Workshops
Developing new organisational leaders
Leadership workshops — for when you need to clear a bottleneck, fast
From slow decisions and unproductive meetings, to vague feedback and emotional blind spots, our standalone workshops clear one leadership bottleneck at a time.
4x’d a client’s cash flow
in 6 weeks
2x’d a client’s revenue
in 4 years
$3M to $5M revenue
for a client in 2 years
“You can knock yourself out trying to instigate change from within,
but sometimes you just need the right expertise to step in.”
— Chris Horner, Supervision Group
This is what happens when people actually want to be at work
- Finally see the performance/productivity you expect from your payroll
- Unlock the 1.3x team multiplier and all the profit that comes with it
- See better retention, and save thousands (if not millions) of dollars
- Spend less time putting out fires and more time on high-value work
- Have more options: to scale, step back, sell for a higher price, anything
So how do you get there? Build a culture of explicit belonging into every level of your business, lifting engagement and accountability across the board.
This is exactly what we help you do, using a combination of tailored workshops and coaching, starting with whatever will shift the needle fastest.
Our workshops kickstart a behavioural and cultural shift, right there in the room
They can be run with small executive groups, your full leadership team, or your whole team, depending on where the refinement is needed. Each workshop stands alone or stacks into a larger learning arc, supplementing our core coaching programs.
Here are just 6 of the many workshop topics we might suggest, once we know more about your goals and challenges
Decision-making
Most leadership teams aren’t struggling with ideas. They’re struggling to turn decisions into real-world actions that deliver results. This workshop teaches leaders to use the Triple C Decision-Making Model: collective clarity, common sense, and collaborative action. It’s a practical reset on how decisions are made, agreed upon, and executed. Available as a full-day workshop, or half-day for teams who’ve already completed the LSLT or Explicit Empathy coaching programs.
Critical feedback
Many leaders are “telling” their people what to do, and not actually developing them. That’s because their feedback often lacks the structure and tone of coaching. This workshop shows you how to deliver feedback that actually has an impact. Available as a full-day workshop, or half-day for teams who’ve already completed the LSLT or Explicit Empathy coaching programs.
Critical and creative questioning
Most poor decisions are made when we don’t ask (thinking we already know how the person will answer). Additionally, when we do get an answer, we don’t investigate it enough, ultimately wasting time, effort, and money. This workshop teaches leaders how to “slow down to make fast.” Available as a full-day workshop, or half-day for teams who’ve already completed the LSLT or Explicit Empathy coaching programs.
Mastering meetings
There’s an art to running a meeting that actually results in something. This workshop teaches you that art. It shows you how to lead meetings that drive real decisions and unified action. You’ll learn how to create a space where people are held highly accountable, but still want to work together. Available as a full-day workshop, or half-day for teams who’ve already completed the LSLT or Explicit Empathy coaching programs.
Emotional intelligence
This workshop builds on the Explicit Empathy coaching program to advance your leaders’ communication skills to the next level. It focuses on reading nonverbal cues, understanding your own biases and emotional reactions to others, and developing strategies to manage them. Available as a full-day workshop only.
How to be a coach
Everyone talks about coaching, but most people are just guessing. This advanced workshop shows leaders how to actually coach — how to unlock the potential of their team without just telling them what to do (which never works anyway). It’s delivered across 3 days, and you must have done either our LSLT or Explicit Empathy coaching programs to qualify.
Transformation stories
$7M to $12M in 3 Years, with turnover down 74%
We worked with a managed services IT company stuck at $7m profit with high turnover and siloed teams.
Through LSLT, LDLC coaching, and clear SOPs, profit jumped to $12m in 3 years, turnover went from 23% to 6%, and the business is now scaling fast.
Zero turnover; 22% growth; smooth owner transition
The owner of a mechanical services business wanted to step back without selling. We built leadership capacity, clarified roles, and coached the team.
In a year, turnover hit 0%, growth jumped 22%, and HR complaints vanished. The owner now works 1 week in 3.
