated. In addition state you will be on the lookout for future infringements. I also recommend you consult with your company’s HR department before initiating performance management.

5. Encourage a Mental Health Check
During the process described in point 3 and particularly in point 4 if there is no consistent improvement you may need to raise the suggestion that the employee consults their general practitioner for a mental health check. If a mental health condition is diagnosed medication may be prescribed that can manage their illness and improve their behaviour. Alternatively, they may need to take personal leave or permanently retire pending professional advice. As in point 4, consult with your HR department before recommending a mental health check.

Finally …
Relationship and communication issues will always occur from time to time in any team. Mostly they can be managed and resolved with consideration, wisdom and empathy. But if a person has a significant mental health issue they will need professional treatment and usually medication before returning to work. However, in severe cases such as psychosis or a personality disorder they may be unable to continue in the workforce.

12/08/2026

Leader or Manager: Where Do You Stand?

Just because a person holds a title of manager doesn’t necessarily make them a leader. And people who have no formal position at all are sometimes very effective leaders. So what’s the difference between being a manager and being a leader?

Some Famous Definitions
• “Management is accepting the status quo; leadership is challenging it.” (Peter Drucker)
• “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership is determining whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” (Stephen Covey)
• “You manage things, you lead people.” (Grace Hopper)
• “The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.” (Warren Bennis)

My (not so famous) definition: A manager plans, organises and tries to control the status quo. A leader inspires, engages and empowers their team to pursue a shared future vision.

From Manager to Leader - How to Transition
If you realise you are a manager but want to become a leader here are some steps to transition.

1. Create Relational Spaces – For example: establish one on ones with your direct reports, seek collaborative opportunities, encourage personal story sharing in your team meetings and provide occasional social activities with team members.

2. Vision and Values – Establish the vision and values for your team that are congruent with the organisation’s mission, vision and values. Vision is image of a preferred future usually 5-10 years (a long term goal). While Leaders discern the core of the vision s/he enables the team to develop and own it. Values are vital cultural principles about how your team functions (the ‘what matters most’). Values generate emotional commitment and provide a sense of direction.

3. Training and Development - Establish a training budget and develop a system for the ongoing equipping and development of your direct reports.

4. Open & Honest Communication - Research shows that one third of employees attribute lack of open and honest communication to be the main cause for low employee morale. And remember open communication is at least just as much about listening as telling.

5. Trustworthiness – Effective leaders are consistently trustworthy in the eyes of their direct reports. Trust is a product of credibility and credibility is the result of competence (capability) and character (integrity i.e. personal honesty and consistency plus motive (care and concern for all in your team plus having no hidden agendas)).

6. Accountability - Follow through on your commitments and responsibilities and hold others accountable for theirs too.

7. Coaching and Mentoring – Coaching is a function of active listening, asking empowering questions and developing the coachee’s self-accountability). Mentoring is giving advice and telling team members what to do. I advise clients to lead with coaching and only use mentoring when necessary. When done well both provide a relational process that supports all the above 6 points. Ideally, I advocate one on one weekly (or at least fortnightly) coaching (and mentoring) with your team members as well as receiving monthly sessions yourself from an external leadership coach.

Conclusion
As leadership is about influencing others to pursue a shared goal that the group as well as the leader are invested in a person doesn’t have to hold a formal position in an organisation to be a genuine leader. For example mentors, coaches, social and community change agents, teachers and all other influencers are leaders irrespective of whether they hold a formal position. Having said that, in the workplace managers and others in authority positions are usually the ones best placed for exercising a leadership role.

However, that will take intentional effort and commitment because organisations are inclined to load managers with too many bureaucratic expectations and fail to appreciate the benefits of them leading their team members. In addition, too many managers want to hold on to many ‘hands on’ operational activities rather than invest in the challenging yet rewarding work of leading and developing others.

03/08/2026

Leadership and Conflict

In a previous article on this site (‘Personality Type and Leadership’) I addressed the strengths and weaknesses of each of the four different personality profiles described by the Myers Briggs Temperament Indicator that are based on the psychology of Carl Jung. In today’s article I explore how the different personality types within each polarity can lead to conflict.

1. Introvert/Extravert
This polarity addresses where people get their energy from. Introverts draw their energy from within while extraverts source their energy externally, especially from other people. As a result, in a conflict situation involving strong introverts and strong extraverts, the introverts are inclined to see the extraverts as loud mouthed and lacking depth. Conversely, the extraverts will be inclined to view the introverts as not having a point of view or failing to take seriously the opinions the extraverts are so passionate about. In fact it’s probably difficult for open conflict between extraverts and introverts to surface as extreme introverts are more likely to withdraw into themselves and thus not press their own opinions.

2. Sensing/Intuitive
It’s from this polarity that people source information for decision-making. Sensates focus on facts, details and what’s worked in the past. Intuitives however are inclined to look for patterns in their data, identify possibilities, potential and focus on the big picture. It’s relatively easy to imagine then how this difference can give rise to conflict with sensates exclaiming, “Where are the details with your proposal?” “We tried that once before and it didn’t work.” And on the other hand intuitives accusing sensates with, “You’re not considering the great opportunities here!” “This is not the time to get bogged down in details!”

3. Feeling/Thinking
This polarity addresses how people make decisions. Feeling types are inclined to decide on the basis of their beliefs and values and how others might be affected. Thinking types are more inclined to base their decisions on rationality and logic. Again it’s easy to see how conflict can arise. Feeling types could accuse thinking types of being hard headed and cold hearted while extreme ‘thinkers’ could easily regard intense ‘feelers’ as being too emotional or soft headed.

4. Perceiving/Judging
Perceiving types prefer situations to be open-ended and flexible whereas judging types want organisation and structure. (Incidentally, judging here is not about being judgemental - it’s about needing systems and structure.) Again, people with a strong preference for one side of the polarity can easily get caught up in conflict with those who are strong on the other side. Judging types feel uncomfortable with lack of structure and poor organisation and so could accuse ‘perceivers’ of being ill-considered, naive or slapdash. Conversely, ‘perceivers’ could easily blame ‘judgers’ of being inflexible, locked in and not open to ‘going with the flow’ or welcoming new possibilities.

How to Deal with Conflict between Types
1. Understand Your Own Preferred Type - I recommend my clients do the free personality test available from www.humanmetrics.com/personalitytest in order to understand their particular preferences.

2. Manage Your Reactions - Once you are aware of your own preferences learn to manage your behaviour when you encounter your non preferred areas or when your own preferred areas are challenged.

3. Know the Preferred and Non Preferred Areas of Team Members - Understanding the preferences and non preferences in the personality profiles of your direct reports will help you to reframe proposals so they are less likely to provoke conflict.

4. Ask What Would Help - If conflict does arise however ask the individual/group what it would take to help them feel more comfortable with the proposal.

Finally - 16 Different Types
Conflict arising from different personality types is even more complex than proposed above. Carl Jung identified 16 different possible combinations arising from these four personality polarities with variations of intensity within each side of each polarity. The closer to the extreme of each polarity individuals may be the greater the potential for confict.
Thankfully however the vast majority of people don’t live at the extreme ends and therefore have some capacity to appreciate something of the strengths of the other side.

GB Coaching & Consulting

09/09/2026

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