Faster Zebra for teams

The capabilities that survive automation are the ones no course can teach.

Problem-solving.
Commercial judgement.
Brand and Human Experience.
Creative range.
Reading the room.
Mindset and personal growth.

This is the work that's left once the executable is automated, and it's the work almost nobody is trained for. Your team builds it the only way it's ever built, by working a live challenge they already own, together, in the room. The challenge moves forward. The capability stays in the people.

Charbel has spent over thirty years building businesses, brands and teams, and coaching people through the mess of real work rather than the theory of it. He's done this embedded work with teams at IAG, Telstra, WPP Singapore, the NSW Telco Authority and Hort Innovation.

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Why this matters now

The steps are being automated, the judgement is still critical.

Anything that can be written as a repeatable set of steps is compressing fast. What resists it is judgement. Framing the right problem before your team solves the wrong one. Making the creative leap. Reading the commercial reality. Reading the people in the room. That work is expanding, and it's the exact work leaders keep telling us they can't find.

This isn't an argument against depth. Where the job is mastery of one demanding domain, mastery is still the answer. Nobody wants a brain surgeon who's also a part-time florist. The shift is narrower, and it's real. For anyone building, leading or creating, the edge moved. It used to sit in how deep a person went. It now sits in how many capabilities they can hold at once, and how well they move between them.

Australia's leaders already know it. 43% of employers name problem-solving as a critical leadership capability. 36% say their own leaders aren't proficient in it.

Source: AHRI Australian Work Outlook, 2026. It's a named gap, a funded one, and it's the precise capability this work builds.

The core difference

Judgement can't be taught at people. It gets crafted by doing.

You don't learn to frame an unframed problem by watching someone else frame one. You learn it by working a real problem, roughly at first, then better, with a method in your hands and a facilitator beside you. So we work the other way to a seminar.

We start by understanding the capability your team actually needs, from both a business and a people angle. Then we embed that capability in a live business challenge or opportunity your team already owns. The Kit gives everyone the shared framework and language. The real work is the challenge in front of your people, and the capability gets built by solving it. When the session ends, that capability is already sitting inside a live piece of your business, held by the people who did the work.

As you build something, it builds you back. A team that builds a real outcome together becomes a team that can build the next one on its own.

What embedded looks like

Your team's own challenge, facilitated.

Embedded training is more than a scenario, simulation or case study. It's the thing your people are already stuck on, worked in the open. In practice it looks like this:

A product team brings the feature or business challenge they've been circling for a month. They run it through the Innovators method, and leave with the next build decided, owned, and understood.
A brand or comms team brings the message they keep under-selling. They walk out with positioning they wrote themselves and can use on Monday.
A leadership group brings a real decision they've been avoiding. They leave with it made, and with a shared way of making the next one.
Across an embedded season, the team keeps shipping. Each review works the live challenge that moved that fortnight, so the method gets practised on real ground every time.

Every example is your own work, moved forward, with the capability built by solving it. Nothing is theoretical, so nothing is wasted.

Three ways in

From a Kit on every desk to a season alongside you.

Every engagement starts the same way, with us understanding the capability your team needs, from both a business and a people angle. The Kits give us the framework. The engagement is shaped around your team and the challenge you bring. Start where it fits.

Self-run

Team Kit packs

A Playbook and a Workbook for every seat. The starting point for teams who want the framework in their hands and want to run the work themselves. Multi-copy packs keep a fresh Workbook in front of every person.

Facilitated

The working day

A full day facilitated on a live challenge your team owns. We scope the capability need with you first, prepare the session, put a Kit in every seat, and build a real outcome in the room, documented and followed up.

Embedded

The embedded season

A quarter alongside your team. Working sessions, reviews, and the momentum held between them, so the capability becomes how the team operates rather than something they attended. Scoped and priced in conversation.

Understand.We work out the capability your team needs, from a business and a people angle, and find the live challenge worth the room.
Prepare.We shape the session around your context and get a Kit into every seat as the shared framework.
Build.Your team works the live challenge, facilitated, and builds the capability by solving it.
Carry it forward.Documented outcomes, and the capability left inside the team, held by the people who did the work.

A facilitated working day includes custom Kits for every participant, scoping, preparation and follow-up, from $15,000. An embedded season runs across a quarter and is scoped separately. Every engagement is shaped to your team.

Outcomes and business value

What your team and your leaders walk away with.

For the team. Two wins at once. A live challenge solved, and a capability they can run again without booking anything. The work builds the team as it goes, so ownership, collaboration and confidence come out of the doing rather than a slide about teamwork.

For the leader signing off. You're buying capability that stays, built on a challenge you already needed solved. The engagement pays for itself twice, once in the outcome it produces on real work, and again in a team that can build the next outcome on its own. The training moves your actual priorities forward while it runs, instead of pulling your best people off them for a day.

The capability doesn't leave with the facilitator. It stays in the team.

Proof

We've done this with teams who had a lot on the line.

Charbel and the Faster Zebra team have coached teams across government, insurance, telco and the arts, in Australia and across Asia Pacific, always by working side by side on live business challenges. The pattern holds every time. The team solves the challenge, and keeps the capability to keep going on its own.

"They did a great job at coaching our team through the delivery of six major ventures. By working side-by-side on live business challenges, they embedded a new cadence of innovation across our product teams. Our team now builds the capability to launch at speed independently."

David Abrahams, Chief Technology Officer, IAG

"Charbel and his team transformed our approach to delivery. By coaching our 20 sponsored teams through active, real-world initiatives, they helped each of the teams, and us, build the internal capability to navigate a complex business and customer landscape. They taught us how to sustain our initiatives long-term."

Jackie Coates, Head, Telstra Foundation

"Charbel embedded a complete HCD and Service Design capability within our company. By coaching our teams through live initiatives, they helped us integrate design thinking and doing into our daily workflows. We now have the internal proficiency to drive user-centric research and design independently."

Adam Good, WPP Singapore

"Charbel and his FZ team coached my various project teams through multiple initiatives. Working directly on the project, they helped us clarify roles, build service blueprints, and establish a rhythm for testing and iterating. They left us with the structure and internal capability to navigate complex product development cycles independently."

Peter Buckmaster, NSW Department of Education

Questions leaders ask

Questions leaders ask.

How is this different from a workshop or offsite we've run before?

Your team works its own live challenge, and the capability is built by solving it. The output is real work moved forward, so the day produces something you'd have needed anyway. A workshop teaches a method. This one leaves the method sitting inside a live piece of your business.

Will it actually stick after the session?

Sticking is the whole reason we build the capability into a live piece of your business rather than teach it in the abstract. It lives in the challenge the team worked on, and an embedded season keeps it running across a quarter until it's simply how the team operates.

We're not sure what challenge to bring.

That's the first conversation, and it's the most useful one. We work out the capability you need and help you find the challenge worth the room before anyone books a day.

Is this only for founders or innovation teams?

It fits any team with a live challenge to build through. Charbel has facilitated across government, insurance, telco, education and the arts, and every engagement is shaped to the team in the room.

What do we actually walk away with?

A documented outcome from your live challenge, a Kit in every person's hands, and a capability the team can run again on its own.

Start the conversation.

Tell us about your team and the challenge you want to build through. The next step is a 45-minute conversation with Charbel to scope what a session or a season could do for you.