Leaders Meet: High Performance Environments, Agenda

Arrival & Networking Breakfast

Discover more >

We know there will be some early risers amongst you, especially in these summer months, so we’ll be opening the doors at 8:30am so you can some new and familiar faces from across the industry over some breakfast and coffee before the day gets started. 

Opening Remarks & Action Planning

Discover more >

We’ve got a lot planned – observation, case studies, group work, skills practice, and some drinks. So we’ll take stock for 10mins so we can set the scene for the day and define a plan and some aims to ensure we get the most out of the hours ahead.  

Craig McRae: Collingwood Football Club 2023 Vision

Priming: What Are We Looking for When Observing?

Collingwood FC: Training Environment Observation

Click to explore >

We’ll be spending the first hour of the day watching a Collingwood FC training session. We’ll prime the attendees with a couple of areas we’d like them to keep in mind while observing the session, all in line with the overarching leadership theme of the day. 

We’ll also hear from Collingwood’s Senior Coach, Craig McRae, in this section of the day. He’ll help us to from the session, and reflect on his leadership philosophy as well as comment on today’s topic.  

Coaches Q&A + Roundtable Discussions

Performance in Practice: Part 1 with Elite Performance Partners

Click to explore >

In this half-day workshop in partnership with Elite Performance Partners (EPP), we’ll be exploring the latest innovation and practical skills needed as performance environments evolve, through partner and performance expert stimulus, breakout discussion and practical skills development.

The workshop is broken down into different sections that will focus on action planning, a partner case study from Elite Performance Partners, interactive breakout discussions, a dedicated skill development session, as well as time for reflections on how to implement some of the learnings back into your teams and organisations.  

​

Performance in Practice: Part 2 – Leadership Skills Session with Elite Performance Partners

Discover more >

In the second part of this half-day workshop in partnership with Elite Performance Partners (EPP) we’ll be combining coaching and case-studies from inside and outside the world of sport, to help enable participants to make a sustained shift in their impact and effectiveness as leaders. 

The particular topic we’ll be focusing on is ‘Teaming’. High performance is a collective endeavour, and the quality of connections between people are as important as the individual talents we have. This session will equip everyone with the self-awareness and skills to help make teamwork a defining strength of our culture. Increasing our effectiveness in sharing ideas, supporting each other, challenging and welcoming that challenge. 

Networking Drinks​ in Partnership with Kairos

Discover more >

We’ll take time to debrief at the end of the session, and ensure you have a clear plan of action on how we can implement today’s learnings back into your organisations. 

Following that, we’ll finish the day with some drinks, in partnership with Kairos, where you’ll have the opportunity to connect and re-connect with peers and friends at the end of the afternoon and into the evening for those of you who wish to stick around. We hope you do! 

We’ll start at the venue, then head to a nearby bar (TBC) from early evening onwards.  

Women’s Sport Breakfast in Partnership with Keiser

Discover more >

The Women’s Sport Breakfast will bring together high-performance practitioners who are passionate about growing women’s sport and access for women in sport, for an opportunity to connect and have impactful conversations before heading into the day’s agenda. Speaking will be Michelle De Highden, Belinda Stowell and Nicole Pratt.

Through a facilitated Q&A, the breakfast will explore some of the issues that affect female individuals within high performance sport, that were addressed in ‘The Female Lead: The Evolution of Athlete and Coach Development in Women’s Sport’ Special Report, in partnership with Keiser. 

Welcome Address & Action Planning

Discover more >

Just like yesterday, we’ll take some time to set the scene for the day and identify a plan and some intentions to ensure we get the most out of what lies ahead over the coming hours.

The Cohesion of Teams: What are the Secrets of Effective Collaboration?​

Click to explore >

To enhance and encourage creativity and collaboration in your teams you need talent, healthy relationships, a clear vision, safety, trust, and much more. Understanding departmental sub-cultures and team dynamics are all concerns faced by leaders across high performance on a daily basis – and we’re lucky enough to have expert from outside of sport to explore exactly that. Benjamin Northey from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will be sharing insights on how he and the organisation encourage cohesion, and set up their teams and groups up to ensure collaboration is at the heart of everything they do.​

Interactive Roundtables:​ Stimulating Teamwork and Collaboration

Click to explore >

This is an opportunity to discuss the previous session with your peers in the room. We’ll also provide guidance and structure so you can explore how you and your teams can build collaboration at pace learning how to exchange ideas, solve problems and learn with people we don’t know that well. ​

Change and Transition: How to Lead When There is a Shift in Behaviours

Click to explore >

We all know that most people are not great at dealing with change. Why? The truth is, it depends. Not so much on the person, but on their perception of the change – and that’s where we can make a huge difference as leaders. In this session we explore the psychology of change, and what we can do as leaders to help ourselves and others respond at their best. 

