Growth – The Plato Project

Plato Project appoints Elissa Newall as new CEO to lead expansion

Elissa Newall has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Plato Project, recently moving from her senior marketing post at RMIT University to join our team of brilliant and bold minds at the end of January 2018. Her first challenge is to plot the course for high business growth and to lead expansion of the Plato Project domestically and overseas. “It’s a gripping new challenge and I am thrilled to be working with the Plato Project,” says Elissa Newall. “It’s such a future-focused and innovative brand, and one with values I truly respect and admire.” Co-founder Omar de Silva.

How to raise $50,000 in 50 hours.

An eye-catching video first put social enterprise Who Gives a Crap on the map. Word of mouth kept it there. In our Business Boosters column entrepreneurs share the secrets of their success and what they did in order to achieve scale. When social enterprise Who Gives a Crap set up in 2012, its founders needed $50,000 to begin production. An eye-catching crowdfunding campaign garnered international attention. From there, word of mouth meant the directors could barely keep pace with demand. Co-founder Simon Griffiths tells the story of a start-up with heart. Social enterprise Who Gives a Crap, an environmentally friendly.

‘Getting Shit Done’ with Adam Jelic of Mi Goals

It's the beginning of the year, and the momentum is high. Everyone we know is setting New Year's resolutions and creating new habits with the hope that a fresh start will change their old ways. Before we know it, it’s February, and our motivation has waned - sound familiar? ________________________________________________________________________ Meet Mi Goals, a Melbourne-based inspirational stationery brand, empowering people to set meaningful goals that they will stick to and achieve. Mi Goals started as a side project, and was created by Adam Jelic who came up with the idea as a result of being frustrated with the fact.

Six signs it’s time for your business to expand

Not too soon, not too late – learn to read the signs before growing your business. Expanding a business can be the best and also the worst thing to happen to an enterprise. Do it too soon and you’ll be overstretched and under resourced, but leave it too late and you’ll be left behind. Knowing when to take the leap isn’t just guesswork. Here are six sure-fire ways to tell if now is the right time to expand your business. Steady profit and cash flow Consistent profitability is both an indication that you’re doing something right and a warning not to.

Fostering self-awareness & emotional intelligence

“Know thyself” is long established wisdom, a maxim from the ancient Greeks but having deeper roots in religious practice. It has been central to the getting of wisdom; knowing oneself being a fundamental buffer against the vagaries of an uncertain world. _______ This is an adapted version of an excerpt from Plato Project's Mindful Leadership unit. _______ Referred to as “self-awareness”, knowing yourself is a strong indicator of emotional intelligence and is a significant factor in being able to make the transition from functional expert to leader. Being aware of one’s self makes it possible to recognise others for what, and who, they.

The impacts of innovation

We cannot polarise innovation by placing success and failure at two ends of spectrum. There is more fluidity when it comes to defining this pair of ‘opposites’. While innovation success considers impact, we can measure impact from various angles. Likewise, failure is not absolute – it can be useful and an essential part of creativity and the innovation process. _______ This is an adapted version of an excerpt from Plato Project's Leading Innovation unit. _______ Innovation success is easy to define: something of value has been created and is aptly serving a market need. It may be completely new and radical or an.

How mindful leadership drives success

As is becoming increasingly clear, workplaces - and society in general - are suffering from somewhat of a leadership crisis. Indeed leaders today are faced with new and unique challenges and must cope with exceedingly high expectations. A different - and more effective - approach to leadership is needed. _______ This is an adapted version of an excerpt from Plato Project's Mindful Leadership unit. _______ Mindfulness has become a well-worn concept over the past few years, with “Mindfulness and...” books written about any number of subjects. Indeed, there seems to be nothing to which mindfulness cannot be applied. And that’s true; mindfulness can.

Turning ideas into innovations

While innovation involves ideas, it is the clever channeling of these ideas that leads to a beautifully refined solution. We need to make space for the exploration of ideas – by opening up pathways, assembling skilled teams and adopting processes that involve end users. Only then can we start to experiment, test and assess the value of our models and prototypes. _______ This is an adapted version of an excerpt from Plato Project's Leading Innovation unit. _______ Ideation on its own is not innovation but when combined with action, it is a powerful force. Ideation can be a simple act of ‘daydreaming’ to.

Critical capabilities of mindful leaders

Mindful leadership is more than a passing fad. It is a response to a world that desperately needs the characteristics of mindful leaders. _______ This is an adapted version of an excerpt from Plato Project's Mindful Leadership unit. _______ Consider this from the Institute for Mindful Leadership: Mindfulness is often defined as ‘nonjudgmental, moment to moment awareness’. As leaders, it can also be thought of as the cultivation of leadership presence. Being present is quite a complex assignment in a world and global economy that measures time in internet seconds, conceives of the past as the most reliable tool for analyzing and assessing how.

Adapting leadership styles

The self-aware leader can manage for different personality styles as their self-awareness allows them to understand others better. _______ This is an adapted version of an excerpt from Plato Project's Mindful Leadership unit. _______ A range of tools and frameworks have been created to objectively measure personality. The best known is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, a tool developed in the 1940s from the theory of personality types established by Carl Jung. It is robust and well used, providing an insight into apparently contradictory behaviours by understanding a person’s preferences in relation to four key dichotomies. The end point is sixteen personality types categorised.