I started work in 1974 with a Bachelor in Social Work (Hons.) from UNSW. My father had been a social worker, and I wanted to study something that gave me a ticket. I figured I find what I really wanted to do once I got working.

For ten years, I worked on skill development in organisations, four years with government agencies, and then solo as a consultant. I developed programs to teach goal setting, feedback skills, teamwork and team leadership, assertiveness, stress management, job analysis, coaching and supervision. I did competency analysis and designed skill development programs for organisations. I trained trainers, specialising in training methods for teaching person-to-person skills.

At the same time I learned to facilitate groups and use action methods, and earned my certification as a Sociodrama Director. I did a lot of work in education, welfare and indigenous sectors. All this was a great apprenticeship, but I became dissatisfied dealing with people in the training room, away from their work environment. I wanted to influence the organisational systems that shape goals and norms. So over the next ten years my focus shifted to:

• action learning programs for managers, where managers assessed their own learning needs and used peer groups to support their learning;
• performance management systems, linking operational goals to work team and individual goals;
• teams, prototyping assessment tools and team reflection that allowed teams to improve their own functioning.

In the last ten years, my work has progressed into strategic planning, stakeholder engagement and the social processes of knowledge management.