Taking their people on a journey in a rapidly growing organisation.
Jonathan Rudman didn’t bring The Pillars into Modoras because he had a retention problem. He brought it in because his people needed a clear development journey in a rapidly growing organisation. Six months later, the data showed it was working. So did the people.
The Organisation
Modoras is one of Australia’s fastest-growing financial services and wealth management firms. Sustaining that growth requires more than technical capability. It requires people who understand themselves, know where they are headed, and are developing into leaders in the fullest sense of the word.
The business had identified high-potential people expected to step into key leadership roles within the next years. Technically strong. But the gap between technical ability and genuine leadership readiness is not closed by skills training alone. Jonathan Rudman saw that gap before it became a problem.
Snapshot
Company
Modoras
Industry
Financial Services
Location
Sydney, Australia
Focus
Future Leader Development
Completed Cohorts
2
Most organisations invest in people reactively. A performance issue surfaces. A resignation arrives. The development that follows is a response, not a strategy. Rudman's approach was different. He invested before the pressure arrived.
"We wanted our people to understand why we do what we do. To feel that in their own growth, not just their KPIs."
Jonathan Rudman, Managing Partner, Modoras
How it Works
The Pillars uses a structured, proven approach that delivers clarity, strategically aligned decision making in cohesive teams while removing resistors.
The Outcomes
Every participant is tracked from day one. Progress is measured at month three and month six across 25 dimensions, against a baseline established at the start. What follows are the outcomes that data consistently shows.
Participants
The program gives participants a structured, six-month journey with a clear beginning, middle, and end. They leave with measurable evidence of their own development and the clarity to direct what comes next.
By identifying and working through the resistors that drain capacity, participants build the ability to sustain performance under pressure. Not by pushing harder. By understanding what protects them.
Before the program touches goals or performance, it establishes who each participant actually is. What drives them. What depletes them. What they're building toward across every domain of their life, not just work.
Leaders who understand their own values and priorities make decisions with a longer horizon. The immediate role becomes one part of a larger picture, not the whole frame.
At months three and six, each participant receives a detailed report tracking their progress across 25 dimensions. It shows exactly where they've moved and where the focus needs to shift next.
Execs and team leads
When leaders are anchored to their values and clear about direction, their decisions align with the organisation's strategy rather than reacting to the immediate noise. That alignment compounds across a team.
The team resistor heatmap gives leaders an aggregated view of where the cohort is performing, where capacity is being drained, and where the risks are before they become problems.
Organisations that invest in their people at this depth signal something that a pay review or title change cannot. That signal is visible to the people inside the organisation and the people considering joining it.
Stakeholder reports at months three and six give executives a documented picture of where the leadership team stands. Not anecdote. Longitudinal data that shows what has changed and by how much.
Leaders who have done this work are more grounded under pressure, make clearer decisions, and hold their teams together when conditions are difficult. That's the difference between a leadership team that performs and one that manages.
HR and the org
Leaders who are anchored and developing bring a quality of steadiness to their teams that no change management program can replicate. When the environment shifts, they respond deliberately rather than react.
Three diagnostic assessments and stakeholder reports at every milestone give HR a documented record of where the leadership team started, where it is now, and what the program has produced. That record matters internally and externally.
A 50% reduction in intent to resign among program participants is a direct commercial return. The cost of replacing a senior leader runs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary. Development at this depth pays for itself.
Longitudinal data across 25 dimensions gives HR the evidence to make the case internally. Not sentiment. Not survey scores. A dataset that tracks real change over time.
When leaders are clear about who they are and what they value, that clarity ripples outward. The culture becomes more legible, decisions become more consistent, and the organisation develops a shared sense of direction.
The Science Behind It
Every participant is tracked from day one. Progress is measured at month three and month six across 25 dimensions, against a baseline established at the start. What follows are the outcomes that data consistently shows.
When people are growing, they perform
When people feel autonomous, competent, and connected to something larger than themselves, they don't look for the exit.
Deci and Ryan, Self-Determination Theory
When leaders grow, teams follow
Teams with high psychological safety learn faster, contribute more, and hold together under pressure. That starts with how leaders show up.
Edmondson, Harvard Business School
From insight to evidence
Most development programs tell people what to work on. The Pillars shows them. A personalised optimisation heatmap tracks each participant across 25 dimensions from day one, turning self-awareness into a practical blueprint for sustained performance.
Why It Works
This program serves three groups at once, and what each gets is distinct.
What sets The Pillars apart
Most performance programs live entirely inside work. They optimise the professional and leave everything else untouched, which is a problem, because performance at work is shaped by conditions across all five domains of a person's life. The Pillars is built on that reality. When you address the whole person, the results hold in a way that work-only programs simply can't produce.
