BESPOKE LEADERS

Philip Andersson is a learning specialist who has focused on personal and corporate development for over 20 years. After leaving Deloitte Australia in 2014, he founded BESPOKE LEADERS with the goal to offer an integrated approach in the development of emerging and future leaders. This development has focused on advancing core adaptive skills that can help people to be successful in their roles.

Andersson mentions that improving the capability of a single team member is challenging enough, yet for organisations to thrive in the 'new' global environment, there is an urgent need for collective growth. He highlights that those organizations who systematically develop their people (at scale) create a ‘survival of the most adaptive’ advantage. This capacity enables them to more effectively navigate the complexity of the fast-paced, modern world. In contrast, those organisations that don’t address this challenge face a horizon of frustration, disengagement and perhaps most significantly a toxic culture of blame. To help organisations face these challenges, BESPOKE LEADERS has quickly established an impressive record for bridging the gap between where an organisation is and where they want to be. Using a systematic approach to organisational learning, "the aim is really to help clients increase employee engagement and capacity, by developing greater levels of responsibility and agency," remarks Andersson.

It is the view of BESPOKE LEADERS that effective development should have two goals. The first is to evolve the mindset and ability of people to make sense of the experiences and situations they face. The second is the development of performance-enhancing skills, techniques and behaviours that improve capability. The great secret and challenge of effective organisational development is to be able to achieve both of these outcomes at the same time. When this is achieved a new skill or technique will actually be transformed into a consistent behaviour.

A consistent behaviour that positively impacts business results. “In a metaphorical context – the goal is not to just fill the cup with water, the goal is to change the shape of the cup so that it can hold more water,” remarks Andersson.

BESPOKE LEADERS operate like your favourite software plug-in, helping you to optimise a key component of your business—people

By leveraging an integrated and technology-focused methodology, BESPOKE LEADERS works with clients to create personalised and practical learning experiences aligned to modern lives. Development experiences that leverage a variety of touchpoints, which are scheduled across meaningful timelines, and are achieved without being time invasive on learners or a business. “BESPOKE LEADERS operate like your favourite software plug-in, helping you to optimise a key component of your business—people,” explains Andersson. This plug-in and play value is particularly powerful for those businesses that might not have the resources, systems or expertise to elevate their learning culture.

Highlighting the company’s expertise in leadership development is BESPOKE LEADERS partnership with a leading, global firm in the risk management and insurance industry. BESPOKE LEADERS helped them to strategically accelerate the capability of mid-level account executives. This development initiative focused on evolving the role and the mindset of the account executive, from transaction orientation to one of advisory business partnering.

Working with the same client, BESPOKE LEADERS also collaborated on the design and delivery of a week-long virtual development initiative. This scaled, learning experience blended practical skill-based sessions with internal leadership stories. Each 30-minute, virtual session was open to all 1000+ employees across APAC and illustrated the business commitment to the collective development of their people.

As highlighted by these two examples, the ultimate goal of BESPOKE LEADERS is to help organisations build and develop their learning culture. By working on the principles of best practice learning, they offer their clients a systematic approach to developing their learning culture. “A culture that is not only valued and embraced by your people but also that enables your organisation to excel in an environment of challenge and opportunity,” concludes Andersson.