Welcome to Performance Frontiers.
We work with leaders focused on transformation and committed to a meaningful impact in the world.
They’re the leaders building the organisations of the future. The curious. The purposeful. Those with courage to propel the world forward, one step at a time.
If you’re one of them, we help you and your team imagine the future you wish to see, explore your greatest opportunities for change, and transform where needed to make your vision a reality.
Our work is co-creative, human-led and spans your whole system — whether it’s transforming your business, developing your leaders and teams, co-designing new products, services and experiences, or mobilising movements that achieve more than one organisation can alone.
In partnership, we help people and organisations lead transformation with the power to make a meaningful difference — in lives, in business, and in the world in which we live.
This is how we live our purpose every day: Developing human capacity for regenerative futures.
Latest Insights

Protected: Psychological Safety: The Magic Recipe
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How Can AI Help You Lead More Like a Human?
While AI is being used to uncover patterns and make predictions in organisations, it’s also increasingly making managerial decisions. ... read more

How should I think about Generative AI changing my work?
In late 2022, the world was abuzz with the release of Chat-GPT. Chat GPT attracted 1 million users in just 5 days, the fastest rate of ... read more

Generative AI as Your Creativity Sidekick
Recently, a fan sent music artist Nick Cave a song written by Chat GPT “in the style of Nick Cave”. Here is an excerpt from Nick ... read more

Cohesing the Executive Team
As we aspire to regenerative futures and the best way to nurture sustainable growth for our people and systems, the focus falls ... read more

Getting the Trick of Teaming
In 2018, the world’s attention was briefly united on a boy’s soccer team from Thailand. In a disastrous turn of events, the group who ... read more

Amping Communication with Strategic Partners
“It’s more important to be on emotion than it is to be on message.” - Edmund Hill The smooth operation and even the growth of our ... read more

Storytelling with Data
“Data storytelling represents an exciting, new field of expertise where art and science truly converge.” - Brent Dykes We live in a ... read more

Storytelling To Transform
The work of a modern leader is diverse, but one thread runs through each of their many activities: influencing. A leader is faced with ... read more

The Stewardship Mindset
Evolutionary biologists believe that one of the major reasons for the success of the human race has been our ability to work ... read more

Setting the Compass on Organisational Stewardship
Mentoring is a familiar concept. We understand intuitively that it relates to sharing wisdom, insights, and skills with another person ... read more

Leadership on the Stage
Have you ever felt as though you are performing? Sometimes our clients say to us just that - it feels like they are on a stage when ... read more

Finding Our Whole | The Shift from us AND Environment to us AS Environment
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works, and the way people think” – Gregory ... read more

Four Practices for Building Regenerative Organisational Cultures
Our thinking is shifting. No longer are we focused solely on sustainability as our long-term goal. Instead, we are seeking more ... read more

Service Leadership Reimagined
“In the case of servant-leadership, a leader’s motivation derives from a core, egalitarian belief that they are no better than those ... read more

Transformational Leadership: Then and Now
When we picture great leaders, familiar names often come to mind: Nelson Mandela, Gandhi or Hillary Clinton. Something about them ... read more

Leading for Regenerative Futures
“The organisation modelled on living systems is a move away from thinking of the organisation as a rigid, reductive, mechanistic ... read more

Everyday Human-Centred Learning Design
While our audience are usually front of mind as learning designers, sometimes the reality of the job means we are relying on scant or ... read more

PF BY DESIGN | Framing Creativity
Our design team recently enjoyed a creative recharge when visiting the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) ... read more

Creative Leadership: Leading With and For Creativity
As technology continues its automation of programmatic work, the premium on creativity in the workplace only grows. Creativity allows ... read more

Creative Courtyards | Making Space For Creativity
It’s been said that creative thought is at the core of human progress. In this context, it can be seen as the reason we enjoy our ... read more

Digital Connections | Knowledge Transfer in Hybrid Environments
The Deloitte study Global Human Capital Trends found organisations believe “knowledge management” to be one of the top three issues ... read more

Sharing Knowledge – The Power Of The Collective
“More than ever before, knowledge sharing is being led by people, culture and context.” Jody Turner, Future Trends. According to a ... read more

Scaling Excellence | Adaptive Systems for Knowledge Transfer
When most people think about scaling a business, they think about acquiring more of a certain tangible resource: talent, capital, ... read more

