Leading Growth Through Change: 3 Days with Cisco

Strategy wasn’t the problem. 65 Cisco leaders arrived in Australia with a clear direction for growth across the region. The work was connecting it to identity, culture and collaboration while significant change was underway across the business.

Most organisations discuss these in separate rooms. Your leaders then leave with four sets of notes and no link between them. Held together, the question changes from “what does the strategy say?” to “what does it need from us?”

The Red Thread: Into The Unknown

Every Explore Performance programme is anchored in a real expedition. For Cisco, it was Into The Unknown: Grant ‘Axe’ Rawlinson’s row across the Tasman Sea, completed in 2025 after eleven years and three failed attempts.

The destination never changed. The plan changed every time. That is the position most leadership teams are in during change, and the crossing gave the group a shared, real reference point for it.

What Made It Work

Honest conversation about the questions change raises. Healthy challenge on assumptions about growth in the region. Focused fun to keep 65 people engaged long enough to get to the hard conversations.

Matthew Bertram and Chris McUtchen led the programme.

If your strategy is set but your leaders aren’t yet aligned behind it, talk to us about Into The Unknown.