Forté Connect
Connecting people, purpose and leadership
Powerful, bespoke training to equip your team to meet any challenge.
World class programs created by experts in leadership, communication and mental health.
“What will we do with our people when they come back?”
COVID-19 has challenged the way we think about where we work and how we manage our workforce. Many organisations now need to find a new equilibrium as they return to an uncertain and disrupted ‘normal’ nearly a year in.
Businesses that embrace their COVID experience to ensure they can adapt to any future challenge will thrive. Technical solutions alone will not be enough.
How do you:
look after the mental health, wellbeing and focus of a disaggregated workforce?
deliver plans when circumstances are constantly changing?
communicate with your people, to help them feel connected and valued?
Make sure our people are ok, that they know where they are, where they are going and have the confidence to get there!
Forté Connect designs and delivers highly interactive programs, bespoke for the unique needs of your organisation. These experiences, guided by experts in leadership, communication and mental health, will equip your team to meet any challenge.
Enable your people to deep dive and experience the following benefits:
a mentally healthy workforce
align as ‘one team’ who knows who they are, where they are going and has the confidence to know how to get there
know what you stand for and the value you can deliver
teams who can adjust and move forward with confidence
engaged leaders, people and organisations
clear engaging communication across the business
create high performing teams and workplaces.
The Team
“connecting people, purpose and leadership”
Geoff Evans
Geoff Evans served for eighteen years in the Australian Army’s Special Operations Command as both a commissioned and non-commissioned officer. During this time Geoff served on four operational deployments before being wounded in action in Afghanistan in December 2010.
In addition to a brief acting career and thirteen-years of service as a fire-fighter with Fire and Rescue NSW, Geoff founded Homes for Heroes, a national charity supporting homeless veterans and their families. In 2014, Geoff was appointed to the Prime Ministerial Advisory Council on Veterans Mental Health where he served two terms.
In January of 2016, Geoff was appointed as the CEO of Disaster Relief Australia, a 3000 strong international disaster relief organisation. Geoff consults to business and industry on leadership, operational design & delivery and workplace culture. Geoff holds an international relations degree from Deakin University and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mark Dobson
Workplace mental health pioneer, awarded a Queen’s Birthday honour in 2020 for creating a world class mental health framework for Fire & Rescue NSW, CEO & Founder of Ordinary Courage. Mark has collaborated with the Blackdog Institute and Beyond Blue. He will provide you with a framework and the tools required to transform your business by creating a mentally healthy workplace.
Suzie Rogers
With over 25 years experience in communication with blue chip organisations, Suzie is an established leader in her industry. She is passionate about coaching and leading individuals and teams to reach their full potential in communication, brand, presence, performance, presentation, public speaking and pitching.
How we work
Three pillars form Forté Connect. We work collaboratively to understand and deliver the key goals of the team or organisation. These pillars work together or individually.
Leadership and culture
Connecting people to purpose, through values-based leadership and culture
Most organisations have a perfectly crafted strategic plan but struggle to execute it. In an age of intrinsic uncertainty, top-down planning and business disruption, Geoff takes you on a fast-paced journey to cut through and deliver on your plan. Drawing on special operations methodology contextualised for business, you will learn to plan like a General and then adapt your plan to suit constantly changing circumstances without ever losing momentum. This interactive program is centred on what it means to lead in practice and build a responsive, healthy organisational culture that delivers. From self-development to leading organisations, Geoff’s extensive experience in special operations and business provides a unique opportunity to take your team outside of its comfort zone. Using real-world scenarios in an immersive and fun environment, you will learn to link strategy to people to deliver any plan.
Mental health
Connecting leaders to their people to improve workplace mental health
At least one in every five people have a mental health problem at any time, yet an astonishing four out of five leaders report that they are unaware of anyone in their team with poor mental health. What drives this disconnect and the associated losses in productivity and employee engagement is that most leaders lack the skills to identify, engage and help employees suffering with mental health problems.
Forté Connect takes a ‘hands on’ approach to equipping leaders with the skills to lead in mental health. Ranging from how to have difficult conversations to identifying and assisting employees at risk, this pillar develops the practical skills every leader needs to address this unseen but pervasive issue.
Communication
Connecting leaders, people and organisations through communication
With many of us living and working remotely, how do we bring together our teams and align them in how we engage and communicate with the business, our clients and key stakeholders?
identify inspire ignite
What is special about your people, their talent, their brand and business? Leaders will discover how to engage and inspire their people virtually and in person. Teams will learn who they are, what they stand for and the value they can deliver. Create alignment on intent and purpose within your teams by getting to know each other better and discovering each person’s uniqueness. Your teams will discover how they fit in and learn techniques for highly persuasive and engaging communication. Each program is tailored to your organisation’s needs and will give you the tools to build high performing teams. Most importantly the learning will be embedded whether working remotely or in the office. This will benefit everyone in your organisation including teams, leaders, executives and CEOs. This pillar brings it all together.
The Connect Way
Forté Connect has at its foundation a set of strategic tools that drive mission success, we call this ‘The Connect Way’.
The Connect Way draws out individual context, challenges and goals and while allowing for creativity, flexibility of thought and individual circumstances, provides a framework for sound planning, operational design and delivering solutions.
