Trailblazing with CorbettPrice

Kate Driver, CEO of IPAA ACT and co-founder and board member of the CoRE Learning Foundation joins us to discuss 22nd-century leaders. While she may not have a crystal ball to predict the skills a 5-year-old will need to thrive in a 22nd-century workforce, she does offer fascinating perspectives and insights drawn from both her public sector career and her lived experiences. Through her work with teenagers in her charity, she explores what they want from leaders today and how many question or reject the long-standing assumptions about the world of work that have persisted for generations. Listen in as Kate moves beyond the excitement of science fiction hype to provide pragmatic insights on the jobs and industries of the future, framing the importance of sustaining and improving life for humans at scale.

In part two, we continue our conversation with Rachel, discussing the APS Reform, which she has been heavily involved with, and how she keeps herself and others motivated on long-term projects that are hugely significant, have many initiatives attached to them, and require enormous patience and perseverance.  

In part one, we delve into the components of a growth mindset and integrity within the APS with Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform, and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission. Rachel explains how the literature on high-potential leaders has evolved over the past decade: once focused on high IQ as the primary predictor of leadership potential, the emphasis has shifted toward the importance of a growth mindset. Rachel also discusses how a growth mindset is closely tied to learning agility, which involves curiosity, openness, and a willingness to continuously learn. This openness to new experiences transcends culture, age, and gender.

In this 30-minute conversation, you will hear Mandy Young, Chief Executive at State Insurance Regulatory Authority, on 'Taking the path less travelled.'. Mandy provides specific examples from her time at the Department of Communities and Justice and the NSW Department of Customer Service when she served as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer during COVID-19. This inspiring chat showcases a leader who exemplifies authenticity and resilience. Mandy has been involved in some amazing transformation and reform projects, and we hope that you will find this episode as engaging and refreshing as we did!

Over just 30-mins, you'll hear Jody Grima share her experience in gauging the success of change programs working for Service NSW in the early days when they were establishing the three channels for service delivery in the state, how mindset and EQ play pivotal roles in preparing the workforce for the future, the biases that organisations need to overcome to ensure our workplaces are inclusive and equal for all, and how leaders throughout her career have inspired her to become the leader she is today.

In this uplifting chat, Janet shares her experiences from her early career, how other leaders helped her grow and develop, and how she leans on these experiences to help others grow and develop today. She also explains how important it is for leaders to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, acknowledging that the world is now different from what it was, that workplaces themselves are different too, and that it’s through a connection with purpose that you can keep yourself, and your team, motivated through times of continuous change and uncertainty.

In the series' opening episode, we spoke to Subho Banerjee about continuous learning and how organisations must adopt it to develop a high-performing workforce ready for the future.Equally crucial to adopting a continuous learning culture is maintaining one. This involves ensuring that employees have an ongoing connection to their organisation, which sometimes is more easily said than done. Globally, there are alarmingly high rates of disengaged employees who are 'quiet-quitting,' and it takes leaders with an EQ approach to navigate the often uncomfortable conversations to reconnect employees to their organisation.Maeve Neilson is a highly respected and experienced leader in New Zealand. In this episode, she joins Andy to discuss how she has developed and led teams in New Zealand, drawing on her direct experience in creating a cross-functional team from the Mosque Shooter sentencing event in 2020 to create a great workplace culture.

According to LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report for 2024, 4 in 5 people want to learn how to use AI in their profession. But in the public sector specifically, there has been much trepidation about where to use it, how to use it, and, importantly, ensuring that it is used safely with the proper guardrails in place.James Christie, Director of Artificial Workflow, and a guest instructor on our Elevate course on Enhancing Processes with AI, joins Andy to discuss the increasingly popular and in-demand skill of AI. Listen in as James answers the fundamentally essential questions on learning AI skills, including if having a technical background is necessary in learning AI, what the best use cases are in getting started, what other skills are complementary to learning AI skills, and the five critical success factors in implementing AI in an organisation. You will also want to take advantage of James's checklist to get going with AI in your organisation, which is provided as a download.

