For the Greater Good
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For the Greater Good
The Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) is working with the Water Sector in support of gender diverse participation in executive leadership positions. They support women who aspire to fulfill their executive career ambition by investing in programs to elevate their visibility and influence.
Insight is a bespoke highly personalised program focused on insightful self-development and learning from others. It aims to bring together an intellectually rich group of women ready to take the next step into more senior leadership roles and create a collaborative and supportive peer network.
This program has been designed to elevate the visibility of women in water and ancillary industries and to support them to successfully step into leadership roles at the highest level. In particular, the Minister for Water (The Hon Lisa Neville) wanted to support women in the smaller regional rural organisations to consider Insight as signalling their intentions and their long-term commitment to making a difference in the communities in which they live and work.
The Water Sector partnered with Dattner Group to deliver a multi-faceted, experiential program that recognised how women approach leadership.
DELWP outlined the program objectives in their initial Request for Quote (RFQ) as follows:
In Dattner Group’s response, we addressed each of these objectives and additionally provided an out of scope piece about our signature program, Bridging the Gap (BTG). At its heart, BTG ensures both men and women are part of the change to create a diverse, inclusive and agile sector. BTG is about the need for systemic change (of which men are an intrinsic part) and hence the catalyst for sector alignment. In this context, the BTG program reinforced and leveraged the benefits inspired by the Insight program to look at the need for change in organisations participating on the Insight program and across the sector more broadly.
The Minister appointed a Leadership Oversight Committee (LOC) to guide the design and undertake the final selection of women to join the Insight program in its inaugural year.
The LOC went on to articulate, with Dattner Group’s support, a simple scope for the partnerships (Insight and BTG peers) to work towards in developing their individual organisation’s nuanced intent within this initiative including establishing:
Sector events were included in the initiative to increase the visibility of the various regional organisations and opportunities for women in leadership.
These initiatives were designed and facilitated by Dattner Group and are continuing to evolve at this time. They are growing to provide sector wide means of influence on the topic of women and leadership and why this shift is of such importance.
This project has become a signature example of the founding principles of leading for the greater good and the importance of collaboration, inclusion, legacy and trust.
The project has involved many parties, including the Deputy Secretary of DELWP, Helen Vaughan, Women in Water Directors Network, guest speakers from the Water Sector and CEOs and MDs from other sectors to share their own senior leadership journeys, organisations within the sector who have significant influence on the Victorian community and, of course, the incredible women of Insight and the men of BTG who support them.
The influence and impact are growing exponentially.
For more information on this initiative, or to find out how we can help you, please contact us at Dattner Group.