Frequently Asked Questions

See what leaders and program participants are saying about QBS.

Welcome to Quality Business Services’ FAQ page. Here, we address your most frequently asked questions around our innovative leadership programs, including investment, our 70/20/10 learning model, time commitments and more. Dive in to better understand our unique approach to leadership development, balancing personal growth and tangible business outcomes.

  • Ensure you choose the participants based on the maximum impact.
  • Do the first workshop and portfolio then decide if you want to do the rest (there should be a payback already). This would be approx 30% of the cost.
  • Small group coaching instead of 1on1.
  • Join with other clients rather than meet the minimum inhouse cohort size.
  • Increase the cohort size to share the fixed $ component – this lowers the per person price but total will be higher.
  • Exclude the qualification at the end (but not the work) –or offer this to your employees on a user-pays basis, or even a part-contribution.
  • Spread over financial years.
  • The financial benefits will be seen by the business not a HR cost centre – some clients have a co-funded model where the business units make a contribution.
  • Run a 60min taster or half day workshop (if you needed to convince some stakeholders) – a bit of theory and an activity.
  • COE has been designed from the outside in. We identified the core practices that an effective leader and manager needed then designed the program from there, using practical business language. This pragmatic design has built-in activities for collaborating with team members, line manager and stakeholders which tangibly and sustainably shifts KPI needles.
  • Participants are challenged during the program yet they have a village of support around them – COE colleagues, expert facilitator, manager, coach, assessor.
  • Another significant factor is the 70/20/10 design – real-world application that embeds the learning. No theoretical case studies but also no predetermined solutions, as every business, industry, and function has nuances. This is where the participant gets to think about what will work in their role – they focus COE on the issues they need to work on. The continual focus on reflective practice further embeds learning – what did/didn’t work? Why was that? What do you learn from that? What next? We are developing the mindset and operational acumen.
  • COE is not easy. It is not a series of webinars with multi-choice questions or a case study at the end. It is a collaborative learning program that leads to an unforgettable transformation.
  • A learning and development model created in the 80s by researchers at the Centre for Creative Leadership that suggests a proportional breakdown for how people learn effectively. In a nutshell, 10% of the learning comes from formal courses and reading, 20% comes from feedback and collaboration and 70% of learning comes from challenging experiences. COE is a genuine 70/20/10 design.
  • Over approximately 9 months, the participant will spend 6.5 days in collaborative workshops – rich in discussion and challenging activities. This has both 10% and 20% elements.
  • Between each workshop, they will apply the workshop frameworks and concepts with their teams, developing insights and corresponding actions that are progressed to completion. They will seek input from various sources and have a sounding board in their COE coach. After each workshop, their work is reviewed by a specialist who provides feedback and suggestions – in effect, an executive coach. The participant is continually reflecting and adjusting (double loop learning) which accelerates the transfer of learning. This is the 70%, supported with more of the 20% and is where the majority of the learning occurs – the stuff they can’t ‘unsee’.
  • COE is agnostic to function, industry, level, operating model, etc. All the concepts and frameworks apply – the participant will overlay these against their environment to identify the relevant opportunities. Naturally, bigger roles have bigger levers, and a bigger return from the program. The COE coach is there to ensure each participant works at their challenge level.
  • COE is ideally suited to those in a leadership role, and one that they will continue in for the duration of the program. Many individual contributors have successful completed the program – especially emerging leaders. They will need a focus for them to apply their learning – it could be an area needing improvement, or they could act in a leadership role.
  • We have found that, above all, the attitude to learning is the most important factor: A willingness to try new things, an open mind, an appetite to improve. A red flag for us is when a participant focuses on how good things are, rather than what they aren’t doing.
  • The education level has made no difference to the participant’s capability to finish COE – in some cases, a bit more coaching was needed at the start.  We’ve had those with multiple masters degrees and some who did not finish high school – all can learn and finish!
  • You can’t train for a marathon by doing one 5km run! Deep learning and changing old habits is hard and takes persistence. This isn’t one of those programs where you read a few case studies, watch a couple of webinars and attend a tutorial to get your ‘certificate’. We say that you get out what you put in, and you will put in quite a bit of effort into COE.
  • For each workshop, leaders can expect to spend 30 minutes in a QBS COE leader briefing and another 30-60 minutes for each of the six workshops with their participant, either reviewing a specific task or general progress check-ins. This can be incorporated into regular catch-ups, as long as day-to-day operational issues don’t take over!
  • As a guide, a participant will attend 6.5 days of workshops, spend another 4-6 hours each week applying what they learnt (totalling around 18 days) including discussing activities with their team, with their leader and with stakeholders. They typically spend 60 minutes per month with their coach (often in 30 or 60 min blocks). For this, the participant can receive a Graduate Certificate of Applied Management.
  • It is important to note that some workshops take less time than others – the first takes the longest and the fifth is the quickest.  Other reasons for variation can be the participant’s comfort level with the content in that particular workshop.

COE is more than personal development – it is a program that is designed to deliver business impacts however HR/L&D’s mandate is typically to deliver/procure people development not business impacts. How do I communicate this?