Broke through a $3M revenue ceiling and hit $5M
A law firm was stuck at $3M revenue, with directors grinding 55+ hours a week and losing trust in their team.
Through coaching, team redesign, and better delegation, we allowed the firm to take on more clients without burning the directors out or hiring more staff.
Core principles
Explicit belonging
If you don’t belong in a group of friends, what do you do? You leave. If you don’t belong in a sports team? You leave. A business? Same thing: you leave. Or worse, you stay and disengage.
Explicit belonging is knowing, not just feeling, that you belong. It’s knowing you’re accepted professionally, socially, and emotionally.
In business, when your employees feel they belong, you get active engagement — they give you their all.
Leadership, Leader Skills, and Team Dynamics
Leadership is everything you say and do that influences the direction of the business. It’s the big picture stuff — the vision, the mission, the values, the strategic plan. Good leadership isn’t about making all the decisions. It’s about creating an environment where the best decisions can be made.
Leader Skills are everything you say and do that influences the behaviour of others. They shape how your leaders communicate, drive engagement, build accountability, resolve conflict — how they do everything. Great leaders have the skills to know how to differentiate their approach based on the situation, the team, and the individuals they’re leading.
Team Dynamics is about how teams are set up. It’s about how they function day-to-day and how they’re influenced by the quality of your Leadership and Leader Skills.
Most people in our line of work focus on one of these things, while we specialise in all three. That’s because, in the real world, they don’t work in isolation. The interplay between them is what actually moves the needle and gets you a 1.3x team multiplier.
The 1.3x team multiplier
The average employee might give you 80 to 85% effort. But a disengaged one? You’d be lucky to get 65%.
When a team is led well and structured properly — when there’s explicit belonging — something interesting happens. Instead of getting 80% from each person, you’ll get 1.3x their usual productivity. In other words, when they’re engaged, the math changes completely. People won’t just put in more effort individually. They’ll amplify each other’s performance.
Others in our line of work might promise you 10x. We guarantee they can’t deliver that. We say 1.3x because it’s real, it’s proven, and your team can actually sustain it.
Why us, not a standard leadership coach or business advisor?
- We measure success by looking at financial metrics, sure, but we focus on the things that actually drive productivity — explicit belonging and team engagement.
- We don’t look at Leadership, Leader Skills, and Team Dynamics in isolation like most coaches, because the real magic happens in the intersection of all three.
- We coach, we don’t train. Training fills notebooks. Coaching transforms businesses. We prefer to stay until your team can do it for real — until you’re actually seeing the return.
- We don’t force rigid frameworks. We build solutions around your business, shaped by insights from every level of your team. It’s the only way to get real, lasting results.
“Solutions are based on research and
studies, not ‘motivation’ and woo woo.”
— somebody
“Working with Cognito means having someone in your corner who’s genuinely committed to your success”
To start, tell us about your business
This short survey is the first step towards a team that’s 30% more productive. At the end of the survey, you’ll be able to schedule a convenient time to talk about your roadblocks in more detail.
“Don’t sit on the fence. The buy-in Brad gets from your staff will
make a huge difference. You’ll wish you had engaged him earlier.”
— Es Chandra, Glide Digital Agency
Meet Brad Raynor, founder of Cognito
I’ve been in the trenches: rebuilt broken cultures, set businesses up to scale, fixed what others couldn’t.
Not once, not in theory, but over and over again, for 25 years.
Most leadership coaches and business advisors either understand Leadership, Leader Skills, or Team Dynamics. I do all three. Because that’s what it actually takes to build a culture of explicit belonging, improve engagement and productivity, and increase your net profit (not just your revenue).
I won’t promise you 10x. I’ll give you 1.3. Because it’s real, and it lasts.
I’m not here to run workshops or fill notebooks. I’m here to fix what’s actually broken in your business. I’m here so you can have the business you actually want.
“Brad’s ability to understand and navigate human behaviour is exceptional. It will be one of the best investments you make.”
— Katherine Rogers, Regency Partners Accountants
