What is small-group coaching, and how does it help frontline and emerging leaders, middle management and sales?

What is Fastlead

Fastlead is Australia’s leading front-line leadership program with a small group coaching design.

Participants build confidence, essential skills, and core coaching techniques to enable them to lead their front-line teams effectively.

Fastlead graduates consistently display elevated leadership behaviours including embracing difficult conversations, managing performance expectations, dealing with conflict, and developing team members through effective coaching and delegation.

Who is Fastlead for?

There are three Fastlead products.

The original Fastlead is designed for frontline leaders – people who run a team of individual contributors. Typically frontline leaders directly manage 80 per cent of the a typical organisations’s workforce.

Typical participants include front-line managers who are:

  • About to lead a team of individual contributors (become a team leader) for the first time;

  • Have recently transitioned into leading a team;

  • Have been a team leader for some time but have had no formal management training.

Fastlead Plus is for middle managers – those front-line leaders report to.

Fastlead Sales is a variance of Fastlead – for front-line leaders for lead sales teams.

How is Fastlead designed and delivered?

Fastlead programs are designed to be delivered in pods. These consist of between 2 and 4 participants (front-line leaders), and a Fastlead accredited coach.

Clients can launch single pods to test Fastlead, or launch extensive programs involving many pods (38 pods in one go is our current record).

Each pod follows a highly structured pathway, that includes start-up sessions, check-ins with managers, and then a minimum of six Pod Sessions.

Each of these run for about two hours, usually once a month, and cover one topic at a time. Topics can be chosen by the organisation, or the participants, or a combination of both.

Participants have access to a learning portal which supports each of the topics areas, allowing 24x7 access to learning.

What is the Fastlead360?

An optional extra, strongly recommended, is a 360-degree multi-rator survey which is linked to the Fastlead topics. This enables participants to get a clear view of how they are currently being experienced as a leader. The data informs participants’ Personal Growth Plans, which aim to build on existing strengths and build capability in development areas. learning principles

The key principles that underpin the operation of the program is that discussions in the Pod Sessions are confidential, they occur at a regular time and place, and that participants are all expected to contribute evenly to the conversation. Within the two-hour period, typically one quarter is devoted to covering a basic curriculum, and half to discussing the topic in direct relation to the participants’ workplace and team (making the program very applied), and one quarter covering review of actions committed to in the previous session, and proposed actions committed to from the current session.

All participants shape a Personal Growth Plan after Pod session #1, and then continue to add and evolve this plan during the length of the program.

All of our coached are fully accredited in small group coaching principles. If you would like a copy of these principles, see an overview of them here.

Can I customise Fastlead's delivery?

Your organisation’s deployment of Fastlead can be customised for you in the following ways:

Pod Sizes. Pods can contain 2, 3 or 4 participants. We recommend 3.

Pod Sessions. Cycles of 6 sessions or 8 sessions are available.

Pod make-up. Organisations can vary the make up of each pod, with some being silo-busters (managers from different parts of the business), to Birds of a Feather (managers doing the same role in the same location), to Birds of a Feather Virtual (involving managers doing the same jobs in different states or regions).

Pod Delivery. We can deliver face to face, or virtually. FTF delivery in most capital cities in Australia and New Zealand, and many regional cities in Australia.

Topics. Fastlead’s curriculum has 14 separate topics, and organisations can customise topics for each individual pod.

There are various ways in which, at an additional cost, Fastlead can be customised for clients. Please ask us.

What are the benefits of Fastlead?

Fast to deploy. Fastlead can be deployed within a fortnight. Because it deals with small groups, we can start one “pod” or many, and get leaders’ training underway immediately.

Inexpensive. Fastlead can be deployed for approximately A$100 per participant a week. This is half the cost of customised front-line management programs, and about the same price as Cert IV programs (but with twice the contact time, and we’d argue, much more effective). We have designed Fastlead to be the best value in the market, and the most effective.

High quality learning environment. Fastlead coaches are fully accredited, vastly experienced and very highly rated by front-line managers.

Very Personal. Fastlead feels personal because participants can share current challenges in every session, and feel part of a small but supportive group, and even choose the topics covered.

Flexible. Organisations can deploy Fastlead in many ways, and customise the program for each small group of participants.

It works, and it’s guaranteed. Having now served more than 1,000 leaders, we can guarantee results. We offer a money back guarantee for the first pod you test with us.

How do I learn more?

Please contact us here to request a virtual briefing meeting, receive a copy of our detailed Fastlead Promotional Deck with much more detail than is described here, or a quote.

What style of Fastlead will suit your organisation?

Fastlead for frontline leaders

Increase the confidence, capability and performance of emerging and frontline team leaders.

Fastlead360: the best first step for personal growth

Help participants to get the most concrete, clear view of how they are currently being experienced as a leader. We have customised multi-rator 360-degree surveys for each of our Fastlead programs - for front-line leaders and managers, for middle managers, and for sales leaders.

Introducing: Fastlead Plus for middle management

Middle management coaching reflects increased experience - and the pressure from above and below to lead effectively.

The benefits of the Fastlead experience