Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Designing a leadership onboarding program for external senior hires

External leaders stepping into Australian organisations often arrive carrying strong track records but little context for their new environment. A senior hire moving from a Sydney-based fintech to a Brisbane resources firm, for example, must rapidly absorb unfamiliar governance structures, workplace expectations and unwritten cultural norms. Throwing generic orientation at such a person wastes their expertise and risks a slow, costly integration.

What separates a successful external leadership placement from a turbulent one rarely comes down to technical fit. It is the quality of the onboarding journey in the first months that decides whether a new executive becomes a force multiplier or quietly disengages. Boards across the ASX-listed space increasingly recognise that settling in a leader from outside the business demands a deliberately designed experience, not a hopeful one.

The good news is that a structured pathway combining diagnostics, learning bursts and stakeholder immersion can shorten the adjustment curve dramatically. Anchored in clear outcomes and disciplined measurement, the program becomes a measurable business advantage rather than a hopeful welcome ritual.

Framing the business case and role mandate

Start by anchoring the program in the specific business outcomes the new leader is being asked to drive. Generic corporate boilerplate wastes the opportunity and signals to the hire that the organisation treats leadership onboarding as a compliance exercise. Treat the journey as part of a wider strategic learning plan so it survives the budget pressures that regularly hit learning functions in Australian corporates. Pull the board papers and operating plan to identify three to five measurable goals the leader must own by month six, from regulatory complexity and multi-jurisdictional operations to managing teams across remote and metro sites.

Translate those business goals into a role-specific capability profile. Interview the outgoing leader, peer executives and key direct reports to capture the expectations that rarely make it into a position description. A regional general manager joining a Perth-based mining services company, for example, may need to demonstrate rapid familiarity with the relevant state approvals process alongside internal political navigation. Documenting those expectations up front turns the onboarding journey from a vague welcome into a targeted capability sprint.

Mapping the first ninety days

A predictable onboarding arc gives the new leader, their team and the executive committee a shared map of what happens when. Most Australian organisations do well in week one and then leave the new hire to figure out months two and three alone, which is where energy drains and early judgments harden. Replace the implicit mid-period with explicit milestones: stakeholder interviews, business deep-dives, a small visible win and a structured feedback loop with the chief executive or chair.

Two patterns work well depending on the brief. A listening-led entry suits leaders stepping into delicate environments or underperforming units where trust must come before action. An action-led entry suits commercial leaders hired to move the needle on revenue or growth. Compare them directly below.

Phase	Listening-led entry	Action-led entry
Weeks 1-2	Observe meetings, formal introductions, absorb context	Set priorities, customer or site visits, quick wins
Weeks 3-6	Stakeholder interviews, culture immersion, process mapping	Initial strategic moves, early decisions, resource reallocation
Weeks 7-12	Share findings, first impressions, co-design priorities	Drive outcomes, publish early results, align the leadership team

The mistake is drifting between the two without telling anyone which mode the hire is operating in. Pin the chosen pattern to the business case and review it with the sponsor after week four.

Blended learning bursts and stretch assignments

Traditional week-long leadership programs rarely fit the calendar of a senior external hire. Microlearning bursts, action learning sets and short simulations deliver more value because they slot between real work. Build the curriculum around three streams: industry and regulatory context, leadership craft for the specific organisational culture, and relationship-led exposure to influential internal and external stakeholders.

Layer in the realities of operating across Australian state lines, the expectations of the Fair Work framework, and the soft skills of working with boards that often include family-foundation representatives or industry veterans. Pair each learning burst with a stretch assignment that puts the new content into practice within days, then debrief with an executive coach or seasoned internal mentor. That tight loop turns passive exposure into genuine capability uplift.

Stakeholder immersion and cultural fluency

A leader arriving from outside inherits a web of relationships that took years to weave. Map the influential players, including the chair, the audit and risk committee chair, the head of any unionised workforce and the general counsel, then engineer deliberate introductions rather than leaving them to chance. In organisations with operations across Adelaide, Darwin and regional New South Wales, prioritise visits that build visceral understanding of frontline realities rather than relying on quarterly reports.

Cultural fluency also covers the unspoken rituals of decision-making: how a budget submission is actually socialised, which forums shape a promotion, and the early warning signals of conflict. Encourage the new leader to keep a private journal during the first months and review it with their sponsor after day sixty, looking for surprises and blind spots no onboarding deck could surface.

Forecasting impact with predictive evaluation

Most onboarding programs fail not because the design is poor but because nobody knows whether it is working until it is too late to adjust. Apply predictive evaluation methods to forecast adoption, behaviour change and business contribution before the program concludes. Run a baseline assessment of the leader's capability, then track engagement signals, stakeholder feedback and early performance against the business case defined at the start. This transforms intuition about whether a new executive is settling in into evidence the board can trust.

Building measurement into the design from day one also makes the program easier to defend during restructuring or cost reviews. If the organisation must trim headcount or freeze new spend, having documented links between the onboarding journey and projected outcomes protects the investment and keeps the work visible when scrutiny is highest.

When a senior hire from outside the business thrives, the effect ripples through retention, engagement scores and revenue performance. The most reliable way to make that outcome probable rather than hopeful is to treat onboarding as a designed experience grounded in a clear business case, a deliberate ninety-day arc, blended learning bursts and rigorous early measurement. Start the conversation with the hiring committee before the candidate accepts the role, and the program will be ready before their first day on the floor.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.