  • Yes, this is can be a challenge especially when HR/L&D get particularly excited with the idea of the COE certification or qualification. The reality is COE is equal parts personal development and business results.
  • This is an opportunity for HR/L&D to show they can procure development that will hit a range of KPIs that the business care about – engagement, cycle times, customer experience, productivity. They should speak with the business leaders about the challenges they face such as particular KPIs. The typical COE graduate delivers annual benefits that are worth at least 5 times the program investment and a 20% improvement to business KPIs is commonplace. In other words, you can have your cake and eat it at the same time!
  • QBS has worked with a university to align the activities in the COE portfolios with a qualification.  COE is more about the development of the participant and the impacts they will have, than a piece of paper (we don’t want the tail to wag the dog).  The completed portfolios are, in effect, the qualification assignments. We also developed a clear set of minimum requirements so the participant knows what is and isn’t acceptable. We steered away from things like a minimum number of improvement opportunities – we figured if we said at least one, that is how many we will get! We are more concerned that your portfolio is an accurate reflection of where your team is at.
  • Now that we have portfolios and minimum requirements, your portfolios will be rigorously reviewed against the requirements. As it is a regulated environment, this work may be reviewed by an auditor. Sometimes it feels picky but if the portfolio says discuss with your team and manager, you need to provide the evidence that you did both. At some point, it is likely you will need to resubmit your portfolios – that is normal.
  • The other purpose of the assessment is to ensure you are getting the most out of the program. The assessor will suggest improvements, give you feedback on actions, sometimes ask you to think more deeply about an activity, occasionally point out an inconsistency, draw linkages between activities and portfolios. They want you working at your challenge level, which is where you will start to make a big difference, professionally and personally.
  • That is true but QBS is a disruptor.  We are not your usual training provider – we are experienced operational leaders who are very good at facilitating and coaching, and have a product that other training providers are ill-equipped to offer.
  • Whilst there are hundreds of providers offering various management qualifications, they tend to be a slavish reflection of the units and in academic speak.  They teach the units in isolation, usually emphasising soft skills, and will give you a certificate of attainment for each unit as you progress.  In COE, you must finish all six portfolios and only then will you earn the qualification. We have taken a holistic systems thinking approach, following the life cycle of a leader/manager. We designed COE from the outside-in using the language of business.
  • Training organisations are usually focused on assessing for minimum competency – if it meets it, you get a tick. They will also use tests and case studies – all this helps to make it cheaper (but we argue less impactful).   COE is 100% applied in the role. We look for synthesis, deep reflection, integration of concepts, value-add. The assessor will suggest improvements, give you feedback on actions, sometimes ask you to think more deeply about an activity, occasionally point out an inconsistency, draw linkages between activities and portfolios. They want you working at your challenge level, which is where you will start to make a big difference. All of this helps to embed your learning.
  • First and foremost, COE is not about earning a qualification. That is just an awesome bonus!
  • Secondly, COE is an integrated learning journey where everything is interwoven. So no, you can’t get credits for past work.
  • We can guarantee that even if you did a recent management qualification, you will get a truckload of new learning from COE due to the way it has been designed and our unique content.
  • We have people with Masters degrees tell us that this program gave them so much more practical frameworks that they use immediately in their role. Remember, you’re not doing it for the qualification!
  • You can certainly get cheaper courses, although not with this level of qualification.
  • To lower costs, most providers use standardised case studies and tests that are very cheap to assess.  They also use pre-recorded webinars or group tutorials – it is cookie-cutter.  There is a very low, if any, return on investment, as it is not immediately applied to your role.  We argue they are often a waste of money!
  • COE is about solving your business challenges in real-time, not reading case studies. It is 100% applied in your role, starting off with developing, then progressively executing, a strategic plan based on the COE concepts. Our graduates get an annual payback of 5-50 times the program cost plus the benefit of customer and employee KPI improvement.  The average ROI is 20-fold.  COE makes your organisation money!
  • To help maximise the benefits, you get the support of expert business coaches plus the feedback of an experienced assessor. The QBS team are all business leaders with years of experience in various industries and have decided to share their business experience with people like yourself.
  • Typically, training programs are paid from a training budget and COE is a big cost in terms of that budget.  The program benefits are reaped elsewhere in productivity, reduced complaints/penalties, reduced attrition, safety improvement, higher sales, etc.  In other words, the left pocket pays for training the right pocket gets the benefit.  Work with HR to overcome this or your organisation may never invest in COE, therefore miss out on the organisational ROI.
  • Organisations that are only interested in online learning.
  • Organisations that don’t want a tangible ROI on their L&D investment.
  • Organisations that won’t support in-person attendance at any workshops.
  • Organisations that want awareness not real change.
  • Organisations that won’t allow their people 4-6 hours per week for the duration of the program to apply what they have learnt for the benefit of their role, team and business.
  • Organisations that don’t want to invest in expert, independent coaches to support their people through the program.
  • Organisations that want to decompose training into micromodules rather than an end to end program covering all aspects of a leader’s role.
  • Organisations that are not interested in a full qualification at the end.
  • Organisations that are not interested in externally developed and facilitated programs.
  • Organisations that don’t want programs using practical business language.
  • Organisations that want the participants to work on theoretical case studies.
  • Organisations that don’t want their people challenged.
  • Organisations that want to issue qualifications or credentials based on what they already know.
  • Organisations that want this month’s jargon and buzzwords.
Anita Cunningham
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