Sandra Lerch, Executive Director of Strategic Workforce Futures at the Public Sector Commission for the Queensland Government, joins Andy in this latest episode to explain how organisations can create workforce agility. She shares her experiences and learned lessons from her direct involvement in the recently released Even Better Public Sector for Queensland Strategy for 2024-2028.  Listen in to hear Sandra explain how organisational agility is a change process and how, by putting people at the centre, you can achieve the agility you need to be fit for the future. Sandra also shares the three important ingredients for being purposeful and holistic in your approach to developing and embedding workforce agility in the way you work.

In today’s episode, we dive deep into the current skills landscape, outlining the skills that are becoming increasingly important and discussing proven strategies that can help organisations become more skills-based in how they attract, develop, nurture, and retain their workforce.  

Our exciting new series explores critical dimensions of capability building across five insightful and thought-provoking episodes. This series is designed to help leaders instil continuous learning into their organisation’s DNA and develop high-performing workforces that are equipped and ready to embrace the future. As the perfect start to our series on Solving the Capability Gap, Subho Banerjee, Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Public Service and Head of the APS Academy and Capability, joins Andy to discuss continuous learning.

Andy Corbett introduces the third podcast series of Trailblazing with CorbettPrice, "Solving the Capability Gap," and provides a brief overview of what's to come.

According to a recent McKinsey report, more than half of global survey respondents on AI said that they had adopted AI in at least one of their business units, and nearly two-thirds expected that their company’s investments in AI would increase over the next few years. Yet according to Boston Consulting Group, Australia lags globally, with around 70% of Australian organisations yet to succeed in delivering digital transformation, a critical first step to succeed in AI. Pia Andrews, a global expert in open government and digital government transformation and former public servant, joins us to navigate this important change and provides her unique global and local perspectives on how public institutions can approach the responsible adoption of AI. In this episode, Pia shares her six fundamental questions that the public sector must answer when designing for trust, which are part of The Trust Framework for Government Use of AI and Automated Decision Making whitepaper she developed and her top tips on getting started.

With more than a third of Australian Public Service employees reported as wanting to leave within the next two years, according to the June 2022 APS Census, one correlation you can draw is that leaders need to look for ways to bridge the gap between employee expectations and employer needs. In this episode, Andy talks with Tina McAllister, Acting Director of People and Culture at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for the Queensland Government, as Tina provides her Queensland lens to questions on what it is that employees want, how leaders can respond, ways to to managing flexibility within the workforce, and the role that internal mobility plays for employee retention and ways of addressing it.

What does it take for organisations to create an inclusive workplace where staff feels valued, safe to contribute, and to be their authentic selves? Has progress been made in the public sector, and how can all leaders acknowledge and act accordingly to close the gaps with their employees, especially those from diversity groups? Please tune in to hear Julie Etchells, Chief Human Resources Officer at the Department of Child Safety, Seniors, and Disability Services for the Queensland Government, provide her valuable perspectives based on her experiences working for the Queensland public sector over the past twenty-four years.

Dan Bowes, Executive Director of Taxes and Grants Products at Revenue NSW, joins Andy to explain how his team ensures they deliver for their customers.  Listen in to hear from Dan how his team overcame challenges during COVID through successful collaboration, the entire team's role in improving customer process outcomes, and his top three tips on how other leaders can deliver efficiently and effectively for their customers.

Steve Brady, Managing Director of TAFE NSW, joins Andy in this episode to discuss the important change of shifting mindsets and leading to empower employees. Listen in as Steve shares his invaluable insights and perspectives on how TAFE NSW continues to embrace change and adapt to their customer's evolving needs and how Steve maintains a positive mindset and stays adaptable in the face of change.

Listen to Andy as he announces our latest series of Trailblazing with CorbettPrice, all about embracing organisational change.

With changing employee expectations around the learning and development opportunities organisations offer to improve their overall wellbeing, L&D managers face meeting these expectations to future-proof their organisation and attract and retain the best talent. How and what must L&D managers focus on to provide these opportunities to employees in a hybrid working environment, and how can they empower employees to build and maintain an A-grade team? Listen in to find out!

The leadership style of an organisation can profoundly impact an organisation's health, affecting the workplace culture, employee experience, engagement, performance, and organisational agility and resilience. The prolific global expert in open and digital government and former public servant Pia Andrews joins us for episode six in our series and discusses how public sector professionals must lead and navigate their teams now and in the future.