94% of participants show measurable improvement within three months. Not self-reported. Tracked against a baseline established at the start of the program. Three diagnostics, longitudinal data, and stakeholder reports at every milestone mean you always know where the program stands and what it's producing.
The Pillars framework is built on Self-Determination Theory, one of the most robust and widely researched theories of human motivation. It draws on identity-based goal-setting and a structured resistor framework that identifies the specific patterns holding each person back. This isn't intuition dressed up as methodology. It's a program with genuine academic foundations, applied in a way that works in the real world.
Most programs hand people tools and send them back to the same environment. The Pillars starts with identity. Each participant's archetype reflects how they rank the five domains of their life, which tells us what drives them, what depletes them, and where their blind spots live. Change built on that foundation doesn't evaporate when the program ends.
Insight without accountability is just a good conversation. The fortnightly guide sessions, the three diagnostic checkpoints, and the stakeholder reporting create a structure that keeps participants honest and keeps progress visible. Seven months is long enough to build habits that hold.
Go Deeper
The thinking and the evidence behind the program.
CASE STUDY
Modoras: Taking their people on a journey in a rapidly growing organisation
Jonathan Rudman didn't bring The Pillars into Modoras because he had a retention problem. He brought it in because his people needed a clear development journey in a rapidly growing organisation. Six months later, the data showed it was working. So did the people. This is their story.
WHITE PAPER
Growth is the retention strategy: lessons from the world's best talent development model
Borussia Dortmund cannot outspend Real Madrid. They don't try to. Instead, they built the best development environment in world football. And the best talent keeps choosing them anyway. The lesson for organisations is direct: development is not a benefit that sits alongside a retention strategy. It is the retention strategy.
The organisations that keep their best people give them somewhere to grow. Give them a genuine journey. The outcomes take care of themselves.
Let’s find out if The Pillars is the right answer for your team.
Frequently Asked Questions
Seven months. That's deliberate. It's long enough to build disciplines that hold, track meaningful change across three diagnostic assessments, and give each participant enough time with their guide to do real work, not just scratch the surface.
Leadership teams in high-pressure, high-volatility organisations. Financial services, energy and utilities, professional services, technology, retail, and corporate enterprise.
It works best when the stakes are high and the conditions are demanding. If you're looking for a half-day workshop or a team-building activity, this isn't the right fit.
The program is designed for leadership teams, typically between 8 and 25 participants.
We keep cohorts intentional in size because the guide relationship is central to how the program works.
If your team is larger, we can discuss how to structure the program across multiple cohorts.
We work with clients of all sizes, from scale-up to enterprise.
A guide is a trained Pillars practitioner assigned to each participant for the duration of the program. They meet one-on-one with their participant every two weeks, hold accountability, work through resistors, and keep the development grounded in what matters to that person specifically.
They are not a coach in the traditional sense, and they are not a group facilitator. They are the constant in a program that is otherwise highly individual.
Three diagnostic assessments across the seven months. The first establishes a baseline. The second tracks movement at the midpoint. The third captures the full picture at the end. Each assessment measures 25 dimensions of performance.
The gap between where a participant starts and where they finish is the measure.
94% of participants show improvement within the first three months. Not self-reported. Tracked against their own baseline.
No. The Pillars is a performance program, not a therapeutic intervention.
Guide sessions are structured around goals, disciplines, and accountability, not mental health treatment.
That said, the program does address the whole person, which means it touches on things that matter beyond work.
Participants often report feeling clearer, less depleted, and more grounded. That's a byproduct of building genuine capacity, not the goal of the program.
If a participant needs clinical support, their guide will encourage them to seek it. The Pillars is not a substitute for that.
At each diagnostic milestone, your HR and executive leadership receive a stakeholder report with team-level data. This is not a summary of individual sessions, which remain confidential between participant and guide. It is a team-level picture of movement, engagement, and the shared resistors showing up across the cohort.
You always know where the program stands and what it is producing.
Yes. What happens in guide sessions stays between the participant and their guide. The stakeholder reports your leadership and HR teams receive are aggregated at a team level.
No individual's data is shared without their consent. That confidentiality is part of what makes the guide relationship work.
An EAP program is reactive. It exists for people who are already struggling.
The Pillars is proactive. It builds capacity before the pressure arrives, which is when it's most effective. The two are not in competition. But if your organisation is relying on EAP as its primary investment in leadership wellbeing, it is managing problems rather than preventing them.
Pricing is structured around cohort size and organisational tier. We don't publish a fixed price because the right structure depends on your team, your industry, and what you're trying to solve.
The best starting point is a conversation. We'll give you a clear proposal from there.
A fifteen-minute conversation with Toby is usually enough to know whether we're the right fit and what the program would look like for your team. No pitch, no pressure. Just a straight conversation about where your team is and whether The Pillars makes sense.