Creating a Brighter Future in an Uncertain World
Apricot works with organisations throughout the world to improve their organisational health and strengthen their competitive advantage.
Apricot uses a data driven approach to benchmark organisational health and then design solutions that build organisations of impact, purpose and connection.
Apricot is a trusted partner to navigate these uncertain times.
What is Organisational Health?
“Healthy organisations have minimal politics, minimal confusion, high productivity, high morale and low turnover.”
– Patrick Lencioni
A healthy organisation functions effectively by creating an environment that aligns: vision, strategy, execution, and culture. Organisational Health can be divided into seven key areas:
Purpose
The ability to articulate a future state for an organisation creates the ‘Why?’ for people and provides direction. It gives life to what people are doing – if people can see and feel the future for which an organisation strives, they’ll have the best chance of achieving it.
Leadership
Organisations reflect their leadership. With dysfunctional leaders, comes a dysfunctional team. Good leadership is the ability to influence, motivate and empower others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of an organisation. At Apricot Consulting our consultants have a wealth of experience and tools to work with leaders at all levels to ensure their people are not only highly engaged, but the best version of themselves.
Communication
Better communication builds trust, morale, efficiency, productivity and diversity. It reduces conflict and errors. Good communication connects people or places through the effective imparting or exchanging of information.
Accountability
An environment where individuals hold themselves and each other accountable creates a culture of trust. Teams and Individuals thrive when clear expectations and boundaries are set. Celebrating a success when goals are achieved becomes a highlight, and infectious.
Innovation
Innovation is putting your creativity into practice. Innovation in business process and business model is essential in a time of significant disruption for organisations to remain viable. At Apricot Consulting, we work with organisations to create an environment that drives innovation.
Engagement
An organisation that is engaged with its stakeholders experiences higher employee engagement leading to better productivity and business outcomes. This has become increasingly important in distributed working models and virtual teams. Organisations also need to be involved in their local communities to capitalise both on the power of connections & relationships. Recognising this, Apricot Consulting works with corporations to develop shared value programs with not for profits.
Agility
The ability to proactively anticipate and respond to business and market changes is intrinsic to success. Managing change, developing new ways of working, and adopting technology will ensure your organisation can remain sustainable in uncertain times.
Leadership Team
Click on a team member to read their bio.
Derek Linsell
Chief Executive Officer
James Natsis
Chief Operating Officer
Jocelyn Puddy
Head of Operations & Consulting
Rebecca Evans
Executive Consultant- Future of Work
Chris Lewis
Chief Financial Officer
Susan Barton
Senior OD Consultant
James McHugh
Organisational Development Consultant
What We Do
We believe there is a systematic way to approach most engagements in the workplace. Our four-phase process is implemented as we partner with teams and organisations to get the most out of the journey. In each of our four phases we apply practical approaches and tools to develop solutions that deliver ROI for the organisation.
Culture Impact Index (CII)
With so much going on in the world at present, including COVID-19, the need for organisations to respond to market changes and become more agile, lean, and manage change is critical to their success and commercial viability. At Apricot we are equipped to help organisations navigate these challenges. Our custom-designed tool to effectively assess your team or organisation will provide significant insights into your overall organisational health whilst benchmarking against other like industries.
- We use the qualitative approach for one-on-one conversations with key leaders and managers to hear the ‘voice’ of the organisation. This helps us understand the culture and tone in your setting.
- The quantitative approach allows a high volume of input from a large number of constituents which provides objective and broad-based data to confirm findings.
- We then design programs to help drive organisational impact, purpose and connection.
- We have adaptive CII solutions for all needs
Leadership training and Executive Coaching
Working with leaders and teams to develop healthier organisations and manage uncertain times requires the first-hand engagement with leaders to enhance their skills and build their capabilities through real-world application.
- We facilitate virtual training programs, which often includes workshops, off-sites or remote online training, webinars, and more in order to create an engaging and interesting experience.
- Executive coaching creates purposeful and intentional space for leaders to reflect, manage uncertainty and complexity, and explore solutions with Apricot’s unique coaching model.
- We facilitate strategy and innovation sessions to support leaders as they navigate business challenges.
Shared Value Programs
Creating mutually beneficial outcomes for both large and small organisations working together creates a win-win scenario. Social consciousness and maintaining small business is a growing priority for most people, but enabling this to create tangible benefit and not just partake in philanthropy is a model with greater sustainability.