STEP 1: Define the operating environment
People, Process, Structure, Communication
STEP 2: Describe the desired effects
Vision, Mission, Plan, Goals
STEP 3: Evaluate the plan
Test, Learn, Refine, Repeat
STEP 4: Model the outcomes
Agree, Commit, Resource, Communicate
STEP 5: Deliver the plan
Collaborate, Iterate, Refine, Report
The Programs
Where do we start?
We offer a range of highly interactive virtual/online and face to face program experiences, each fully customisable, to suit the needs of any organisation.
Fact finding mini immersion (half-day)
Team building full immersion (1-2 days)
Corporate Volunteering, Disaster Relief (multi day deployment)
Master Classes virtual 2-hour sessions (online)
Fact-finding mini immersion - half-day
An interactive, experiential and collaborative fact-finding session to identify strengths and opportunities in leadership, culture, workplace mental health and communications. In this intensive session the Forté Connect team will help you connect with your mission, purpose and people in person. Online options available.
Team building full immersion: 1-2 days
Highly interactive team experiences will engage and connect your strategy and people with real outcomes and accountability. Select any or all of the Forté Connect pillars (leadership and culture, mental health, communications) to be delivered over one or two days. Content is tailored to your specific needs. From 8 -100 people. Online options available.
Corporate Volunteering (disaster relief) multi-day deployment
Work alongside our nation’s best trained leaders – Veterans - on a disaster relief mission assisting communities impacted by natural disasters.
Disaster Relief Australia's (DRA) life changing and well-established corporate volunteering program provides corporates the opportunity to ‘give-back’ to communities in need.
Corporate volunteering demonstrates the Connect Way, outside the context of a normal business environment. At the same time, it provides corporate Australia the opportunity to directly assist communities impacted by natural disasters.
Program Overview:
Wednesday evening - arrive at DRA's Forward Operating Base.
Thursday – 8am to 5pm – work within DRA Strike Teams to assist the survivors of natural disasters.
Thursday evening – community BBQ.
Friday 8am to 3pm – work within DRA Strike Teams.
Friday afternoon – return home.
You can view a DRA (formerly Team Rubicon Australian), corporate volunteering video Here
Work alongside our nation’s best trained leaders – Veterans - on a disaster relief mission assisting communities impacted by natural disasters.
This life changing and well-established corporate volunteering program provides corporates the opportunity to ‘give-back’ to communities in need. At the same time, you will learn about leadership and culture from our experts in the field, while forging strong bonds with your team and the communities you help.
Master Class virtual 2-hour sessions (online)
Leadership and culture modules
Leading through uncertainty
This module explores the foundations of ‘mission-command’ leadership and how this leadership paradigm enables teams to move forward with confidence. When implemented correctly, this approach enables leaders to both embrace risk and flexibility while actually increasing control.
Culture in practice
Consider how leaders can develop and maintain a dynamic workplace culture where people are motivated to do their job and support each other as one team in this engaging module.
Agile decision making
Leaders are taught to counter uncertainty and adapt to changes in circumstances in real-time, allowing them to cut-through and translate any plan into action with confidence.
Pressure your plan
Leaders will explore and practice how to plan, analyse strategy, develop, pressure test and implement plans. Partipants will learn how to clearly articulate your team’s plan and then understand, own and deliver it.
Mental health modules
Monitoring wellbeing online
This module is designed to increase managers' mental health literacy and provide them with the skills and knowledge to identify vulnerable people. These skills will provide leaders with a better understanding of their people and build on a foundation for improved workplace relationships and productivity.
Courageous conversations
Equipping leaders with the competence and confidence to engage with their people in challenging discussions. A scenario-based session where leaders work together to develop a process to engage with their people. Topics include conversation content development and how and when to engage.
Remote mental health first aid
The learning from this module will enable leaders to connect their people with the appropriate support. Participant will be provided with an understanding of available support resources and the skills to facilitate help seeking behaviour in their people.
Normalising mental health management
Providing leaders with a framework to better manage vulnerable people and offer ongoing support to their teams. An improved understanding of how to destigmatise mental health will enable leaders to develop better relationships with their staff on all levels.
Communication modules
Staying connected virtually
Explore how you can stay connected with your remote teams, customers and other key stakeholders. How do you keep and build your own networks in this COVID19 world? It’s a different way of doing things without the water cooler chat. You may need to relearn how to communicate and work with others.
Connecting with impact - through your screen
This module explores how you communicate with impact over the range of online meeting platforms available. We explore how to connect, use your voice, body language and words to create lasting impact. Ways to influence how you are perceived and how you would like to be are also explored.
Connecting with your story
Discover how to build your business story for memorability that resonates with your audience. Why is storytelling worth the effort and what are the outcomes. You know what you do and how you do it. Your audience wants to know why you do it through your personal and business story.
Planning your message
It’s critical to nail your messages by identifying the response you want the audience to have, the right medium and frequency. Learn how to use key communication tools to influence the outcome, write succinct and action-oriented messages that encompass what you want the audience to do, what’s in it for them and when you want it to happen.