Bodies of Knowledge | What if your body has the answers you’ve been seeking?
By my actions teach my mind. ~ William Shakespeare Remember when you were a child, and the world was not something just for your mind ... read more

De-escalating with CALM
After years of doom scrolling our way through the day, we are in many ways tired. One part of this is just the loss of our normal ... read more

Improv for Agile Mindsets
As leaders are increasingly required to facilitate more collaborative, agile workspaces, so too must our skill bases and the focus of ... read more

Amping Your Somatic Intelligence
To remain relevant, competitive, and buoyant, organisations need to change the frequency of their actions into increasingly shorter ... read more

Expanding Our Repertoire | Future-Proofing with Coaching
The acronym ‘VUCA’ – meaning volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous - has wedged itself into the language of organisational ... read more

What is Strategy?
Mike Tyson once famously said: “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” And it can certainly feel that way when we ... read more

The Ties that Bind Us: External Social Capital and Innovation
Few partnerships could be considered more profitable than that of “Wintel”. Microsoft and Intel dominated the PC-era and led the ... read more

What is Attunement?
Curiosity and empathy are familiar terms in personal and leadership development. It could be argued that, to a degree, curiosity ... read more

Cultures of Recognition
"Social capital is fundamentally about how people interact with each other." Dekker and Uslaner The Coronavirus pandemic has tested ... read more

Growing Pains: What The Science Behind Hybrid Working Tells Us
Zoom fatigue, back-to-back meetings, and lack of commute time to decompress… Hybrid working has brought with it a whole new raft of ... read more

PF By Design | Togetherness Toolkit
Social cohesion activities for hybrid workplaces When it comes to cohesing in the hybrid space, we are finding that being more ... read more

The Social Animal: Finding Fulfilment
Many years of sociological research have identified a number of primary social needs that drive human behaviour. During periods of ... read more

Regenerative Teams: Rhythm and Reach
Few interpersonal relationships are more important to organisations than the dynamics of teams. It’s uncontroversial then to say that ... read more

PF By Design | In Conversation with Rami Saab
This month, as the greater Performance Frontiers team explore diversity, equity and inclusion with an open heart and people-focussed ... read more

Amplifying Voices: Optimal Feedback Loops
A San Francisco-based executive consultant recounts a conversation he overheard about Steve Jobs’ feedback style while at Pixar. Jobs ... read more

Headwinds and Tailwinds
If you're serious about diversity and inclusion, pay attention to the winds. Many of us have experienced exclusion at some point in ... read more

The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Shift is a Learning Shift
The case for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in organisations has been made extensively. To start, in our practice at ... read more

What If Your Boss Was A Computer?
Depending on who you speak to, you might receive any number of predictions for the future of work. Lists, prophecies and projections ... read more

Regenerative Leader Mindsets
What can you do to become a Regenerative Leader? Nature has been practicing the art of regeneration for eons. Salamanders and newts ... read more

The Hybrid Equation
We are in the second of the two great work transitions brought on by the pandemic. The first: a mass movement to work from home. The ... read more

Who’s Got YOU? | Self-Care for Leaders
An iconic moment in Superman: The Movie still resonates decades after the film’s release in 1978. Lois Lane, dangling precariously ... read more

Regenerative Leadership: The Logic of Life
“Life creates conditions conducive to life.” - Janine Benyus Inspired by the harmony and energy of life as it moves through cycles ... read more

Buffered Learning | Affect & Effect
Picture this: it’s 1pm on a Wednesday and you’re sitting in a training session. You’ve had a stressful morning where your boss snapped ... read more

Leading Through Ambiguity
Are you climbing the ladder, spinning your wheels, or up the creek without a paddle? The use of simple analogies in business are ... read more

The Power of a Kindness Ecosystem
The power of kindness to bring us joy is a tale as old as time. The Buddha teaches: “If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also ... read more

Trust in the Age of Affinity
We are living in an Age of Affinity and when it comes to work, people are attracted to organisations and teams that share their ... read more

Atomic Presence: IRL Connection in URL Learning Environments
How do we connect virtually with the same dynamic presence that we do in real life? The learning and development community is asking ... read more

Purpose-led Giving
As the end of another extraordinary and disrupted year draws closer, many of us are thinking about ways we can give back this festive ... read more

Valuing Intuition in a Wicked World
Intuition is regarded by some as the summit of human judgment. Studies have shown how chess masters are able to recognise patterns ... read more

