Archives: Resources

Psychological Safety v Organisational Performance

Date: Thursday, 22nd August, 2024

Sort fact from fiction and learn from the real-world experience of genuine experts in psychological safety and organisational performance

We are excited to share with you our online expert panel session; Psychological Safety v Organisational Performance as part of season 2 of our Collision of the Minds series.

Whether you’re a leader who is already prioritising your team’s mental health and well-being, or one with only a glancing familiarity with psychological safety regulation you might be wondering:

• Am I doing enough to protect my team’s psychological safety?
• How do the updated rules affect my organisation?
• What simple, practical steps can I take to ensure compliance without impacting performance?

In this free webinar, our panel of experts will guide participants through the legislative and professional maze, making compliance with the psychological safety regulations understandable, achievable and beneficial to everyone within your organisation.

Our Expert Speakers:

John Makris: John Makris, Australia’s leading legal expert in workplace health and safety.

Susan Pearse: Master Leadership Mentor, best-selling author and expert in translating complex concepts into practical leadership strategies.

Matthew Elliott: former international NRL coach who has leveraged 20+ years experience coaching elite athletes to become a leading authority on building high-performance workplaces.

PSYCHOSOCIAL FITNESS – The New Pathway to Productivity

Date: Tuesday, 1st October, 2024

This is part of our ongoing Collision of the Minds series, where we explore the leadership practices that create high-performing and inspired workforces.

Whether you’re a leader already focused on your team’s mental health and well-being or just beginning to explore the evolving psychosocial safety landscape, you might be asking yourself what role the leadership team plays in

• Moving culture from toxic to thriving
• Addressing workloads & burnout
• Shifting attention away from adversity (ability to be a victim) to being a high performer
• The leadership practices that improve team engagement and performance

In this free webinar, our panel of experts will share their insights on integrating psychosocial safety with business performance, making it not only compliant but a driver of success in your organisation.

Our Expert Speakers:

• Rowdy McLean: International speaker, author, and leadership expert with over 25 years of experience helping leaders and organisations unlock their potential and play a bigger game.
• Susan Pearse: Master Leadership Mentor, best-selling author, and expert in translating complex leadership concepts into actionable strategies.
• Matthew Elliott: Former NRL coach turned workplace performance specialist, with over 20 years’ experience in coaching elite athletes and building high-performing teams.

How to rediscover the joy of winning – create your best year ever in 2025

Date: Wednesday, 4th December, 2024

In today’s rapidly changing world, leaders are being called upon to go beyond traditional knowledge and rediscover the energy, purpose, and passion of leading to win. But what does that look like in practice? You might be wondering:

• Why leaders are losing their ‘conditioning’ and ‘organisational fitness’ in today’s complexity.
• The power of joy in leadership, recovery, and peak performance.
• How to shift your mindset to “play to win” — no matter the odds.

Join our expert panel for a free webinar as they share actionable strategies and personal experiences to help you evolve from a knowledge-focused leader to a wisdom-driven change-maker.

This is your opportunity to gain insights that will not only enhance your leadership impact but also empower you to foster a thriving, high-performing team.

Our Expert Speakers:

• Matthew Elliott: Former NRL coach turned workplace performance specialist, with over 20 years’ experience in coaching elite athletes and building high-performing teams.
• Susan Pearse: Master Leadership Mentor, best-selling author, and expert in translating complex leadership concepts into actionable strategies.
• Rowdy McLean: International speaker, author, and leadership expert with over 25 years of experience helping leaders and organisations unlock their potential and play a bigger game.

Welcome to The Change Room Game Plan for Wellbeing.

 

We know that a good night’s sleep is such an important step to being your best self and sometimes there are factors such as shift work, increased workload or social outings that can impact the length or quality of our sleep.

 

As an intro to this program, Matt talks with Nam Baldwin about the role breathing and routines can play on our quality of sleep. Nam gets on average 6 hours of deep sleep each day… for any of you who have wearable devices, that’s about 6 – 7 times the amount of deep restorative sleep that most of us get… Just think about how you would feel and what you could achieve if you had the best nights sleep every night…

 

Watch the video below and let’s get going!

CHALLENGE TIME

The process of going to sleep can be improved through a routine. Let’s try these over the next few weeks and if you have some sort of wearable device that can track your sleep, take note of the changes that you experience.

• Ideally no food within 2 hours of bedtime

• Where possible, we need to dim the lights in the lead up to going to bed (2-3 hours before bedtime). For shift work this can be more challenging, so you need to simulate the sun going down, close curtains etc make the house darker where possible

• Avoid tech devices (this includes the TV) for at least an hour before bed

• Avoid coffee or caffeinated 6 – 8 hours before bed

Tip Sheet:

• It’s easy to say no tech devices for at least an hour before bed but what can you do? A hot shower, read a book, stretching, spending time with your partner etc

• Your room needs to be dark and cold to get the best quality sleep. Not so easy if you are doing shift work or trying this in the Australian summer. If you don’t have total blackout blinds, you will need to find a way of doing this. We have heard or people putting up the foil on their windows to block out all the light as a temporary solution. The ideal temperature to sleep is 18 degrees, a fan or air conditioning might be needed.

