Turbocharging performance: creating spaces to thrive

The pace of working life and speed of change makes it hard to focus on our most intractable challenges and build the skills and insights to address them. Yet investing time to refresh your perspective could make all the difference to your team, career and business.

Ruth Holmes

22 February 2024

This article is taken from the Turbocharging Performance supplement in the Spring 2024 issue of

Think Global People magazine

Click on the cover to access the digital edition.

View your copy of the Spring 2024 issue of Think Global People magazine.

The upcoming two-day Turbocharging Performance: people-powered leadership to maximise talent masterclass at the world-renowned Henley Business School on 18-19 April 2024 will provide the space to do exactly this.Led by faculty Dr Phil Renshaw and Dr Jenny Robinson of Coaching on the Go and CIPD fellow and HR transformation expert, Amira Kohler, of People Stuff, the event is designed to be a “hothouse sizzling with new ideas.” The masterclass will welcome participants from large global corporations, as well as start-ups, scale-ups and established SMEs, to experience transformative learning and gain insights for enhanced business performance. Participants will register from early evening on 17th April for an eye-opening keynote speech on the future of work and the promise of AI.This immersive residential event, which takes place just outside of London, centres on today’s critical workplace issues of talent, performance and leadership – areas we know are core to our Relocate Global and Think Global People communities. We are proud to be the Media Partner for this event.

Practical solutions to real-world problems

Among the many takeaways will be a practical framework for action that will optimise an organisation’s leadership, talent and performance capabilities – and that will support the inclusion and empowerment of an organisation’s people.Speakers representing a wealth of backgrounds – from cutting-edge subject experts on leadership, wellbeing, reward and talent management, to entrepreneurs, CEOs and directors of successful multinational companies – combined with expert facilitation in the inspiring setting of one of the UK’s leading business schools, will create a unique ecosystem for reflection and a safe space to unpack pressing challenges.“It’s going to be an innovative, but practical, forum where ideas are pushed to the limit in a way that you wouldn't get anywhere else,” says Dr Jenny Robinson, leadership scholar and pracademic.“There are going to be people in the room who understand the challenges, and how these radical and provocative ideas around leadership, reward and talent management can be translated into practice."It’s an absolute must-attend event if you are interested in the future and interested in looking for practical solutions to workplace problems.”

Why now is the time to focus on people and performance

The relevance and impact of the Turbocharging Performance masterclass is clear. It is taking place at a time when two-thirds of HR leaders say current performance management is ineffective and 77% of companies globally report talent shortages.Part of the problem is that in many organisations, the prevailing approach to leadership, people and performance management was designed for an era when outputs were more easily quantifiable.The shift to today’s global, more networked and knowledge-based work where people, teams and leadership are at the heart of competitive advantage has changed what performance management looks like.Gone are bureaucratic annual appraisals and 12-month targets. In their place is continuous performance management and goals that flex and operate on shorter time scales.This approach by necessity is more organic and adaptive to managing complexity. It lives in and through an organisation’s culture such that “talent management is performance management,” says Dr Jenny Robinson.

Developing skills to manage complexity

Balancing this need for adaptive approaches to complexity – prompted by common challenges including fundamental regulatory changes, entering new markets, meeting shareholder imperatives and the adoption of new technology – with the still very necessary evidence-based management, is all about people and relationships, says Dr Jenny Robinson.This is leading to the evolving practices and the redefinition of language we use around talent, performance and leadership to reflect this new reality, which will be explored in the Masterclass, as well as participants’ own live issues, with feedback from peers and subject-matter experts.“All of these challenges have an underlying people response,” continues Dr Jenny Robinson. “All businesses achieve their goals through relationships, and through the systems and processes of people. In this Masterclass, the systems we're looking at are performance management, talent management and leadership.“There are other things in the system, culture and policies around diversity and inclusion for example. Yet we chose these three aspects first because in these two days, they offer something we can get inside of create something with.”

Redefining leadership and performance management

Alongside the impactful roster of speakers and expertise, the faculty will be introducing its practical diagnostic tool to Masterclass attendees. By switching between the lenses of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and evidence-based management (EBM) in the three areas of talent management, performance management and leadership, participants will get a new perspective on familiar challenges and the skills to address them.From a leadership as well as performance management angle, this includes thinking about leadership as a collective rather than individual endeavour, and in a way that supports engagement and motivation. This as coach, consultant, academic and author, Dr Phil Renshaw, who also has a deep business background with board-level experience in global organisations that enabled him to recognise first-hand how people drive successful businesses, explains.“The modern way of looking at leadership, which is still overlooked and missed by many people, is about acknowledging that leadership is an outcome of how everybody works together. It's not a consequence of the most senior individual's actions. This means that the most inexperienced individual in the team or organisation is influencing leadership by what they do well or choose not to do as well. Everyone across the organisation can get a lot out of this by joining us on this event.”Leadership also involves a coaching aspect, a field Dr Phil Renshaw and Dr Jenny Robinson are experts in, having published a bestselling book, Coaching on the Go, based on their research and work with clients around the world. Research shows that leaders who coach improve the performance of others by resolving conflict, engaging with teams to find ways to balance competing priorities optimally.“What is evolving in more progressive organisations is a much more rounded approach,” says Amira Kohler, one that balances data insights with human relationships and good judgement.“Performance management meetings are constantly evolving. They have become adult-to-adult conversations between a manager and employee. Their whole purpose is to help the employee extrapolate for themselves what motivates them, and where they can develop themselves in the way they are part of the team and meet customer and stakeholder needs.“Ultimately, we know that talent and performance lie at the heart of leadership. Let's explore this in conversation, with great industry data and insights to-hand. It's going to be unlike anything else on offer.”

Book your space on Turbocharging Performance: people-powered leadership to maximise talent

Be inspired by our Flexibility & Choice theme for this year's prestigious Relocate Think Global People Awards and perfect your winning entry by watching the Top Tips video with Head Judge, Dr Sue Shortland

Amira Kohler will be joining the discussion panel at our Think Global Women: Inspire Inclusion event on 8 March in celebration of International Women's Day.

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