Institute Fellow

Cherri Holland is a performance and change specialist whose focus over the last 20 years has been a ‘partnership approach’ to business success. Influenced by leaders running successful staff-driven businesses, she has moved hundreds of groups past entrenched ways of working into self-leadership, high performance and flow.

Described as commercially-savvy, engaging and inspirational, Cherri quickly assesses what people and organizations need to fulfil their obligations to the full range of stakeholders. Her clients have consistently said that high expectations of change outcomes have been exceeded. As financial metrics become increasingly tied to customer and staff disengagement, and disengagement is tied to outdated management approaches, businesses need quick ways to hit the reset button.

Cherri has sat alongside leaders undertaking organisation-wide transformation to develop a staff-driven, high performance culture. She co-designs solutions with  people which avoids the natural resistance to externally-imposed models  (leading to costly failure of change programmes). Drawing on both neuroscience and neuromarketing, she mobilizes unused reserves for a positive response to market pressures and/or technology disruption.

Typical assignments have included:

  • developing an employee-driven culture around organizational purpose
  • planning and embedding change so that programmes realize expected benefits
  • responding to complex workplace challenges and stakeholder demands getting the desired outcomes
  • improving key person impact and results — remaining ‘calm under fire’.
  • resolving conflict and negotiating to meet all parties’ needs

Since graduating with a Psychology degree (sub majoring in Industrial Psychology) Cherri has continued to research ways to tap into latent mental reserves for super-performance. She has shown these approaches work across diverse cultures and industries in 10 countries.

Cherri has published the following articles on our site:

Customer as King or Pawn?

Customer as King or Pawn?

Before my father went into marketing, he was in sales management and took sales training seriously. This was the era ... Read More
Critical Influence Skills

Critical Influence Skills

Do you wish you could wave a wand and have people do as you want them to? As organizations have ... Read More
Performance Reviews That Inspire

Performance Reviews That Inspire

Lewis Hamilton commented recently that he stays motivated by post-race reviews – he always sees something to work on and ... Read More
Is your Team Sailed or Driven?

Is your Team Sailed or Driven?

Do you want a team that is sailed or one that has to be driven? Two very different organisations with striking similarities are ... Read More
The Power of Storytelling

The Power of Storytelling

Storytelling has become synonymous with great leadership and is an effective way to captivate and engage an audience. Storytelling can ... Read More
Disobedient Thinking

Disobedient Thinking

What can a teacher suspended from teacher training (and repeatedly admonished throughout his subsequent teaching career) teach today’s business leaders? ... Read More
Digital Waste

Digital Waste

Listening to a recent interview with a visionary leader in the health sector in New Zealand, Dr Lester Levy1, I ... Read More
The Change Management Oxymoron

The Change Management Oxymoron

I have always pondered the term Change Management. I see management as sameness, consistency and predictability - what is known ... Read More
Customer Experience in the Digital Era

Customer Experience in the Digital Era

Standing in a telecommunications retail store recently with the ‘service person’ speaking techno-gobbledy-gook, I was transported back decades to when I worked ... Read More