Boardroom Behaviours - Part 2 Dealing with emotionally toxic boards

Rob is an organisational psychologist specialising in board, director and executive dynamics, leadership coaching and change management. He contributes and facilitates AICD’s advanced courses in director behavior and managing dynamics in the boardroom.

Rob also works as an executive advisor and coach to senior executives and directors helping them deal with problems such as: leader performance, board and executive conflict, failures in organisational cultural and people risk. In all his work Rob’s primary goal is to create alignment and synergy between people and organisational systems, such that high performance can emerge and be sustained.

In his practice, Rob integrates his deep understanding of organisational and human behavior, with the corporate systems of governance, strategy, structure and operations. The result is a combination of incisive analysis of critical issues, and pragmatic solutions that move people and systems to higher levels of capability and performance.

Rob is a managing partner with Change Focus Group, an advisory and consultancy firm providing organisational psychology services in the areas of human and organisational assessment, group facilitation, team development and organisational change.

Rob also holds directorship roles in Schuhfried Australia, an international supplier of clinical assessment tools to the medical and neuroscience markets, and Veedre, a psychometric testing firm servicing mining and transport industries.

After an executive career in strategy and finance roles based in Perth, Sydney, London and Abu Dhabi, Sharon is now a full-time Non-Executive Company Director. She is the 2014 WA Telstra Business Woman of the Year and was named in the 2015 Westpac AFR 100 Women of Influence.

She joined the board of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG, one of Australia’s largest listed companies), in 2013 as a Non-Executive Director. She is now the Co-Deputy Chairman and she also chairs the Fortescue Remuneration & People Committee. She is a Non-Executive Director for ASX Listed Wesfarmers Limited, WorleyParsons Limited, NEXTDC Limited and Gold Road Resources Limited; as well as a Director of the fund raising NFP Foundation for the Perth Children’s Hospital. She is also a part time member of the Takeovers Panel, a member of the WA Rhodes Scholarship selection panel, an Adjunct Professor in Leadership and Strategy at Curtin Business School and the Patron of the Women in MBA Scholarship Programme at Curtin.

Educated in Exmouth and Perth, Sharon holds a Bachelor of Business degree from Curtin University and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She is also a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Building.

Sharon is Mum to 9-year-old Chloe. She champions flexibility, diversity and work life balance and places a high priority on sharing her own experiences.

Jane is a behavioural profiler specialising in the psychology of leadership. She has extensive experience working with clients in areas of executive development, high performance teams, meeting effectiveness, group facilitation, and organisational development.

Jane is a partner with Change Focus Group, an advisory and consulting firm providing organisational psychology services in the areas of leadership development, executive profiling, high performance teaming, and organisational change. Much of Jane's work involves leadership coaching, using a deep level analysis of peoples' motivations and capabilities to create successful outcomes in difficult corporate environments. As a seasoned organisational development professional, her consulting techniques are drawn from research and sharpened by experience.

Jane is senior advisor with Schuhfried Australia, an international supplier of psychological and diagnostic instruments, and is a psychology consultant at Veedre, a psychometric testing firm servicing the transport and mining industries.

James leads the team of governance professionals at Effective Governance.

He has substantial experience in delivering governance, strategic and risk solutions to address requirements of listed, private, not-for-profit, government and family business clients. As a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he previously held the role of Education Leader for 5 years.

James is a nationally accredited facilitator (FILP), conference speaker, author of numerous governance papers, and co-author of Directors at Work: A Practical Guide for Boards and Reviewing Your Board: A Guide to Board and Director Evaluation.