• Nam has recorded a breathing practice for you to listen to whilst going to sleep. Have a listen to it as you are going to bed listening to it here (THE SWITCH)

• Understand that good quality sleep starts in the morning – see if you can follow Nam’s wake up routine. Oxygenate, hydrate, invigorate, appreciate and anticipate

I’m grateful that we have the opportunity to provide you and your team with resources that we KNOW will elevate your wellbeing.

It’s week 8 of The Change Room Game Plan for Wellbeing.

 

The Change Room Founder, Matt Elliott, catches up with Anthony Minichiello who shares his insights on how you can increase your mobility, stability and fitness during the lockdown. Movement and exercise have a huge impact, not just on our physical state, but our emotional and mental health. It stimulates our lymphatic system and releases dopamine which helps us anticipate pleasure, feel motivated, and maintain hope.

 

Anthony encourages us to focus on the things we can do, find balance and create new habits around movement and exercise. Click on the below video to find out how.

CHALLENGE TIME

For 1-week schedule 10-15min of movement or exercise into your daily routine (ideally outside)

Tip Sheet:

• Write down a few notes on how you feel after you do your exercise or activity – you will be amazed when looking back at these notes at the end of the week at how important this is for your wellbeing

• See if you can get in a walking meeting into your schedule or if you are watching tv for an evening – stretch during the ad breaks

• Get a friend to join you on this challenge for the week – set a time to meet every day

Pump up your endorphins and kick start this week on a high!

It’s week 7 of The Change Room Game Plan for Wellbeing and we hope you are enjoying the challenges so far. The good news is that we are almost out of this current lockdown period – there is a plan in place to re-open and it will be here sooner than we think. Today our Founder, Matt Elliott, talks with Dr Ali Walker about how we can improve our self-awareness and become more intentional by using the one thing we have plenty of right now and that is the time! Prior to the current lockdown restrictions our time, for most, was dictated by our routines; getting ready for work, taking kids to school, exercising and after school activities. Routines provide structure around our physical and mental wellbeing. It’s time to break those unconscious lockdown habits and create new intentional routines to help us set some new boundaries and maintain health and wellness.

Prior to embarking on this week’s challenge, ask yourself “How do I want to feel at the end of the day?” Having good routines can mean the difference between feeling good or not so good at the end of the day.

Take advantage of the current circumstances and look at some skills or areas in your life that you want to improve – here’s how

CHALLENGE TIME

1. Develop self-awareness around your routines

• Take note of what you are eating, drinking, movement, TV/Netflix/screen time and implement structure as you would in a usual pre lockdown day. Reflect on how you feel at the end of the day.

2. Where is your area of greatest discomfort?

• Identify one area that you want to improve most and spend 5 -10 mins a day practising that skill

• Reflect on how it felt and take notes on how you think you are improving. It will get easier the more you practice

Tip Sheet:

• Fill your weekly calendar with work, chores to do around the home, free time, exercise, hobbies. This will help build structure and keep you motivated

• Think about a skill that you would like to improve on, whilst you have the time, maybe look at some free courses

• Think about how improving on this skill now help you in the future

Best of luck and have a great week.

It’s week 6 of The Change Room Game Plan for Wellbeing and I hope you are all holding together well. How did you get on with Angela’s challenge for you last week?

The goal of these videos is to provide you with different ways to elevate your wellbeing from our mentors. Some ways might work better for you than others so try what feels right to become part of your daily/weekly routine.

Today our Founder, Matt Elliott, talks with Jeff Hardy about the Indigenous practices that have stood the test of time and are sure to have an impact on your wellbeing. As a mentor of The Change Room, Jeff passes wisdom and knowledge from his culture and emphasise the importance of taking time to connect with your story and appreciate nature – our greatest teacher of all!

 

CHALLENGE TIME

This week’s Challenge:

• 2-3 times in the next 2-weeks step out into nature (the bush, a park, the beach). Leave your phone and other technology at home and take time to appreciate the beauty before you

• Notice how nature makes you feel and either write it down or share your experience with a friend or family member

• Invite someone to join you on your walk

Tip Sheet:

• Take time to learn about your personal, family and cultural history

• Ask questions of those around you rather than relying on Google

• What was it like when your parents & grandparents were growing up?

It’s episode 10 of The Change Room Game Plan for Wellbeing.

 

This week Matt Elliott catches up with Mark Hughes to discuss what are some tools or things to try if we are experiencing change or adversity. Mark has unfortunately had some significant challenges that he has had to overcome in his life and what he has achieved in the face of this is so inspirational.

As with all the Gameplan challenges we would like this to be about improving YOUR wellbeing, just take a moment to reflect on the past challenges and what has worked for you before diving into this episode.

CHALLENGE TIME

• Connect with your friends each day – even if it’s just a quick phone call to check in and see how they are doing this week

• Find time each day this week to “get out good china” and appreciate the things that we have in our lives to be grateful for

Tip Sheet:

• Try not to get hung up on things that we cannot change – focus on the things that we can change

• We know that helping others elevates our own well-being – is there a way this week that you can make someone’s day by doing something a little extra for them