- We use a Partner Match Criteria Framework to establish ideal NFPs and small businesses to work with corporate clients
- The Shared Value Framework builds on five pillars of successful program development including business case, healthy partnership, governance, defined competencies, and insights & expansion
Digital HR and Digital Transformation
Effective selection and implementation of digital solutions is no longer an optional add-on to solve business problems. They are instead integral components of the strategy of every organisation and ensuring new ways of working that drive productivity and reduce costs. This is particularly important as companies respond to macro trends such as COVID-19 where more companies are requesting staff to work virtually while continually to deliver outcomes around the clock.
- We undertake a review of technology systems that employees using via our unique Digital HR ecosystem
- We design digital strategy and road maps to implement
- We deliver market scans and business cases to ensure that companies make the right investments that deliver value and minimise costs
- We manage digital transformation programs and also the change management
- We track adoption to ensure that companies are receiving an ROI on their technology investment
How We Get It Done
We recognise that working with an external firm is most successful when a collaborative partnership is driven by high levels of listening and a heavy emphasis on co-creation of solutions. Apricot’s methodology will ensure an experience that fully engages your team and allows you to drive the process, with Apricot guiding each step of the way. We use the following phases in our services as we work with you:
Diagnose
Spending the time to get to know you and your organisation is key to the success of any initiative. We know that if the diagnosis is wrong, the solution will never solve the right problem. We will take the time to understand the primary issues from the beginning
- Utilise a highly consultative and data driven approach via Apricot’s Culture Impact Index (CII) to assess organisational health
- Engage leaders and key stakeholders through qualitative and quantitative means
- Distill key insights and findings into opportunities
Design
We understand that moving beyond the ‘as is’ to determine how we reach the ‘to be’ is critical. We partner together to help you unearth innovative opportunities to reach your determined future state.
- We design solutions and implementation plans for organisations. Knowing that many change initiatives fail due to leadership adoption, we focus our effort on driving leadership engagement and ownership.
- Cross-functional involvement in exploring and designing solutions
- Creative engagement to innovate
Deliver
This is where we get to work on the hard stuff. It’s about being proactive with people to execute effectively. Stakeholder management, communication, and training, is a critical part of the implementation phase.
- Develop reports and recommendations.
- Executive presentation and delivery.
- Facilitate leadership training workshops on identified areas of improvement.
- Coach Executive and line management to address both personal development and team or organisational improvement initiatives using our unique holistic model.
- Provide resources to develop communications, build processes, and drive alignment with stakeholders.
Review
It is only by purposefully tracking progress that we can determine if we’ve achieved the desired results. Through concrete measurement and intentional evaluation, we can course-correct to maximize your outcomes.
- Measure progress (subjective and objective)
- Purposeful reflection for teams and leaders
- Utilize scheduled and pulse health checks to ensure ROI
- Measurement indicators are built into implementation plans for purposeful evaluation
We can adapt our services to your needs and requirements.
About Us
Founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2003, Apricot Consulting is a global consulting firm focusing on the human side of business.
We believe an organisation’s most valuable asset is its people. This belief has been reaffirmed by our years of experience in leadership development, cloud deployment, managing an organisation’s social responsibility, and cultural transformation.
With offices in Australia (Melbourne) and the USA (Los Angeles), we work with organisations to create environments that align their vision, strategy, practices and culture around our seven elements of organisational health. Organisations that allow their people to thrive and fulfil their potential in such environments are, in our view, healthy.
Our Clients
Our team brings years of experience and a proven track record of creating healthy organisations within a variety of industries: not–for-profit, government agencies, higher education, and sport to name a few.
Here are some of our fantastic clients:
With COVID-19 disrupting most businesses we have seen that the investment into Apricot Consulting has given us confidence in our ability as an organization to adapt to distributed working models and continue to work effectively together. This investment will go a long way to ensure our sustainability into the next decade.
As a newly appointed CEO, I found my sessions provided an open environment to discuss current opportunities and challenges in a professional and unbiased manner, making execution back in the business more streamlined. The advice and feedback made it easier to work through some of the most difficult issues, and included a good balance of personal development for both business and home life.
Apricot Consulting plays a central anchoring role in the shared value relationship between Ability Works, Transurban, and The Aurecon Group. Outcomes for Ability Works as a result of the shared value relationship has been pro bono quality strategic input with the subsequent development of a new business unit creating work for our employees, strategic marketing input, leadership training and additional revenue from introductions to new customers.
Contact Us
ADDRESS
11 Bennett Street
Richmond, VIC, 3121
CONTACT
M: +61 438 838 684
P: info@apricotconsulting.com.au
