consultancy • design • implementation • support

One method. Different shapes.

Everything on this page is the same approach, packaged differently. Whatever shape you choose, what sits underneath it is the thing that makes it work.

Most of this is assembled rather than bought off a shelf. So treat what follows as a list of things we could do for you, rather than a menu you have to work through in order.

Whatever form you choose, this part doesn't change.

The format flexes. The method doesn't. We've spent since 1987 working out what actually moves a manager's behaviour, and we don't dilute it to fit a shorter timetable.

It comes down to a feedback loop. Somebody finds out how they really land on other people, tries something different for real, gets corrected, and does it again in front of people who will notice if they don't. That loop is the product. Everything else is scheduling.

A true 360°

Feedback from the people around them at work and at home. Most providers gather feedback from colleagues only and still call it a 360°. What they have is a 180°, and it misses the half of someone's behaviour that predicts the rest.

Accountability

Participants present back to the group on what they actually did and what happened. It is uncomfortable, and it is the reason things get applied instead of admired.

One-to-one coaching throughout

Not a bolt-on at the end. Coaching runs alongside the sessions, which is what makes the same programme land differently for each person on it.

Time to fail in

Spaced over months, not compressed into a day. Behaviour needs somewhere to go wrong and be corrected. A single workshop leaves no room for that, however good the day was.

The full argument for why it's built this way, and how to spot a programme that isn't, is on our approach.

Most of what we do is built for one organisation.

An open course has to work for everybody in the room, which means it can't be aimed precisely at anybody. In-house work doesn't have that problem. We can point the whole thing at what your managers are actually getting wrong, because we'll have the data that says what that is.

In practice that means we start by finding out, rather than by proposing. Then we build the programme around the answer — at group sizes, in locations and on a schedule that fit how your organisation really operates.

Bespoke & In-House

Built around your organisation

Delivered inside your organisation and built around what your own 360° data says your managers actually need. Group sizes and scheduling that fit how you really operate, with 1-to-1 coaching running throughout.

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Tell us what you're trying to change and we'll tell you honestly whether we can help.

We came across Quarterdeck when we were looking to develop our senior team’s leadership skills. It was excellent, it really opened our eyes to how we could get the best out of our team through improving everyone’s leadership skills. It has really brought some fresh energy to the company and the way the leadership team are handling things. Nikki Thompson, CEO, RTC

Things we could do for you.

Take any of it, in any order. None of it depends on the rest, and most organisations only ever want two or three.

Define what good looks like here

Write your management standard

Define what a manager at your organisation is actually expected to do — built from your 360° data, your engagement and exit data, and whatever competency framework you already have. You end up with a written standard you can take to your board, and something concrete to hold managers to afterwards.

Develop your company handbook

Turn what you've decided into something people actually use, rather than a policy document nobody opens. One client wrote theirs off the back of a programme and named it themselves — which is exactly why it stuck, and why they still hold each other to it.

Develop your values

Most values are insipid. Listen, Advise, Honesty, Integrity, Respect — if you have to remind people to be honest, putting it on the wall won't fix it. We'll work with your leadership team to develop values that actually decide things, or audit the ones you have and tell you honestly how they're doing.

Build them into how you actually run things

Communication, Respect, Integrity, Excellence. Those were Enron's, and the people who went to prison walked past them in the lobby every morning. Values change nothing until they're built into recruitment, onboarding, everyday management and appraisals. That's the part we'd help you do.

Shape your culture on purpose

Culture isn't free food and ping-pong tables. Prisons have those. It's the current your people are swimming in, and it decides whether recruiting well makes any difference at all. We won't tell you what culture you ought to have — we'll help you get the one you actually want.

Develop your managers

Run cohorts inside your organisation

The core work, delivered to your managers, in your buildings, on your schedule. Usually the top layer first, because they set what everybody below them thinks is normal.

Go deeper with the longer programme

A longer version for people who need more than the standard shape — thirteen half-day sessions across six months, with more room for resilience, habits, and what somebody actually does under pressure. The same method, with more time to apply it.

Put a standing workshop series in place

A regular workshop your people drop into as they need it, alongside people from other organisations. One firm has been sending people since 2017 — a couple of people one month, a whole department the next. It suits you if you'd rather development were continuously available than delivered in a block.

Fix one specific problem

Sometimes it's narrow enough that a whole programme would be overkill. We've built a workshop on internal email that ended with the client writing their own email charter and sticking to it, and others on resilience, leading hybrid teams, difficult conversations and burnout. Tell us the behaviour that's costing you.