The Power of Shared Language
Have you ever had a cryptic conversation with a close friend? The kind where you only need a few key words and phrases for them to ... read more

Crypto Credentials | Blockchain Breaking Through Bias
As learning professionals, we put our hearts and minds into designing programs that uplift, educate and transform. Often these ... read more

Reading Between the Lines | Ask vs. Guess Culture at Work
Are you a Guesser or an Asker? It’s still a conversation topic over a decade after the question was first posed back in 2007 by ... read more

How to Make a Success of Succession Planning
During the pandemic, some leaders have found themselves in situations that have seen their teams depleted of people to perform important roles, due to the impact of lockdowns or other Covid related events. This kind of global disruption is a timely reminder of the importance of understanding the critical nodes within our workflow and of constantly building resilience into our whole system through methods such as succession planning. read more

Change is not Transition
In our work life, we are experiencing a high rate of change as we adjust to the fluctuations in the business landscape. The stress of ... read more

Being Agile | Closing the Gap Between Methodology and Mindset
Agile is one of the most revolutionary business models in the last twenty years. It is liberating organisations from vertical, siloed ... read more

Pushing Back Without Pushing Away
If we all speak up and push back more often, we contribute to creating cultures of open knowledge-sharing and an ever expanding ... read more

Courageous Conversations
Embedded within constructive conversations are “courageous” conversations - the tough ones that we avoid if possible. Whether we are ... read more

Addressing Unconscious Bias
When facing a tough decision, we are often encouraged to listen to our instincts. But have you ever wondered how your ‘gut’ makes a ... read more

The Age of Affinity – values-based decision making
As we leave behind globalisation and profit-only mindsets, we find ourselves in a new age of values-based leadership and decision ... read more

Belonging – the power of inclusivity
Research tell us that a sense of belonging is the key ingredient in maintaining a relatively stable workplace. Find out why it's so ... read more

Immunity to Change
There is a mysterious gap between our intentions and our actions that often prevents us from making the changes we seek. ... read more

Racheting Up Resilience
How to grow your resilience muscle to do the heavy lifting in the new normal. read more

Talking High Performing Teams with Laura Clemesha
Performance Frontiers are thrilled to welcome our new associate, Laura Clemesha. Laura is a former member of the Queensland Firebirds ... read more

From Prophesy to Strategy
Gaze into the crystal ball with us in our latest article for Training & Development Magazine. read more

Award-Winning BIG W Optimum Program
We won Best Learning Culture in an Organisation for our work on BIG W Optimum! read more
Three Questions with Principal Dr Hayley Linthwaite
We’re delighted to announce Dr Hayley Linthwaite has been appointed Principal of Performance Frontiers. Hayley joined us in 2017 and ... read more

Just Transitions – Interview with Dr Matt Beard
Performance Frontiers talk leadership and the next frontiers in ethics with Dr Matt Beard of The Ethics Centre. read more

Ethics in the Digital Age
What does ethical leadership mean in our evolving digital workplace? read more

ANZ Mental Health Association Feature: Job Crafting Your Nine to Thrive
Natalie Richardson's latest piece offers practical tips to craft a better working life for you and your team. read more

The Dance of Partnering
In this article, we learn the "dance" of business partnering: joining and differentiating read more

We are AITD Award Finalists!
Our partnerships with BIG W, and Logan City Council, have both been nominated for an AITD Award. read more

Join us at The Great Wave, Oct 16-19 2020
Hayley Linthwaite and Natasha Budd are facilitating "Here Be Dragons" an immersive online experience at The Great Wave Melbourne Hub. read more

Job Crafting: Redesigning Your 9 to Thrive.
Performance Frontiers are presenting at the Workplace Mental Health Symposium. read more

Empathy Mapping: The Road to Innovation
Good design begins with empathy. In this article, we explore how to place empathy at the heart of our problem-solving and innovation processes. read more

The Power of Story
Story is a powerful, but often under-appreciated leadership tool. Here's are some need-to-knows about unleashing the power of story. read more

Building Self-Esteem: From Self to Whole Team
How can we sustainably instil a strong sense of self-esteem in ourselves, our team and our whole organisation? read more

Bridging the Strategy Execution Gap
You've set your strategic focus, now it's time to take action. This is often where things fall apart. When it comes to strategy execution, how do we bridge the gap? read more

