Dr Ronald Forbes
BSc, Diplôme, PhD, CAHRI, AFAIM, MAITD, MAMED, MPr. AINLP
Launching Leader Effectiveness Training (L.E.T.) in Australia in 1978, Ronald took up what he describes as:
"the continuous challenge to explore and put into practice every discovery that can help people communicate and organise effectively together for the benefit of themselves, society and the environment".
Working with Australian managers and executives, he developed his own unique range of interpersonal skills programs under the banner of Leaderskill.
Ronald has led projects ranging from scientific and educational research to systems consulting, in Australia, the United States and Latin America. In Chile, he was Education Specialist representing the Organisation of American States (OAS) in the design and processing of a survey of Chile's basic education system. He has degrees from London, Paris and UCLA, is a Certified Professional Member of the Australian Human Resources Institute and Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management. He is a Member of the Association for Management Education & Development in the UK. He holds Advanced Accreditation with Team Management Systems. His public and in-house programs have included facilitating executive teams, and presenting workshops in team building, consulting skills, negotiation, trainer training, customer relations and advanced selling skills. Graduates from his programs are to be found widely in business, industry and government.
With a background in interpersonal skills training, Ronald was one of the first Australians to take up the dramatic new possibilities created by research into brain function as it affects communication, learning, innovation and leadership (today, neuroscience). While staunchly opposing jargon, he nevertheless helped establish Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) in Australia, became a Master Practitioner and added into the methodologies of consulting and training every element that could bring faster skills development and change. This meant introducing the philosophy and techniques of Accelerated Learning.
He has created Leaderskill's workbooks and videos, published numerous articles, and coauthored the chapter on Performance Management for Prof. Roger Kaufman's The Guidebook for Performance Improvement (Jossey-Bass, 1997) and the instruments Does your Organization Contribute to Society? in the McGraw-Hill 2002 Team and Organization Development Sourcebook. He co-presented a paper The Challenge of Mandated Organisational Change to Qualcon '93. He is co-author of Start-up Mega Planning, published in ISPI's Performance Improvement Quarterly, 2005 and co-author of Creating a Compelling Ideal Vision, published in the same journal in 2010. He is co-author of Float-In Indonesian an Accelerated Learning language system distributed through the University of Western Sydney.
With the growth of the Continuous Improvement movement, the need for leadership, cultural change and improved communication systems became more and more evident. Rather than modularise such training, Ronald integrated the Leaderskill programs into a range of courses and workshops using multilevel learning principles, with application in both technical training and personal development. Trainers are accredited to present the programs within their own organizations in Australia and overseas. Meanwhile, searching for new ways to develop people and organizations, he brought Upward Feedback® to Australia (now 360 Facilitated®) integrating it with customer focus.
A Director of the Leaderskill Group of highly acclaimed consultants, trainers and coaches in organizational change and strategic planning, Ronald designs and coordinates programs in Australia and overseas. He considers that his personal reward continues to be "to help release the untapped energies within people - the support leaders must have to reach their goals".
Leaderskill designed instruments
In 1985, Ronald designed a Team Climate Assessment Questionnaire, the first of many more (Interpersonal Skills, Teamwork, Negotiating, Presentation and Stress) that have been used pre- and post- Leaderskill's training courses. These questionnaire proved an accurate means to assess team environments and measure change. He also designs and advises on capability and competency assessments and a variety of surveys and 360s for Leaderskill's clients.
