- Mark Graham, The Counselling Foundation
Many people who take up their first leadership role were promoted because they were excellent at their job. They’re now expected to perform a very different role often without fully understanding what’s expected.
The first leadership role is one of the most significant transitions in any career and one of the least supported.
You are no longer measured primarily on what you deliver personally. You are measured on what your team delivers, on the environment you create for them and on your ability to engage credibly with senior colleagues in commercial and strategic terms.
Few first time leaders receive deliberate preparation for the commercial, people and cultural dimensions that come with the new role.
This programme exists to bridge that gap and help you hit the ground running. A practical, immediately applicable approach to thinking about your new role, your commercial contribution and the environment you are creating for your people.
You will benefit from this programme if any of the following feel true:
> You are in your first leadership role and sense there’s a gap between the technical expertise that earned you the promotion and the leadership capabilities the role now requires.
> You feel the pressure of being accountable for a team without always feeling fully equipped to lead it.
> You find the commercial dimensions of your role, the budget, business case development, the financial language of the organisation above you, less comfortable than the technical dimensions.
> You want a practical structured approach to thinking about your team, your function and your contribution that you can use immediately rather than develop slowly over the years.
> You are aware of the importance of creating the right environment for your people but don’t yet have clarity on what that means in practice or how to put it in place.
> You want to engage more confidently in conversations with senior colleagues and be seen as a genuine commercial contributor rather than a team manager doing a competent job.
A thought provoking journey
A complete self-contained experience designed to be finished in a single sitting or broken into manageable chunks on mobile.
Short Focused Video Lessons
Stories, practical business teaching, immediately applicable techniques, real-world observations and reflective questions. Each video under six minutes, most under three. Around 4 hours total. Mobile enabled. Filmed across multiple locations. Each video either teaches, provokes or challenges.
Live Online Forum With Rob
A group session led directly by Rob Evans where you bring your questions, your specific situation, your challenges. This is a live conversation with someone who has worked operationally inside 150+ businesses worldwide and understands the challenges first time leaders face. Direct access. Your questions answered.
Get Comfortable With Numbers
A practical introduction to financial literacy including a straightforward quick overview of key financial statements, budgeting and how to engage in light of the financial priorities of senior colleagues.
A Structured Approach To Leadership
PPMCleadership™️ is introduced as a helpful lens for thinking holistically about the leadership environment you create for your people. The programme is built around the four components of PPMCleadership™️ being People, Principles, Mechanics and Culture. You’ll also cover The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️, a way to think about where a team is in its development and the appropriate management approach for that phase.
Practical Ways Of Thinking
A range of practical techniques and aide memoires for decision making, strategic thinking, relationship building and communication. All designed to be simple enough to remember and immediately applicable in your role.
An experience, not a lecture and a launchpad, not a manual
This programme doesn’t tell you everything there is to know about leadership. It gives you the most practically useful framework for thinking holistically about your role quickly and clearly, so that the experience of leading your team builds on a solid foundation rather than starting from scratch.
Where You Begin
Orientation And Business Context
Before anything else the programme establishes a way of thinking about your leadership role as running a business within a business. You have customers, internal and external, and you have value propositions. You have investors looking for a return and you have colleagues to whom you are providing a leadership service. This business within a business reframe changes how you think about everything that follows.
The Commercial And Financial Foundation
A practical plain language grounding in how businesses work, how they are funded, how they’re structured and the priorities of business leaders. Also an efficient grounding in financial concepts immediately applicable whether you have a financial background or not. All accessible and thought provoking.
How You Are Being Evaluated
A simple and memorable framework covering the dimensions by which your team, your peers and the organisation above you are evaluating both you as a leader and your team. What good looks like from each perspective and how to develop the habits that build credibility across all of them.
The Middle
Stories, Observations & Objective Questions
The heart of the programme moves through a series of short focused videos, each one a story with a point, an observation from the real world or a practical technique drawn from more than thirty five years of operational experience across 150+ businesses. Each video ends with one or more questions directed at you and your specific situation. Some will be comfortable, some won't.
The Leadership Environment
PPMCleadership™️ and The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️
Two proprietary approaches for thinking clearly about the environment you have created for your people and where your team is in its development cycle. PPMCleadership™️ and The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️. The first time leader who understands both operates with a clarity that most develop slowly and partially through years of experience.
Where You Arrive
Clarity, Challenge & Next Steps
The programme doesn't end with a summary, it ends with a challenge. What have you concluded? And what are you going to do differently?
A Note On Format
Every video in this programme teaches, provokes or challenges. You can complete the entire programme in a single sitting or in fifteen minute chunks on your phone. When you're done you'll see your role, your organisation and the environment you have created with greater clarity than the day to day allows.
