About

Our training, coaching and culture survey work in Australia and New Zealand clearly showed a clear need for significantly improved communication skills in most organisations. We search the world for best practice communication training and find Crucial Conversations from VitalSmarts. We are so impressed with their research and program results that we purchase the exclusive license to deliver their programs in our region.

We begin developing a great team of trainers and open our first head office in Perth.
Crucial Conversations becomes an instant hit, with Crucial Confrontations and Influencer Training beginning to gain traction.

After providing Crucial Conversations training for some time, we launch “Crucial Conversations Australia/New Zealand.” VitalSmarts was not well known but many people had read the New York Times best seller, Crucial Conversations. We also move our head office to Melbourne.

By now, around 5000 people per year are benefitting from Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations [now Accountability] and Influencer training, so we decide to change our brand to “VitalSmarts Australia New Zealand” in recognition that the combined programs are having a serious impact on vital performance factors and behaviours.

Time to step up our marketing and spread the word further. Emily Gregory M.D., from VitalSmarts USA, runs a series of healthcare specific workshops. This is so successful we follow up with a series of national workshops. The Crucial Conversations virtual platform is launched.

Crucial Conversations version 4 is launched and Crucial Accountability becomes the updated version of Crucial Confrontations. Mike Welsh from Facebook in San Francisco presents their case study across Australia and New Zealand. Facebook continues to use Crucial Conversations as their number one training program, while Google, Microsoft and many others use VitalSmarts programs globally.

VitalSmarts co-founder and author, Joseph Grenny, runs a series of workshops, while our webinar series begins to take off. Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability ‘Focused’ training is launched based upon demand from IT companies like Google and Uber for one day training.