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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Predictive Evaluation

Leadership development for middle managers: avoiding the plateau trap

Middle managers sit where strategy becomes daily behaviour. They translate executive priorities, coordinate specialists and make decisions close to customers, systems and operational risk. When their growth stalls, the impact spreads through engagement, productivity and retention.

The plateau often begins after a promotion. A strong technical performer learns to supervise, meets immediate targets and becomes dependable. The organisation then assumes that experience will produce the next level of leadership, while the manager continues using familiar habits that no longer fit a broader role.

Australian workplaces add practical complexity. Managers may lead hybrid teams across Sydney and Melbourne, support regional or FIFO employees, and balance performance expectations with obligations under the Fair Work Act and work health and safety legislation. Leadership capability must therefore be relevant to real decisions, not limited to generic classroom content.

A useful development approach links learning to measurable business outcomes. The learning consultancy behind this work can help organisations connect enterprise learning strategy, instructional design and evaluation so managers build capability that is visible in operations.

Why capable managers stall

Middle managers commonly plateau because their promotion rewards expertise rather than leadership range. They may be excellent engineers, salespeople or clinicians, yet still need to influence peers, delegate effectively and handle competing priorities. Technical credibility opens the door; it does not automatically create coaching skill, commercial judgement or strategic perspective.

The role also creates a pressure trap. Managers are expected to deliver short-term results while developing people for longer-term capacity. In a busy Melbourne office, a Brisbane project team or a regional site with limited staffing, urgent work can crowd out reflection and deliberate practice.

Without clear expectations, development becomes passive. A manager attends a workshop, collects useful ideas and returns to a system that rewards firefighting. The result is activity without sustained behaviour change.

Recognising the plateau in daily work

Plateaued managers often remain busy and well regarded. Warning signs include holding onto decisions that should be delegated, giving solutions instead of coaching, avoiding difficult conversations and escalating routine problems. Their teams may become dependent on them, which can look like loyalty while signalling weak capability transfer.

Another sign is inconsistent translation of strategy. The manager can repeat organisational priorities but cannot explain what those priorities mean for roster planning, customer service, safety, quality or budget decisions. Team meetings become status updates rather than forums for judgement and learning.

Data can reveal the pattern. Look for slow internal mobility, recurring performance issues, high manager workload, low confidence in feedback and uneven adoption of new processes. These signals are stronger when combined with operational measures rather than treated as isolated survey results.

Design development around business work

Effective programmes start with the outcomes the organisation needs. If a business wants faster project delivery, the development experience should address prioritisation, cross-functional decisions and risk conversations. If it needs better retention, managers may require practical skill in workload design, recognition and career discussions.

This is why business outcomes should shape custom training before content is selected. A short learning burst on delegation, followed by a live team assignment and manager observation, can be more valuable than a broad leadership curriculum detached from current work.

Capability maps should describe observable behaviours. “Strategic thinking” is too vague to guide action; “sets quarterly priorities, explains trade-offs and reviews progress using agreed measures” gives managers and their leaders something concrete to practise and assess.

Create practice, feedback and transfer

Middle managers need repeated opportunities to apply leadership skills under realistic constraints. Scenario work can include a missed safety target, a hybrid employee falling behind, a high performer resisting feedback or a customer escalation involving several teams. These situations build judgement because they resemble the choices managers face.

Transfer improves when learning is spaced across time. A workshop can establish a shared model, while fortnightly peer sessions, short digital refreshers and workplace experiments help turn concepts into habits. A senior leader or trained manager should observe selected behaviours and provide specific feedback.

Psychological safety matters as well. Participants need permission to test a new approach without pretending that every conversation will be comfortable. Clear boundaries remain essential, particularly where conduct, discrimination, fatigue or safety concerns may engage Australian legal and organisational duties.

Measure movement and value

Evaluation should distinguish attendance from adoption. A manager completing a course proves participation; it does not prove better delegation, clearer priorities or stronger team performance. Baseline measures, follow-up observations and operational indicators provide a more credible picture.

Predictive Evaluation can help forecast whether a programme is likely to be adopted and produce value before major resources are committed. Useful measures might include decision-cycle time, internal fill rates, quality results, regrettable turnover, safety reporting or employee confidence in their manager.

The measures should match the business case. A leadership programme aimed at reducing project delays should not rely only on satisfaction scores. Combine participant evidence with manager observations and business data, then review results at agreed points such as 30, 90 and 180 days.

Actions that break the plateau

A practical middle-manager pathway can be focused without becoming simplistic. Organisations should:

  • Define three to five leadership behaviours linked to current business priorities.
  • Diagnose individual strengths and gaps through observation, data and stakeholder input.
  • Use realistic Australian workplace scenarios rather than abstract leadership theory.
  • Schedule practice, peer discussion and feedback after every formal learning event.
  • Give managers a live improvement project with a named sponsor and measurable outcome.
  • Equip senior leaders to reinforce the same behaviours in performance conversations.
  • Review adoption and business impact at 30, 90 and 180 days.

The programme owner should also protect time for development. If every activity is added to an already overloaded calendar, managers will treat learning as optional. A small number of high-value behaviours, embedded in existing meetings and projects, is more sustainable than an extensive competency catalogue.

Compare development approaches

Approach Likely benefit Common limitation Stronger application
One-off leadership workshop Shared language and motivation Limited transfer to daily work Use as the starting point for practice
Generic online course Flexible access and low delivery cost Weak relevance and accountability Pair with workplace assignments
Coaching only Personalised insight and reflection Variable quality and limited scale Target critical roles or transition points
Cohort-based pathway Peer learning and sustained momentum Requires protected time Combine with live business projects
Outcome-led blended programme Application, reinforcement and measurable value Needs careful design and evaluation Link learning to operational indicators

The plateau is rarely solved by giving middle managers more information. It is solved by clarifying the leadership work the organisation needs, creating repeated chances to practise it and tracking whether behaviour changes in ways the business can recognise. The next concrete step is to select one priority outcome, such as reducing project delays or improving internal promotion readiness, and map the manager behaviours that influence it.

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.

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