Since taking on the delivery of the South Australian Government’s Community Builders program in 2003, superseded by Brighter Futures in 2017, Kristine has assisted more than 200 small communities to build leadership, project management and governance skills – with many projects growing into seriously impressive regional development initiatives.

In the 2000s, with her children growing quickly and time on her hands, Kristine embarked on a PhD to find out why her methods work. She discovered that there are two main factors: bringing learning to the fore, and embedding the learning in social situations. What does this mean? It means helping people to understand how they are learning, to build the skills to unpack old thinking and repack it to create a new future. And it means doing it with others, using action learning based on real-world projects that make a difference. 

Sound good in theory? The tricky bit is bringing people along. We cover that too, how to excite the optimists, tip the fence sitters into action, and manage the inevitable pushback from the reluctant.