'This isn't training in a traditional sense. Every programme is a structured journey of practical teaching, guided reflection and immediately applicable thinking.'
Clarity First
Before teaching you anything new this programme helps you see clearly where you are. Most leadership development starts with answers, this starts with questions. Before introducing any new capability it helps you understand your current situation, your team, your commercial contribution, your strategic clarity and your culture. That clarity makes everything that follows land with more specificity and usefulness.
Real Approaches From Real Operational Experience
Every technique in this programme is drawn from direct experience and observation across 150+ businesses worldwide. PPMCleadership™️ and The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️ are not borrowed models given new names. They are original and developed from identifying the recurrent ingredients in successful teams and observing where other teams come unstuck.
Designed To Be Genuinely Enjoyable
Short sharp videos filmed across multiple locations. Personal stories, practical techniques and reflective questions throughout. Around 4 hours total. Mobile enabled and consumable in fifteen minute chunks. The more enjoyable the experience the more likely it is to positively change how you actually lead.
Direct Access To Rob
Every programme includes a live online forum with Rob Evans directly. A live group conversation where you bring your questions and challenges to someone who has been in the room with many businesses worldwide and will engage with your specific reality rather than a generic answer.
- Lynn Murphy, Plugable Technologies
- Chris Griffiths, Travel A La Carte
- Gahn Lane, Pindrop
- Mevin Anenden, Logicalis
- Mark Graham, The Counselling Foundation
Highly Experienced, Practical, Operationally Grounded
Rob Evans has spent more than 35 years working operationally inside 150+ businesses worldwide, with C-suite and project roles spanning operations, finance and general management, involvement in over 50 acquisitions and a nomination for CFO Of The Year in South Africa while serving as CFO of a $6.5bn revenue group.
Based on Rob’s experiences in his own career, it’s not theory. It's what Rob observed working for him and others and where he saw folks come unstuck.
- Yvonne Chin Irving, CET
- Extract From Corporate Stock Exchange Announcement
- Mark Graham, The Counselling Foundation
For those taking their first leadership step and who want to take it well
> Professionals stepping into their first leadership or management role who want a practical structured approach for the commercial, people and cultural dimensions of leadership.
> New leaders who want to understand the financial and business context of their organisation so that they can engage credibly with the people above them.
> Any first time leader who has been promoted on the basis of technical excellence and wants to develop the leadership capability the new role requires.
> Organisations that want their first time leaders to start with a practical commercial grounding rather than learning entirely through trial and error.
You'll find the programme guiding you through an objective examination of your organisation, your operational context and your leadership through considered and candid reflection. Rob shares lessons from his experiences illustrated with personal stories, examples and real-world observations. Carefully crafted questions at the end of each video help you relate the material to your specific situation. The goal is to provoke thought, help you analyse your situation and equip you with practical ways of thinking you can apply throughout your career.
Yes. The material is available immediately on purchase and you proceed at whatever pace suits you. Many questions are posed for reflection and you take whatever time feels right for each one. Your value comes from engaging with the programme in the way that best suits how you think and work.
All material is immediately available on purchase. We find that participants who engage quickly get most from the programme and the forum access is structured to support this. We encourage you to begin as soon as practicable after purchase.
Every month a live invite-only online forum is held directly by Rob Evans. You will be invited to three monthly sessions following purchase. We vary the times and days to give you the best opportunity to attend at least one. This is a live session, not a recording, where you bring your specific questions and situations directly to Rob.
Yes. Every organisation operates in a business context. Each has investors, customers, employees, suppliers and stakeholders. Each must deliver value to those it serves and generate a return, financial or otherwise, to those who fund it. The approaches and thinking in this programme apply across all organisational types.
The programme includes PPMCleadership™️, The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️, Activity Model Acumen™️, The Three Levels Of Endeavour™️, The Five Cornerstone Principles Of Planning™️, The CulturalVEST™️ and a range of other practical aide memoires for leadership, communication, decision making and relationship building. All are designed to be simple enough to remember and are immediately applicable in your role.
Everything included. We find participants who engage quickly get the most from the programme and the forum access is structured to support this.
Around 4 hours of short focused video lessons
Mobile enabled, watch in chunks of 15 minutes
Practical business teaching and immediately applicable techniques
PPMCleadership™️, The Natural Cycle of Team Success™️, Activity Model Acumen™️, practical financial literacy
Reflective questions throughout to personalise the learning to your specific situation
Action oriented - 30 days to complete videos before forum
Live online forum session led directly by Rob Evans
Direct answers to your specific questions and situation
If you are looking to develop a team, a dedicated group forum session with Rob Evans can be added for no extra charge for cohorts of five or more