Dynamic Decision Making: How to Beat the Tortoise
We're often told that quick decisions are reckless; that slow and steady is the wiser way. We all know the tale of the tortoise and the hare. But what if we could beat the tortoise and make wise decisions at pace? read more

Strategic Prioritisation
It's common to find ourselves asking, which - from our array of strategic initiatives - should receive the most attention and why? read more

Sharpening our Strategic Focus
How do we share our focus between how we operate our organisation today, and how we innovate and implement strategies for the future? read more

Workplace Today Interview: Business Innovation During COVID-19
Alis speaks to Workplace Today about the necessity of innovation in this landscape, and how leaders can cultivate workplace cultures primed for innovation. read more

Hayley Linthwaite to present at Global Cyber Conference for Peace
Senior Associate, Dr Hayley Linthwaite, is co-hosting a session this Saturday June 27th at the Global Cyber Peace Conference. This ... read more

Learning From Living Systems
There is much wisdom to be found in the natural systems that surround us. Here are 4 Leadership Lessons captured in a brilliant living document, courtesy of the DAC lab. read more

ATOMIC Presence for Digital Learning
In our latest article for Training & Development magazine, Hayley explores how the human connection can be strengthened online. read more

Energising Performance Conversations
Performance conversations can be tricky. How do leaders re-energise the process for better outcomes? And how do we navigate post-covid? read more

Introduction to Whole Systems Thinking
It took a pandemic to see how connected and interdependent we are as a global community. As leaders, we need to understand what it means to lead with whole systems awareness, so we can make sure our ripple effect is a positive one. read more

10 tips for Facilitating Online Learning with Zoom
One story of how we fast-tracked our digital strategy and pivoted to 100% online learning in less than a week. read more

Three Questions with Marianne de Pierres
In 2020, PF celebrated our 20th birthday. With over 20 years' of leadership, learning and transformation carefully crafted and collated content under our belts, and a brand new vision to scale our positive impact, we were looking for the perfect voice to share our great work with the rest of the world. In walked Marianne. read more

Political Astuteness: “Dirty Word” or Vital Leadership Skill?
What does it mean to be politically astute and why is this a key skill in today's business environment? read more

Transformational Leadership in the Age of Epidemics
COVID-19 is not a blip in the system. Disruption is new normal. To thrive, we need leaders with buoyancy and purpose. Leaders who are not afraid to challenge convention. Leaders dedicated to transformation. read more

Training Industry Magazine Feature: Psych Safety
To get the best out of teams, the modern leader must nurture psychological safety. Yet this is particularly hard in remote teams and fast-moving organisations. Our latest article, published in the March edition of Training Industry Magazine, outlines five tried and tested safety tools you can use to help teams rapidly develop psychological safety. read more

Adaptive Leadership
Our world is a complex, unpredictable ecosystem. Now with the added gravity of a pandemic in our lives, we can hardly ignore the VUCA reality that envelopes us. Without minimising the current realities we’re experiencing, how might we find a way to adapt and thrive? read more

Creative Brainstorming Tools
To solve for new and unprecedented challenges, we need new ways of thinking. Here are three tools to spark it... read more

From ‘Fake It Till You Make It’, To Cultivating True Joy
In name of making it through COVID-19, you may feel pressure to “put on a brave face”. However, forced positivity can add to the overall levels of strain. How can you cultivate true joy and remain buoyant? The answer may surprise you. read more

Adapting Learning Online: 6 Emerging Priorities
In these difficult times, it’s important to carve out clear space for the leadership development that will help us adapt and ... read more

Pause with PF
We're all going through a lot. To be the leaders we need to at this time, it helps to find a moment of calm in the storm. To support ... read more

Leading Through COVID-19 With Buoyancy
Everyday, it seems we are confronted with new and unprecedented challenges. As we recover from the bushfires, and as the impact of COVID-19 unfolds, how do we lead through crisis and disruption? One answer lies in buoyancy. read more

We’re speaking at Atlassian Summit 2020
Important update: We regret to announce that Atlassian Summit 2020 has been cancelled amid escalating concern around the COVID-19 ... read more

Is Your Caterer Killing Your Learning Potential?
In our latest article for Training & Development magazine, Natalie Richardson explores how leaders can use the science of nutrition to enhance learning and development outcomes. read more

Partnering for Value Creation Pt 2: The Dance
This is Part 2 of Optimising Value Creation Through Partnership: an exploration into the value of creating partnering relationships. read more

