The Step Change Blog

The latest thinking on business, strategy, marketing and sales

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July 20, 2023

How Do You Overcome a Bad Decision?

Business Strategy, Decision Making, Productivity, Culture & Leadership, Scenario Planning, Institute of Change, High Performing Teams, Business Opportunities, Smart Decision System, Smart Risk

When you've made a bad decision, how do you overcome? Here are four simple ways to recover from a bad decision.

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June 29, 2023

Do Your Best Work Yet by Mastering This 2-Letter Word

Productivity, Culture & Leadership

Not all opportunities are created equal. You will find that some are worth saying yes to — they advance your business and your career growth. But saying yes all the time can be unhealthy.

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October 19, 2022

Insight Hunters: 6 Critical Questions Every CEO Must Answer

Business Strategy, Ashton Bishop, Marketing Strategy, Disruption, Culture & Leadership, Better Questions, Norman Chorn, Better Insights, Thinking Routines, High Performing Teams, Agile

Massive change and disruption have transformed the way we work and live. The old ways are no longer working and innovative and more creative solutions are called for by the day.

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October 19, 2022

Insight Hunters EP5: What’s the One Mistake Leaders Make the Most?

Ashton Bishop, Culture & Leadership, Leadership, Better Questions, Norman Chorn, Better Insights

Welcome to a new episode of the Insight Hunters with Dr Norman and Detective Flash! Ready to ask better questions to get better insights?

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April 7, 2021

6 Things No One Has Told You about Culture

manifesto, Marketing Strategy, Culture & Leadership

Unless you’ve been running your business under a rock, you would know that businesses today are operating in a VUCA environment. In this context, it’s the quick-thinking, action-oriented, and strategic organisations that win. Those that produce strategic documents and leave them in a bottom drawer — well, they come second or simply fail to finish.

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March 9, 2021

An Effective Framework for Strategic Decision-Making

Decision Making, Culture & Leadership

Companies do not come to faster decisions by osmosis — it is always the result of a better decision-making framework.In agile organisations, the ability to make nimble decisions lead to 2.5x the growth, twice the profit, and a 30% higher ROI on investments.

How can you unlock your ability to make better, smarter decisions?

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January 11, 2021

5 of Your Favourite Step Change Articles from 2020

Business Strategy, Ashton Bishop, Step Change, Branding, Marketing Strategy, Bendy Phones, Powerful Presence, Culture & Leadership, Fintech, Marketing Automation
After successfully navigating a year of unparalleled change and disruption, now is the time to look ahead and venture into 2021 with confidence.
 
As we distill fresh business insights and build a refined strategy, we thought it would be worthwhile to look back at the year that was 2020, through the eyes of our Step Change Blog highlights.
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September 25, 2020

Navigating Complexity: 5 Scenario Planning Mistakes & How To Stop Them

Business Strategy, Ashton Bishop, Marketing Strategy, Decision Making, Creativity, Culture & Leadership, Scenario Planning, Alignment

Learn about the scenario planning mistakes and how you can prevent them from misfiring your strategy so you can navigate complexity efficiently.

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June 12, 2020

The 4 Executive Modes: Which One Are You?

Business Strategy, Ashton Bishop, Culture & Leadership

UPDATE: In a special event, Dr Chris Shambrook of PlanetK2 delivers a masterclass on performance– drawing inspiration from the perspective of Leader, Manager, Mentor and Coach, or what is collectively known as the Four Executive Modes. 

In this interview, the master-coach, author and speaker walks the Step Change community through how business leaders can drive more value into their interactions by moving between these modes. He also talks about the lead indicators of performance, what performance looks like regardless of the mode, and emphasises the appropriate human connection and social support required from industry leaders.

Watch the full video here.


In these times of great change and uncertainty, it is very important that we adapt and utilise the opportunities and resources at our disposal the best we can. This is especially true for industry leaders because every decision has the potential to make or break your organisation.

To begin, you will need to fully define your role as an executive within your organisation by understanding the 4 Executive Modes namely– Leader, Manager, Mentor and Coach

Clearly defining these modes will allow you to understand and seamlessly move between these roles, propelling your organisation to even greater heights.

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January 7, 2020

Top 10 Articles C-Suites Read in the Step Change Blog [2019 Edition]

Business Strategy, Step Change, Branding, Marketing Strategy, Culture & Leadership, Fintech, Marketing Automation

The new year is here! And as we venture forward with fresh business insights and useful strategy, here are the top 10 articles most popular with C-suites in 2019 that you may have missed. 

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August 1, 2019

Loss of Power Pattern: How Powerful Leaders Move beyond Blame

Powerful Presence, Culture & Leadership

The biggest hindrance to transformation and innovation in the workplace is blame culture. Throughout most times, many do not realise that an atmosphere of blame can be deeply rooted in leadership.

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July 19, 2019

How to Become a Customer-Centric Organisation

Step Change, Culture & Leadership, Customer Centricity, Transformation

It’s easy to say your business is customer-centric; in fact, many businesses would claim they are putting their customers at the heart of what they do. 

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July 16, 2019

Join the Step Change Customer-Centricity Masterclass

Step Change, Culture & Leadership, Customer Centricity

Modern customers are savvy and sceptical. Businesses can no longer win because of their scale, professionalism, and history. It’s those that put the customer’s best interest at heart who perform better and win.

