THE CHALLENGE

A state government division working across regional industry and economic development was seeking to align its people around a new strategic direction, priority areas and ways of working.

The division had a broad and important remit, with teams operating across different regions, priorities and stakeholder environments. Its work required responsiveness to emerging issues, while also maintaining focus on longer-term strategic goals. For leaders and staff, this created a familiar tension: how to balance reactive demands with more proactive, planned and coordinated work.

The challenge was not simply to communicate a new strategy or ask people to adopt a new plan. The division needed to build a stronger sense of shared identity and direction, while recognising the different experiences, perspectives and operating realities across its teams.

For the people involved, this meant making sense of how their work connected to the bigger picture. It also meant exploring what needed to shift in how priorities were discussed, decisions were made, information was shared, and work was coordinated across the division.

The organisation needed more than a technical planning process. It needed a human-centred process that gave people space to reflect on where they had come from, understand the system they were operating within, and identify practical actions that felt meaningful and achievable.

At a deeper level, the work was about helping the division move from a long list of issues and ideas to a clearer, more manageable set of priorities that leaders and teams could understand, communicate and act on together.

THE SOLUTION

We partnered with the division to design and facilitate a workshop series that brought together staff and leaders in a structured, practical and inclusive way.

The work began with a series of leader interviews to guide the direction of the workshops and understand history and key challenges they faced. We then conducted a divisional team workshop involving a cross-section of staff. It was designed to help participants explore their shared history, understand the events and patterns that had shaped their operating context, and build a stronger sense of identity and connection.

Rather than starting with a fixed answer, the workshop created space for people to step back and make sense of the system they were working in. Participants used systems thinking activities to explore the complexity of their environment, identify the problem they were trying to solve, and generate ideas for how the division could move forward.

The first workshop focused on:

• mapping the division’s history and defining moments
• exploring the future landscape and likely challenges
• introducing systems thinking as a way to understand complex problems
• identifying ideas and priorities for action
• considering what the work meant for individuals, teams and the division as a whole.

This was followed by a leadership workshop designed to take the insights from the staff workshop and translate them into a more focused program of work. Leaders reflected on what had emerged, considered the priorities within the division’s control, and consolidated a broad set of themes into a smaller and more manageable list of action areas.

To support this, we introduced a change canvas as a practical tool for shaping and documenting action. The canvas helped leaders explore why each priority mattered, what needed to change, who needed to be involved, what risks or resistance might arise, and what practical steps could be taken.

The leadership group worked through one canvas together, then developed further canvases in pairs. This helped turn workshop discussion into early action plans that could be reviewed, refined and used as a basis for communicating with staff.

We also prepared summary documentation that captured the workshop outcomes, emerging themes, key communication principles, and suggested next steps. This gave leaders a practical artefact they could use to continue the conversation and build momentum beyond the workshops.

THE RESULTS

The project helped the division move from broad discussion to a clearer foundation for action.

Through the workshop series, staff and leaders had the opportunity to reflect on the division’s identity, operating context and future direction. This supported a stronger shared understanding of the need for clarity, collaboration and transparency across the division.

The leadership workshop produced an initial change canvas for each refined priority area. These canvases provided a practical starting point for action planning, communication and further engagement with teams. They also gave leaders a visible way to connect priority areas with drivers for change, stakeholder needs, engagement considerations, resources, risks and benefits.

The process helped leaders consolidate a broad set of priorities into a more focused program of work. It also reinforced the importance of communicating with authenticity, building trust, and showing staff that their input had been heard.

Key foundations created through the work included:

• a clearer set of priority areas for action
• initial change canvases to support planning and communication
• shared principles for communicating outcomes with staff
• stronger recognition of the need for collaborative practices and transparency
• a shared commitment to increase communication between leaders and teams
• practical next steps for refining plans and broadening contribution across the division.

The work did not assume that alignment would happen through a workshop alone. Instead, it gave the division a practical foundation to continue the work: clearer conversations, more focused priorities, and tools leaders could use to involve staff in shaping and implementing the next stage of change.

Together, these elements provided a starting point for strengthening divisional alignment and helping people better connect their work to the division’s broader purpose.