My proudest work achievement was the big leap to take on my role as a Director with MCA group. Having firmly established my own reputation, it was time to take a risk and to help build a strong organisation. It has also been my best decision.My Co-Directors and I set out to create a company driven by three overarching goals – to provide quality solutions to difficult people problems, to do interesting work, and to create a culture of like-minded consultants. We remain true to these values in everything we do.MCA group has a reputation for providing the highest quality work, where our relationship with our clients and client organisations is always our first priority. We will tell it as it is, but in a way that won’t have doors slammed in our face. This has helped us develop long-lasting partnerships with our clients and client organisations.It is exciting to get out of bed every morning to work with a company where innovation is at the forefront of our practice. Recently this has been in the form of developing industry leading Psychological Health, Safety and Risk Management services to assist organisations navigate the contemporary work climate and create mentally healthy workplaces. With the rise in bullying claims, staff conflict and costly workers compensation matters, we identified that while employers wanted to better protect the mental health of their staff, they were frustrated by the limitations offered by providers in this space. We have been pleased to not only fill this gap, but to assist our clients to protect future challenges with their evolving workforce.

This is where I established my reputation for resolving the most complex people problems. I came to recognise how challenging and disruptive psychological injuries can be to individuals and organisations and developed situation-specific strategies to navigate these challenges.I quickly realised that while I could facilitate positive outcomes for individuals, the scope of this work was limited and there was a desperate demand from organisations for a greater level of influence. To meet this demand I resolved to create a unique niche in the organisation, providing high level psychological wellbeing support. My unique approach to complex matters hit the right note within the market, balancing often competing needs of individuals, personalities, systems, processes and schemes.My highest achievements and genuine privilege was to provide support to individuals and organisations in some of the most high profile matters in Australia, including:- 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission- Royal Commission into Family Violence- 2015 Metropolitan Remand Centre prison riot- Victorian parliamentary inquiries including the inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations- Major Australian bushfiresI am also proud to have developed an industry leading assessment tool, called Resolve, which provides a measure of psychosocial barriers impacting return to work outcomes. When asked by a high level contact for a measure to assist with their management of employee mental health conditions, I was disheartened by the absence of measures in this space. Taking the lead, I decided to create a tool specific for this need. Resolve was so successful for our client that it is now used with every assessment undertaken by Carfi and has set the standard in this market.

This was the genesis of my professional life and the start of what would become my future. My initial work in this space involved the development of McPhee Andrewartha’s Executive Dimensions 360° leadership assessment tool and the Influence Dimensions communication tool. These assessment measures are unique in the marketplace, as they were created to meet a need that was not met by existing measures. We still use these measures to this day.I am most proud of the Influence Dimensions communication tool, which we use to assist individuals and teams to enhance their communication. The market was replete with personality measures, and while these can be interesting undertakings they do not deliver on providing practical and immediate improvements to people’s behaviours. The Influence Dimensions is unique in this regard and our clients have found this most successful with leadership and executive coaching, team building and organisational culture matching.Assisting with the formation of these tools grounded my experience in the methodology of developing valid and reliable assessment measures, which served as a strong foundation for my Post Graduate Psychology studies. This also entrenched my drive to continuously learn and improve upon existing techniques, to always match the evolving needs of our clients.Most importantly, I learned how to value staff. Our staff are the lifeblood of what we do and in many ways who we are. This is probably my greatest business learning and has helped in every aspect of my career because no matter who I am working with, I strive to understand what motivates them and how I can assist them to be at their best. This is a quality I hope to encourage in my children in time.