Concordia Breaks Into Overseas Markets

Concordia Breaks Into Overseas Markets

Henley Management College Association Catapults Concordia into
the United Kingdom, Ireland and Singapore markets

New Zealand management and workplace specialist Concordia has broken into the United Kingdom, Ireland and Singapore business management markets, thanks to a new association with Henley Management College’s leadership expert Dr Paul Aitken.

Concordia provides organisations with an in-depth view of their sub-culture and unspoken conflicts through its unique Workplace Audit, enabling issues to be solved before they reach crisis point. Since meeting in late 2005, Dr Aitken and Concordia have amalgamated their respective Leadership Culture Display (LCD) and Workplace Audit tools and marketed them to management consultants in three international target markets: The UK, Ireland and Singapore.

The amalgamated product, Workplace Audit and Leadership Culture Display (WALD), promises to provide organisations with a comprehensive view of their workplaces from the top down and the bottom up. Dr Aitken says WALD’s web-based nature allows it to be managed remotely and delivered by accredited specialist consultants in any location.

“In my experience, there is nothing like Concordia’s Workplace Audit anywhere else in the world,” says Dr Aitken. “It is a high value, low cost web-based tool that provides irrefutable data about the gaps between employee expectations and perceptions. Even on early evaluation I could clearly see it was complementary to my LCD tool and would resonate with management consultants overseas.”

Hamish Brown, Managing Director, Concordia says he is excited about the international opportunities Dr Aitken’s Henley connections have already opened up.

“Our relationship with Paul is extremely timely, as recent research investigating both UK and New Zealand workplaces shows increasing unrest and dissatisfaction with leadership,” says Brown.

“This was made very clear on our recent trip to our three initial target markets, where we met with six consultants who have completed doctoral studies at Henley,” he says. “All are extremely keen to introduce our product to their clients, and in fact one has already arranged a pilot of WALD within a large county police organisation, so it is obviously hitting the mark.”

Brown says Concordia has spent more than 10 years researching and developing its Workplace Audit, and over the past two years it has helped a number of organisations in New Zealand identify potential risks before they became major issues.

“We see the amalgamation of ours and Paul’s expertise and products as an uncomplicated, natural progression of our services to answer client needs. We believe the results from the combined tools will drive positive interventions that can be simultaneously applied across the workforce, at both management and employee levels, which our clients tell us is extremely appealing,” concludes Brown.

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Background information:

About Concordia

Established in May 2002, Concordia has offices in Wellington and Nelson, New Zealand. Concordia provides conflict management services to individuals, businesses and organisations. Its specialist staff research and develop high value products that manage conflict and provide the catalyst for organisational development. Clients range from small businesses through to the main client base of large private and public sector businesses and organisations. Services span processes from mediation and facilitation, through to modern organisational conflict management systems.

About Concordia’s Workplace Audit

Concordia’s proprietary Workplace Audit is designed to find out what workers are thinking and feeling, and why. It is delivered through a confidential web-based questionnaire that covers 95 workplace factors that affect employees, the organisation and stakeholders.

As well as identifying the risks associated with hidden tension, conflict and people management factors that impact on bottom line results, it establishes a compelling benchmark and template for improvement initiatives. Its results also identify the key human elements that differentiate ‘high performing’ and ‘average’ work environments, providing Boards and Senior Management with useable, measureable HR data.

About Dr Paul Aitken

Paul is a faculty member at Henley Management College, UK and Subject Area Leader in the School of Leadership, Change and HR Management. He specialises in strategic leadership-organisational development, utilising his proprietary Leadership Culture Display (LCD) assessment tool. He has a passion for senior executive coaching, mentoring and career management, and advises on Chief Executive and Director selection.

Paul has worked and consulted in a wide range of public and private sector organisations in Europe and New Zealand. He was a Director of a New Zealand business psychology consulting company before returning to the UK in 2000. Retaining his strong interest in New Zealand, he designed the Leadership Programme for the government funded Leadership Development Centre (LDC), set up in 2003. Board advisory roles have concerned the creation of national leadership development services for the New Zealand public sector, the appointment of New Zealand Permanent Secretaries and Chief Executives of UK Councils.

About Dr Aitken’s Leadership Culture Display

The Leadership Culture Display is based on rigorous research around the impact of leadership teams. The tool is web-based and provides leadership teams with powerful insights into unspoken assumptions about the way they provide organisational leadership, and compares these with the views of key employees.

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