The Step Change Blog

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Determination is one thing, but more often than not, achieving success takes more than just sheer willpower. You can be determined yet still be on the wrong path. Going full throttle with no steering wheel may just lead you to a crippling accident. It is essential to recognise the changes needed in your lifestyle and implement them so that you can start driving on the right road.

Happiness is such an abstract concept, yet when we experience it, it feels like an emotion that’s actually tangible. Whether through enjoying simple pleasures, connecting with other people, or achieving a life-long goal, there are different factors that contribute to one’s happiness. But even with all these ways to be happy, it can sometimes still be fleeting.

To most people, success is seen as a destination — a permanent position that can finally be reached through the culmination of the right actions. In a way, it is; and in a way, it isn’t. The right actions are definitely needed, but success isn’t a fixed state that requires a specific number of actions. It’s fluid and ever-changing, and it’s a series of choices that you have to make every single day.

If motivation were a fire, your goals would be the kindling and your driving factor would be the fuelwood that keeps it burning. Too often, people let fear be the driver to their success. Too often, the flame dwindles and exhausts itself. Fear is unsustainable as it is unreliable. In this video, Ashton Bishop, our CEO, shares how detrimental fear can be when using it as a source of motivation to succeed.

If there’s one thing that’s constant in our lives, it’s change. Some people welcome it, some people flee from it, and some people ignore it. In this insightful five-part series, Ashton Bishop, our CEO, shares how you can deal with change to lead you to success.

How many times have you read a book but found it difficult to articulate its message? In this article, Step Change CEO Ashton Bishop reveals how you can turn knowledge into action.

How much of what you read do you actually learn?

How much of that knowledge have you internalised and made useful in your life?

Chances are, it’s a lot less than it could be.

Leadership isn’t just about IQ or technical skill — in fact, these are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. When 58% of all success in jobs are accounted for by emotional intelligence, it’s a clear sign that it has a vital role in the workplace. Moreover, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make an average of $29,000 more per year than people with lower degrees of emotional intelligence.

Is being a leader in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world driving you to the edge? Tough situations require you to be on top of your game, to make sound decisions for your team. But just when you need the very best version of yourself to run the show, the undesirable version shows up and makes a mess out of you.

Is there a way to be a better leader in the VUCA world?

VUCA is a military expression coined in the 90s to describe the tumultuous conditions of the battlefield. It stands for “volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.” And now more than ever, leaders are experiencing such times in the business context.

There’s a growing complexity of how businesses operate, what with the major technological disruptions at work. And executives who are serious about their businesses need to look beyond their own organisations and experiences for new ways to work smart, stay current, and improve.

The number one fear leaders have is being ‘found out’ and having their incompetence uncovered. It’s called the impostor syndrome. If you are experiencing this, you are not alone.

Business leaders will agree that the path to business growth is never easy. Growth means managing the day-to-day — while at the same time thinking about implementing your strategy and making effective decisions that affect the entire organisation. And sometimes, things don’t work out the way you envisioned it. When things go rough, to whom do you turn for wisdom?

An organisation’s success depends on getting the right people. But hiring the right people has been proven to be a challenge among leaders and managers. In fact, in a report by Randstad, 79% of HR managers agree that it’s a struggle to search for people whose capabilities match job requirements.

With disruption inevitably changing how businesses operate, you can’t afford to be complacent; else you risk being displaced by more agile players in your category.

In 2025, 40% of the Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist. In the age of disruption, complacency has no place in great leadership.

It doesn’t matter if you have a winning strategy in place — if your company culture is sloppy, you will not win.

Fill out the form to get your own copy of the Step Change Culture Book.

People see 3,000 branded messages in a single day, notice only 80, and react to only 10. So how can you make your business stand out?