Strategic People Group

Kia ora Andrea

Thanks for another valuable LDP workshop. The whole Leadership Development programme has been incredibly worthwhile, particularly due to your insightful and inspiring leadership.

Your extensive knowledge and skill with the content made challenging scenarios look ‘doable’. Thanks for sharing and lifting the LU leaders present.

My leadership toolkit has definitely expanded and I look forward to using more tools of the trade in future.

Ngā mihi / Regards

Michelle

Lincoln University

Andrea Gardner of Strategic People Group designed a customised leadership development programme for Lincoln University in 2022. This programme consists of three half day modules, each of which is supported with pre-work and a confidential one-to-one coaching session with an Organisational Psychologist from Strategic People Group.

 All of our people leaders, including our Senior Leadership Team, have been through this programme.  Being tailored to our organisation and policies, the content is highly relevant. The practical methodologies are easily applicable to real life, particularly when supported by the 1-1 coaching sessions. The content is comprehensive and backed by research.

Through these workshops, our people leaders have learned a lot about how to bring out the best in themselves and others. They have developed confidence as leaders and we have received much positive feedback and seen first-hand the benefits of their learning transferred to their role. Having our people leaders learning and working together with a consistent approach has brought a lot of advantages because they are all ‘speaking the same language’ and problem solving together. 

This is a popular programme and we continue to run it each year. More recently we have started putting senior staff (aspiring managers, without direct reports) through the programme. We have also engaged Andrea to run check-in sessions for graduates of the programme. These sessions refresh the learning, bring in new content, and extend and amplify the leadership development.

Karen McEwan

Executive Director, People, Culture and Wellbeing

Lincoln University

Karen McEwan

We have had great feedback about the effectiveness of a performance improvement framework designed by Andrea: Linking it with the appraisal has been a good for time management of the process … All team members are confident and excited about the process… I have been surprised at how everyone has responded so enthusiastically – even those I thought would be a tough sell. It has been a good opportunity to talk about behavior expectations in a way of pre-empting future issues and ensuring we are all on the same page as a team. Through creating the information, we identified some areas and ways we can share knowledge better. Some highlights for me have been people identifying things they need to work on … A few people have spotted things they didn’t realize they were missing out on, as well as highlighting those areas they excel in. Some real growth opportunities have been identified from the conversations, which has linked in well to the goal setting in the appraisal process.

Tara Longley and John Eatwell have supported IATA Consulting in providing advisory services to our client, Airservices Australia. These services were comprised of onsite assessment of existing processes, organization and systems involved in the ab-initio ATC selection and recruitment and benchmarking of Airservices Australia’s recruitment and training metrics with leading global Air Navigation Service Providers & Regional Training Organizations. Tara and John’s approach, complemented by their domain knowledge and experience, tremendously helped IATA Consulting to achieve project milestones on time and with great client satisfaction. We were very satisfied with the work undertaken and would be pleased to recommend Tara and John to any other company wishing to use their services in the future.

Laurent Delarue

I have known John for approximately one year. During this time John assisted the organisation through an in-depth organisational review, including a major restructure and culture change. John was taking care of all strategic and operational HR matters, including recruitment, change management, leadership coaching and performance management. I found John’s advice to be professional, timely and of high calibre. John's vast experience, wisdom, high levels of empathy, innovative approach, integrity, positive nature and sense of humour were invaluable throughout his involvement. I enjoyed working with John during this time and highly recommend John's service to organisations with similar needs.  

Suzette van Aswegen

I wanted to let you know about  the amazing amount of positive feedback we have had as a leadership team to the Leaders Coach programme you facilitated last week. We have had teams that attended together really taking some of the learnings on board and individual staff commenting on how it was one of the best leadership days they have attended. Again, much appreciated by all who attended. Thanks  

Kate McCrea

I wanted to say Thank You for bringing John Eatwell in to support us all through the upcoming changes.  From my perspective and observation,  John’s ability to engage with us, his professionalism, and his obvious extensive experience, has added much value and given a level of confidence in the change process that I haven’t experienced before.  I have really enjoyed working with him and have gained a lot personally.  

John, thought you might like to know that someone in the office came to see me this afternoon to thank me for having you on board with the change. They told me how great you are to deal with and just how much you have helped them. They really enjoy your positive approach and feel that you genuinely care about them and the organisation.  Thought I'd pass it on before your weekend and also want to confirm that I totally agree with them. Thanks again and hope you have a great weekend!

John was a key leader in our recruitment and selection team, his skills and knowledge allowed us to develop a world class recruitment process that delivers us ab initio talent of high quality. John's work in this field and his creation of an automated sibling has meant that our product is now being used internationally, with the same outstanding results.

Andy Boyd

John's Positive Leadership and Coaching programme has made a significant difference to the Christchurch Engine Centre. The content has impacted the culture of our company, but more than that, John has always tailored his approach to meet our needs and gone the extra mile to reinforce the principles. His professionalism has won huge respect within the company, while his friendly, personable approach has really connected with our staff. The programme has not only changed careers, but given staff skills for life. I strongly recommend John and the programmes he offers.  

Lois Cameron

John was a key contributor to the Inspectorate Capability Programme of Work, implementing a leadership programme for managers and a coaching programme for senior inspectors / managers as well as developing comprehensive on boarding / induction training and an "on the job coaching" toolkit for the first six months of employment for new Inspectors that was recognised as being of high standard by inspectors and managers. John is great to work with - his experience and skills meant that he was able to come up to speed quickly, gain buy in from key stakeholders and rapidly put in place high calibre development programmes in a busy organisation.

Bethan Hemlock

John has provided us with a research based and proven coaching framework and methodology which fills the identified gap for us - after a year we are really starting to see positive results where managers and staff are having conversations which help define expectations and help staff realise their strengths and how they can achieve even better than they first thought. John has always been available with constructive and practical solutions for us.

Tracey Paterson