About >> What Bluestone Edge does?
Culture reviews and research
Bluestone Edge and our community of partners engage in projects, reviews and research in our respective fields of interest across sport, culture, ethics and leadership.
Reviewing culture is of particular importance at those times when organisations face a cultural dilemma, or even worse, a ‘cultural crisis’. As confronting as it might be, reviewing culture at these challenging times, allows organisations to maximise the learning embedded in a crisis.
Organisations create sustainable high-performance by reviewing culture and then developing action plans around these learnings. Addressing undesirable behaviours or those cultural elements that do not support sustained high-performance in a proactive and person-centric way, reduces the probability of these behaviours recurring.
We have worked on a range of projects and conducted research, evaluation and reviews for sport, government and NGO clients on diverse topics including: performance enhancing drugs in community sport, women into leadership positions in elite sport, alcohol in sport, ethics, leadership and values in sport.
Culture, ethics, performance psychology and leadership
Bluestone Edge provide quality consultancy services in culture, ethics, performance psychology and leadership, especially, but not exclusively for sporting organisations.
In basic terms, we might describe culture as an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behaviour that depends upon our the capacity to give meaning to symbols, for symbolic thought and our capacity for social learning; culture is something that happens between people. We might also see it as the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterises an institution, organisation or group. A culture of excellence happens when those characteristics that are demonstrated day in and day out enable and inspire everyone in an organization to not only do their best, but to do what is right even when it is not easy.
When an organisation has ethics at its core, that is, an understanding of its framework of values, principles, commitments and, relationships and methods, and it understands what systems, processes or policies drive the framework, then it is more likely to express its culture clearly. It will be more obvious to people internally and externally ‘who you are’. This understanding will allow you to have the freedom, discipline and commitment that you need to perform at your absolute peak. What an organisation resists, and what it rewards, will drive culture.
Over the contracted period, Bluestone Edge will work with your organisation to ensure a sound and robust culture is developed without sacrificing optimal performance at any level. We focus firmly on building your capacity, not on doing it for you.
High performance leadership coaching
The eternal debate of leadership is whether a leader is born or made. Either way, every now and then a leader will benefit from a ‘recalibration’ of who they are and why they do what they do.
At Bluestone Edge we use high-performance leadership coaching to assist leaders in this recalibration process as well as to align them to the purpose and vision of their organisation. We also use the latest tools in psychological profiling to identify strengths and areas of opportunity related to a leader’s use of power in order to create a unique developmental program for the leader.
The human condition is a complex one to say the least, and we can be seduced by the idea that authority is in fact leadership, status is leadership, or that outcomes alone are the measure of leadership. At Bluestone Edge we believe that leadership has a few non-negotiable characteristics, namely that leadership is a service one offers to others, leadership doesn’t exist without action, and leadership is characterized by the ability and willingness to influence people. It is a question of skill, character and of circumstance.
Ethical leadership goes further. It requires the leader to consider the principles that underpin their actions – do you win at all costs? Will you seek the greatest good for the greatest number of people? Will you seek an ‘eye for an eye’? (Gandhi reminded us that this leads to blindness). Ethical leadership is not always a question of black and white, but of the uncertain grey in the middle. It cannot always be about clear right and wrong, but sometimes about choosing the better option of several that are less than great. It is about knowing why you make one decision over another and what you believe in when you face failure or when you face success.
At Bluestone Edge, we believe sport is an important place for ethical leadership, not least because it is so visible in our society. Sport gives us a forum to practice leadership directly, and it offers a metaphor for us to see and understand the force of leadership more broadly.