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July 15, 2019

Customer-Centricity and the Banking Royal Commission

Finance, Culture & Leadership, Financial Services, Customer Centricity, Transformation

In the past, customers often trusted banks on the basis of their scale, professionalism, and history. Today, customers are more likely to measure the trustworthiness of a bank based on their customer service and support. Customer-centricity is likely to be the key to winning over customers again.

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May 9, 2019

How to Build a Customer-Centric Culture: Key Takeaways from Our Event

Culture & Leadership, Customer Centricity

Here’s a recap on the biggest takeaways from last month’s Step Change Open Haus event, How to Build a Customer-Centric Culture.

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March 22, 2019

Customer-Centricity: Developing a Company Culture Your Customers Will Love

Culture & Leadership, Customer Centricity

There is no question about it. Customer-centric companies perform better and are far better able to drive customer loyalty. If you‘re a company looking to adopt a more customer-centric culture, where do you start and how exactly do you make that transition?

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March 16, 2019

Financial Services Royal Commission: High-Level Key Insights around Culture

Finance, Culture & Leadership

Poor culture leads to poor conduct. Following the release of the Commissioner’s final report, it’s clear that businesses need to get their culture and governance right.

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March 8, 2019

Customer-Centric Culture: Why Being Customer-Obsessed Leads to Greater Revenue

Digital, Culture & Leadership, Customer Centricity

Many informed businesses today are actively looking for ways to transform their business model or their culture to become more customer-centric, but many struggle to implement it or just don’t know where to start.

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December 4, 2018

Kevin Roberts on Creative Process: How to Become a Creative Leader

Creativity, Culture & Leadership

In today’s diverse business landscape, creativity is an essential skill that modern business leaders need to have. It is synonymous to imagination and innovative thinking — specific skill sets that are necessary in pushing workforces to be progressive.  

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November 2, 2018

Reporting on Transformational Activities to the Board

Culture & Leadership, Change Management

In disruptive times, change may be essentially imposed to improve what is not working or steer the wheel towards a new direction.

No matter what type of change your organisation is going through, having the means to measure success and being able to report the progress to the board are crucial to ensuring that your organisation stays afloat as it wades through these challenging times.

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October 26, 2018

Change Communications: A Leader’s Guide to an Effective Transformation

Culture & Leadership

The need to lead change is growing. But leaders who have done it before can attest that going through a transformation is a complicated process. Explore one of the key factors that helps leaders successfully lead transformations: change communications.

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September 14, 2018

How to Find Your Next Big Step Change [Podcast]

Business Strategy, Step Change, Marketing Strategy, Creativity, Digital, Culture & Leadership, Business Growth

Our CEO, Ashton Bishop, reveals what businesses can do to find their next step change, and how to implement the Big 6 Challenges for business growth in this 7-minute Marketing the Invisible podcast with Tom Poland.

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August 2, 2018

Kevin Roberts’s Lessons on Failing Fast

Culture & Leadership

Running a business or managing a team is no walk in the park. Along the way, we realise that failure is unavoidable and sometimes even necessary. In this fourth video of a five-part interview series, we asked former Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts on what we can learn from failure and how to make the most of it.

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July 26, 2018

Life after the Merger: How Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media Can Redefine Their Company Culture

Business Strategy, Culture & Leadership

A four-billion dollar merger is underway between two of the country’s media player giants, Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media. The new company name after the merger is Nine, and it is set to become Australia’s formidable integrated media player.

With two giants combining forces to create one formidable integrated media player, there is one worthy question that begs an answer.

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July 18, 2018

How Great Leaders Drive and Sustain an Accountable Organisational Culture

Culture & Leadership

When your employees make a serious mistake, what’s their initial response? Is it making excuses? Finger pointing? Or do they have a great sense of ownership for business results that they take action to solve the problem and learn from their mistake?

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June 19, 2018

How to Achieve Peak Performance at Work

Culture & Leadership, Business Growth

Many agencies who are at their optimal performance are striving to achieve peak performance thinking that is what is needed to win.

So we asked former Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts how to maintain peak performance in your team and as an individual. In this video, he also shares how he has been able to put this into action to get to where he is now.

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May 28, 2018

Change Management Principles: How to Lead Change and Make It Stick

Business Strategy, Culture & Leadership

No matter how far-reaching a leader’s vision may be, the reality is that transforming organisations is a difficult and arduous task. Many businesses today are so deeply rooted in operational efficiency and stability that they continue to struggle with how to effectively manage and sustain change.

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January 19, 2018

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Miss Out on the Practice of Powerful Presence

Powerful Presence, Culture & Leadership

The Practice of Powerful Presence is a series of concepts and exercises that let you consistently bring out the best in you so you can be the best leader for others.

The next Powerful Presence is in Adelaide on 24th - 26th August. Register Here. 

This is not another leadership tool or app you can simply download — it’s the complete operating system you need if you want to think clearly, think creatively, be powerfully present, and have an edge in your communications.

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January 12, 2018

Are You a Leader or a Manager? You Might Not Like the Answer.

Powerful Presence, Culture & Leadership

If you can’t simply define management and leadership then you can’t hope to be effective at either. We’ve got it down to a word for each. At the end of this article you should be able to see what great looks like — no matter what side of the divide you come down on.

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December 19, 2017

Is Hubris Syndrome Distorting Your Leaders’ Decision-Making?

Culture & Leadership

Today’s dynamic global economy has us facing a challenging task of steering our organisations towards success.

The stress from rising competition and regulation, resource management, revenue generation, and customer retention only shows that we have the toughest jobs in the market.

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