Graeme Cowan, Author at Graeme Cowan

Overcoming Toxic Cultures: Powerful lessons from caring CEOs

Our Federal Parliament has been inundated with graphic accounts of misogyny, sexual assault, rape allegations, and toxic departments. Our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison recently claimed it was a triumph for the protesters that they weren’t “met with bullets” during the March 4 Justice rallies. Morrison says ‘the house’ is just like any workplace. Politicians with broader career […]

Male mental ill-health – how to remove the workplace stigma

I recently visited beautiful Forster, on the NSW mid-north coast. Having grown up in Taree it is an area I am quite familiar with. I caught up with a friend who shared that he had lost 2 friends to suicide in the last month. This is a town of just 14,000. It is tragic that […]

10 Commandments for truly caring leaders

Do you consider yourself to be a caring leader? Self-care and caring for others in your team is the foundation of highly effective, sustainable and innovative teams. It comes down to what leaders do each day. Here are my top 10 “commandments” for truly caring leaders.

How to demonstrate empathy when you ask someone “R U OK?”

Asking R U OK? can be scary. What if the other person replies with a “No”. It’s really important to show empathy and not dismiss their feelings. This short video has my top tips for demonstrating empathy when having sensitive conversations.

How to increase your probability of high life satisfaction by 300%

How can we build our strengths, effectiveness, and sense of contribution at work? Developing our talents can lead to greater life satisfaction. We all know that having a good manager is crucial to being productive and engaged in the workplace. After all, as the saying goes “people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad […]

Introducing the WorkWell Toolkit for transport industry leaders

The transport sector has been the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 crisis. They have been an essential service that has ensured everyone is able to eat and buy supplies during this volatile period. I was very pleased to be approached by WorkSafe Victoria and to help raise awareness of their WorkWell Toolkit, specifically for leaders […]

My webinar with Mike Schneider, CEO, Bunnings – about building a mentally healthy culture

It is always a great day when I meet a leader who shares my vision for building a caring and resilient workplace. Last Tuesday I had a live steam conversation with Michael Schneider, the CEO, of Bunnings. Mike has approximately 44,000 team members under his care, and he is passionate about their mental wellbeing. He regularly live broadcasts […]

News: Global giant AON launches our WeCARE mental health learning campaign partnership

It is with great pride that we announce our WeCARE partnership with AON Australia and New Zealand. As many of you would know I have been striving to improve employee mental health and resilience for over 10 years. Just over two years ago I met eLearning expert Brenden Carter and we Co-Founded FactorC – a […]

Survey: 4 Greatest concerns transitioning ‘back to the office’?

In a webinar that I presented last week, I asked people to answer this question when they registered: ‘What are you most concerned about in transitioning back to the office?’ The 116 employees from 15 industries answered with one sentence. From these 116 sentences we formed a WordCloud to find out the main concerns. As […]

5 One on One Questions for Managers to Support Remote Staff

In a recent webinar I presented, 71% of managers said the most challenging part of the Covid-19 crisis, was not REALLY knowing how their employees are going at home. When pressed further, one person commented that although they saw their people via Zoom most days, they had no idea what was going on beyond this. […]