Partnering for Value Creation Pt 1: The Case
Here, we present our case for partnering: why creating partnerships is a key contemporary leadership skill, and one of the greatest resources for value creation. read more

Horizontal Leadership
In 2019, we are sharing our Horizontal Leadership research anew. New model, same sentiment: What we achieve alone cannot compare to what we achieve together. read more

Cultivating Personal, Leadership and Cultural Buoyancy
Our worklives are often characterised by many up and downs - some more severe than others. How do we move through tough times more constructively? read more

Curiosity: A Primary Leadership Discipline Today
Much has been written about the power and importance of curiosity in organisations today. And yet, despite the benefits, curiosity deficits are common. How do we make the shift? read more

Woolworths Group’s Eco Transformation
Today Sydney Morning Herald acknowledged Woolworths Group for their transformation into a dynamic retail ecosystem. This transformation means a lot to us. read more

PF to present at PMIAC 2019
Calling all Project Managers, Project Teams, and anyone interested in the power of story. PF will be presenting on project storytelling at PMIAC 2019. read more

Focus on the Learner Experience Not Engagement
PF's article explores what happens when we shift our focus from learner engagement to the learner experience. (published in Training Magazine, March 2019) read more

Can #libspill Teach us Something About Leading Transformation?
Another day, another leadership spill in Australian politics. Can we learn something from this chaos in the Coalition about steering transformation and the human side of change? read more

PF Present at Get BIM Right: bSA Management Series
We were recently invited to present at the buildingSMART Management Series around the topic 'Get BIM Right". Our Managing Director, ... read more

Giving and Receiving Feedback: It’s a Gift
Mention the word “feedback” in a professional setting and you will find many people shaking in their boots or running for the hills . The kicker is that people actually crave feedback. Even if it scares them. We encourage people to see feedback as a gift: one worth receiving and sharing at every opportunity. read more

Courage in the Boardroom
Courage involves saying what needs to be said to the right person, at the right time, and in the right manner. As leaders, our observations are vital, yet many of us find it difficult to speak up, particularly if our message could be hard to hear. How do we back ourselves for the benefit of our entire organisation? read more

Feature Article: The Age of L&D Content Curation
In the age of information, learners often feel overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information at their fingertips. Is content curation a new priority for learning and development teams? Check out PF Senior Associate, Natalie Richardson‘s, new article published on Training Industry online. read more

Leadershift: Leading Horizontally and Vertically
Modern organisations are highly matrixed and rely on partnership and interconnection to deliver business outcomes. The leadership required is one that not only sees vertically, but horizontally as well, delivering outcomes for your function or business, balanced with a considered understanding of what is best for the whole organisation. read more
![ACE-ing Customer Experience at BWS [CASE STUDY]](https://performancefrontiers.com/leadership/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Portal_Display-pic_ACE.jpg)
ACE-ing Customer Experience at BWS [CASE STUDY]
For the last three years, our team have partnered with BWS to transform the business, boosting engagement in a team of 7500 across 1300 stores and creating a customer-centric culture through a handful of initiatives, including the Revolutionary Authentic Customer Experience (ACE) Program. read more

Five Essentials to Having a Courageous Conversation
In our professional lives, situations often arise that bring about the need to have difficult conversations. Here are 5 steps to help you courageously navigate these situations. read more

One Link in a Chain Reaction: Employee Motivation
You may have heard of the ripple effect of positive emotions, but what about the ripple effect of employee motivation on customer satisfaction? And how can leaders spark this chain reaction? read more

Agile Innovation: Insights from the World Business Forum 2017
Our MD Gretel attended the World Business Forum 2017 and unpacks the top three priorities for getting Agile in your organisation. read more

Redesigning Retail: Empathy and Customer-centric Innovation
In this second article of our Redesigning Retail series we ask: How important is empathy in this modern retail environment? And how can Design Thinking help retailers design innovative customer experiences? read more

Redesigning Retail: Create Great Customer Experiences
In this first article of our Redesigning Retail series, we ask: How can we take a leaf from Amazon’s book and write the next chapter for Australian retail? read more

Leader as Facilitator
Contemporary leadership can often feel as if you have to be all things to all people: expert and friend and enabler and strategist...and…and…and… read more
Happy Holidays
For Performance Frontiers, 2017 will be... read more