Train frontline and customer-facing teams

The same method applied below management level. We've run customer service programmes several hundred people at a time, including the resilience side of it — how somebody handles angry people all day without it grinding them down.

Online, on demand, or inside your own LMS

Short, practical video your people take at their own pace, either on our platform or packaged up and installed in your own system. It won't do what a cohort does — nothing on a screen will — but it reaches the people a programme was never going to reach.

Find out where you actually are

Run the 360° on its own

The feedback instrument without the programme around it, if what you need first is an honest picture of how your managers currently land on the people they lead.

Build a 360° around your own values

Once you've decided what you value, the instrument can be built around it. We'll design the questions against your values and the behaviours you want to see, rather than generic competencies, and run it on our own assessment software.

Measure whether it worked

Baseline before, re-measure after, and be honest about what can and can't be attributed. We won't hand you a single confident ROI number, because anybody who does has decided what it needed to be. We'd rather give you something that survives scrutiny.

Work with individuals and top teams

Coach individuals one to one

For people who don't belong in a cohort — a new director, somebody stepping up, or somebody whose role has outgrown the way they work. Assessment first, then regular sessions across about six months, with a plan and somebody to be held to it by.

Coach your leadership team as a team

Not the same as coaching each of them separately. Team assessment, individual coaching running alongside it, and facilitated sessions to sort out how they actually work with each other — which usually has to happen before anything below them will change.

Speak at your conference or leadership event

Anything from a short comment on something topical to a full session at your leadership offsite or all-hands. We'd rather write something for your audience than reheat a keynote at them.

A peer group for your senior people

We're building a peer group network so that people carry on developing long after a programme finishes, with the kind of support that only comes from other people doing the same job. It isn't running yet. If it's something you'd want, say so and we'll come back to you when it is.

Keep the capability after we've gone

Certify your own people to deliver it

We train and certify your internal facilitators to run the programme themselves, using our materials and under our quality assurance. It costs less per manager at scale, and the capability stays with you rather than leaving when we do.

Act as your non-executive director of people

Our managing director sits as your non-executive director of people for twelve months — attending board meetings where they're needed, and on hand for consultation in between. It suits organisations carrying the people problems of a much bigger one without the senior bench to match.

Advise on your people strategy for a year

A twelve-month engagement to build a people strategy that actually holds together — values, culture, how you assess people, and the development that follows from all three. Take the whole thing, or pick off the parts you need.

We work across the private and public sector. The case studies on this site cover legal, rail, food manufacturing, energy, packaging, aerospace software, mental health services, recruitment and local government. We'll be straight about public sector work: a scored tender process rarely rewards what we're actually good at, so we tend to do better where somebody brings us in directly.

We don't publish prices for any of this, because we'd only be guessing at yours. Scope depends on how many managers, how spread out they are, and how much of it you want to end up owning. Tell us what you're trying to change and we'll cost it honestly.

If you'd rather not build anything.

Sometimes the sensible first move is to send two or three people on something that already exists and see what comes back. Both of these run the same method at a fixed shape, and both are a reasonable way to judge us before committing anyone else.

Open programme

The Inspirational Leadership Programme

Seven sessions across around six months, in groups of up to twelve. True 360° feedback and 1-to-1 coaching throughout, backed by a 100% money-back guarantee.

How it works →

Free of charge

The Leadership Seminar

A free half day worth four CPD hours. Genuine training rather than a pitch — we fund it ourselves, and we bar competitors from attending.

See upcoming dates →

What we won't do.

We don't do talent assessment, and we'll turn it down if you ask. It isn't a gap in what we know. It's the instrument.

Our 360° takes feedback from people at home as well as at work. That is exactly why it changes behaviour, and exactly why it must never decide who gets promoted. The moment feedback is used to make a talent decision, you need something defensible, comparable and calibrated across a whole population, with an audit trail that would survive a discrimination claim. Asking somebody's partner cannot be part of that chain, and we won't pretend otherwise to win the work.

So the division is clean. We supply the capability layer — making your managers better at the job. If you need the assessment layer, use an assessment house built for it, and we'll happily work alongside them.

The same honesty applies further up. If what you need is a box ticked or a budget spent, there are providers who will do that well and cheerfully take the money. We're not a good use of yours.

Quarterdeck has been a constant influence. They have inspired every individual who they have worked with, in every organisation I have led. This inspirational approach has eased the way for my organisations success. Petar Cvetkovic, Founder & Chairman, Welford Investments