To help us delve into this fascinating topic, we’ll have the world renowned management and personality expert Reb Rebele, Senior Research Fellow at The Wharton People Analytics Initiative, explain a framework for differentiating between four common kinds of behaviour-change problems, and some ideas about how to solve them. ​

Interactive Roundtables: Behavioural Framework

Discover more >

This is an opportunity to discuss the previous session with your peers in the room.

Invite-only Working Lunch: Building a Cohesive Team to Working Towards the Same Goal

Discover more >

This invite only Working Lunch is a 60-minute roundtable discussion taking place on Wednesday, in partnership with Keiser, for a group of practitioners to come together for a private yet interactive discussion around the topic of ‘Building a Cohesive Team to Working Towards the Same Goal’. The session will be led by Leaders and Keiser and will enable attendees to connect and engage with the other attendees, who all have a mutual interest in the topic, and are all in similar job roles across the industry. This session will be most relevant to those managing, or leading high performance environments. If you’d like to attend, please email [email protected].

Fostering Googleyness: How to Recruit and Retain for a World Class Culture

Click to explore >

A key role we have as leaders is to help shape a positive, winning culture in the organisation. To do this we need to have a clear vision of the culture we are trying to nurture, and we need to encourage people to speak up about what is getting in the way. We also need to aware of the different ways in which we as leaders can reinforce and help embed the behaviours we want to increase.

​No matter what industry you’re in, two of the main ingredients of success are the people and the culture. It’s fair to say that Google are world class at getting both of these spot on. We’ll be joined by the company’s People and Culture Lead, Tova Angsuwat, to learn how they scale their unique culture for 200,000 people across 100 offices worldwide, and ensure that Google are recruiting and retaining talent in line with their values and environment.  

Inclusive Environments: Can High Performance Sport Create a Culture of Belonging?

Click to explore >

The evidence for the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion to an organisation’s performance is stronger than ever. Research done by McKinsey and others proves that DE&I is absolutely critical to a high performing culture. With the previous session in mind, we’ll explore the importance of a co-existence of different generations, backgrounds, and cultures within our high performance environments.

We’ll be doing this with the help of a trailblazer and leader in the industry, Matti Clements of the Australian Institute of Sport. She’ll be sharing her thoughts and experience on what it takes to ensure an environment is inclusive, and will of course shine a light on Australia’s High Performance Sport Strategy – ensuring that the country’s high performance sport system is united in our pursuit to build an inclusive + sustainable sporting system that is Performance Driven, Athlete Focused, Exceptionally Led, and Purposefully Collaborative.  ​

Open Spaces: Creating A Culture Of Belonging

Click to explore >

We’ll use an interactive Open Spaces format to get you on your feet, meet someone in the room you haven’t spoke to yet, and explore and practice some new leadership skills that will help support our team members when change is happening, or has happened, in our organisations. ​

The Application of Knowledge: Making Learning a Successful Process​

Click to explore >

One of the biggest challenges around the practice of learning is how you apply that learning in your context. What are the best strategies for effective learning? What does world class evaluation and debriefing look like? We’ll take a look at some case studies of high-quality learning environments, as well as using this time to reflect on the day and think how we can take the learnings back into our organisations over the coming days and weeks ahead. 

We’ll hear from one of the best in the business, the new and return Wallabies Head Coach, Eddie Jones. One of sports life learners, he’ll share his insights on how important it is to continue to acquire new knowledge and apply it within your environment if you want to evolve and stay ahead of the competition.  ​

Final Reflections

Click to explore >

We’ll finish the day by reflecting on the day, and the learnings shared by the speakers and your peers in the room alike. We’ll ensure that these insights aren’t lost, and can be applied and integrated into our organisations over the coming days and weeks ahead.​