Welcome to our latest Newsletter!
This month our newsletter has a slightly different focus than usual as we applaud some of the achievements of individuals, projects and organisations that our BRS team are involved with.
We want to take the time to celebrate some of these positive stories, share their wins and hopefully provide some inspiration through culture change, legacy and looking to make a difference to others.
Creating a Sustainable Organisation through Culture Change
The BRS team have been working alongside our friends at Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Central Operations for many years. One of the areas we have assisted RFDS with is with their leadership and culture development, utilising the Human Synergistics diagnostic tools. RFDS first started using this suite of diagnostics in 2019 and in late 2022 they undertook an Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI) and Organisational Effectiveness Inventory (OEI) retest.
The change in culture they have driven over the three years exceeded all expectations. The results showed a 120% improvement in the Constructive behavioural norms, 35% reduction in Passive/Defensive norms and a 41% reduction in Aggressive/Defensive norms. This represents a significant shift to norms that reinforce Constructive behaviours. There were improvements in all outcomes at the individual, group and organisational level, with particularly strong improvement in motivation, clarification and teamwork/coordination. What makes the results even more outstanding is that they achieved these remeasure results through COVID-19, which was particularly challenging given the industry and environment that the RFDS Central Operations operates in.
Our team have really enjoyed working with the RFDS team and executing the Leadership and Culture Development Plan initiatives over the past three years. It is an outstanding organisation that provides a critical service to people across South Australia and Northern Territory, and we are confident they are going to continue to thrive for many years to come.
To learn more about the work we did with the RFDS and the tools that were used to drive this outstanding change, please see the detailed case study on the Human Synergistics website.
What is your Legacy as an Organisation or from a Project?
This year we have seen a trend in people, organisations and projects reflecting on their roles and the outcomes they are delivering with many reflective discussions around questioning our purpose or our ‘why’. This questioning or reflection is a great way for projects and organisations to really hone in on their key messaging to staff as to why what they do matters and what will be their enduring legacy they leave behind for others.
This has enabled BRS to facilitate many legacy discussions for organisations and projects over the last 12 months with this focus. These have resulted in facilitated workshops with leadership teams around what impact they will have or want to achieve, or what their legacy will be during their time at their organisation. This has been particularly powerful on large projects where starting with the end in mind is a powerful way to develop your aspirational goals, vision, key result areas and objectives for your programme initiatives or projects. It has been powerful in shaping not only the thinking of leaders but the storytelling that follows.
If this is something that resonates with you, or your organisation or project and you’d like to have a chat with someone from our team how we might go about this, please reach out to enquiries@brsresults.com
Creating a Legacy through Volunteering
All our BRS team members are very passionate volunteers within our community. For many of us, we initially met whilst volunteering within our local sporting organisations, schools, or other non-for-profits. We all get a lot of enjoyment out of giving back to our communities and getting involved in anything at our community organisations from board level, coaching to cooking a BBQ.
Whilst all our BRS team members give a huge amount of time to their organisations, we would like to give a shout out to one of our team members, Nicole Williams, who won the South Australia Cricket Association and then Cricket Australia Volunteer Awards in 2022, but then went on to win the Inaugural Australian Institute of Sport Volunteer of the Year. Nicole has put an enormous amount of time and effort towards Brighton Cricket Club, junior cricket and the female pathways in South Australia and it was terrific to see one of our own recognised for this!
If you currently don’t volunteer, we would encourage you to do so even if it is only a few hours of your time each year. These sporting and non-for-profit organisations who have volunteers from all different backgrounds and levels of experience need people like us to help them to ensure their organisations are sustainable and thriving. Don’t underestimate the impact you can have as a volunteer, or the impact your involvement can have on you!
It very strongly links to our legacy discussion in our prior newsletter item as legacy tends to be not only what you achieve but what you leave in others through how you make them feel appreciated and connected.
New Case Studies Showcasing our Client Activities
The BRS team have been busy in assisting our clients in the last 12 months in a range of areas that reflect the strength and capability of our Associates who bring different strengths and skillsets to our clients. From facilitating major procurements, coaching for a very unique homelessness alliance through to industry facilitation of safety and risk and opportunity workshops, it has been a busy time for our team.
We have taken the time to document these different areas that we have been working on through case studies which are now on our website. They are a great read and hopefully allow everyone to see the depth of capability we have added to the BRS team. More information on these case studies can be found here.
Our Entrepreneurial Activities
For those readers who have known BRS founders Kym and Nicole Williams for some time will know that they are both very passionate entrepreneurs, particularly when it comes to start ups and the importance of them spending time mentoring and investing in others.
We have decided to showcase two of these start ups, given they relate to the legacy and culture theme of this newsletter and this is where Nicole and Kym spend a lot of their additional time outside of their family and BRS in looking to make a difference.
Yabble and ChatGPT
One of these start ups is Yabble, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). We are thrilled to share that last week they launched their innovative AI plugin for market research on the ChatGPT plugin store – the first in the industry!
Yabble allows anyone to transform the time-consuming process of data collection and analysis. Turning what typically takes days or weeks into an instantaneous experience. This development represents a watershed moment in the field of market research, where the long-desired goal of instant insights is now a reality.
As we all know, AI is changing our industries immeasurably every day. Through the reach of Yabble’s ChatGPT Plugin a whole new generation of users can unlock insights with incredible ease and speed making data driven decision making a reality for everyone on every project!
AI is something that we believe will have a significant impact on the infrastructure industry and other industries as its application becomes more tangible over the next couple of years. Stay tuned for more developments in this area.
BigPurplePhone
Smartphones for Seniors and the Disability Sector
In 2022 Nicole was trying to find a smartphone solution for her Mum who finds technology challenging. Her search led her to the BigPurplePhone, and she was so impressed with the phone and the potential it has, Kym and Nicole are now also involved with this start up.
Given many of our readers have aging parents, or care for someone with a disability, we wanted to share our recommendation for the BigPurplePhone with you.
This phone is designed specifically for Seniors who struggle with technology, it uses a Nokia phone and operates on the Telstra network.
The BigPurplePhone team set the phone up for you and the cost of the phone can be fully funded by NDIS if the user qualifies.
As this has been such a terrific phone for Nicole’s Mum who lives in regional South Australia, we wanted to share our recommendation with you and for those readers who are in New Zealand – we will be coming to you soon!