In a quarter century of leading organisations from MD, GM, and Chief Executive roles, I have learned that change is, indeed, the one constant in business life. Personal well-being and business success depend on how well we understand and relate to change. From a leader's perspective, in order to thrive in change, we have to be able to communicate clearly, with credibility and confidence. I'd go so far as to say that leadership is effective communication and change management.

As the General Manager of an express freight company I turned the profits of the company around from losing $100,000.00 every week to a break even position in eight months, and profitable in 12 months without losing one day to strike action or work bans by the Transport Workers Union. The parent company had never considered working with the union to achieve the turnaround required to improve profitability and preserve jobs. How? Effective communication and change management.

As General Manager for a security company with 500 employees operating 190 cars per night across every capital city and territory in Australia, I developed a Mobile Night Patrol business in Brussels, Belgium, with an affiliated company, by training the senior operational management staff on how to adapt a successful Australian business model into their Personnel Services and Alarm Monitoring business operation. It was the first night patrol car operation in all of Europe. How? Effective communication and change management.

As the Chief Executive Officer of Private hospitals in Victoria and Western Australia, I worked with the medical and surgical specialists, hospital medical staff and non-medical staff to develop and introduce case management systems to get patients out of hospital and home rather than an old model which was to keep patients in the hospital system for as long as possible to generate fees and income. In reducing the patient lengths of stay the hospital received higher patient referrals from General Practitioners and more Specialists and Surgeons chose to operate at the hospital as their patients received the care and support to become well again quicker. How? Effective communication and change management.

As the CEO for a pathology business with 500 medical and nonmedical staff, I listened to the request of the 750 referring General Practitioners for quicker turnaround times from an average of 24 hours for blood test results to minimise the anxiety in waiting times for their patients. Over a three month period, I worked with the practice based pathologists and scientific staff to redesign how the specimens were received into the laboratory, redesigned the courier pickup and delivery schedules, and delivered our test results back to the GP’s within 16 hours per episode, an average of a third faster than our competitors. During the next eight months we increased our market share from 40% to 48%. How? Effective communication and change management.

As the CEO for pathology practice in New South Wales with 2000 medical and non-medical staff, my role was to integrated 5 newly acquired Pathology businesses into one entity. These five practices had been fierce competitors for market share, each with their own idea of how a successful pathology practice should be owned and operated. By preserving the unique and diverse range of competencies and skills that each of those practices bought with them we created powerful and diverse pathology services that delivered over 7000 pathology test per day. How? Effective communication and change management.

As the Chief Operating Officer for a publically listed start-up Primary Health Care company, my responsibility was to amalgamate 1000 General Practitioners who had owned and operated their own cottage industries into newly built Super Clinics to provide a “one stop shop” medical services locations that provided patients with Primary care, Pathology, Radiology and Pharmacy services. How? Effective communication and change management.
After working for organisations I bought my own retail business in woman’s fashion and dry cleaning business. Over a period of two years I built the number of outlets from 19 to 27 stores employing 110 full time staff. As well as being an owner of the business I had to adapt to being the GM, the operations manager, the sales and marketing manager, the financial manager and the HR manager. How? Effective communication and change management.

I've learned in the trenches of international business: it's all about effective communication and change management.

CONTACT
Mobile: 0451 132 210
E-mail: lou@adaptivethinking.com.au
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