ABOUT
ZINAKELKELE CONSULTING
OUR CONTEXT
working where the stakes are highest
Specialising in
- Safety Culture Transformation
- Leadership Development
- And building high-performance workplace communities
Zinakelkele Consulting is a South African consultancy specialising in Safety Culture Transformation, leadership development, and building high-performance workplace communities in high-risk environments.
Founded in 1994 by Clinical Psychologist Lance Bloch, Zinakelkele works in mines, factories, construction sites, and industrial operations where lives, livelihoods, safety, and performance depend on trust, accountability, and safe behaviour.
For more than three decades, we have partnered with organisations facing complex human, cultural, and operational challenges. Our work focuses on environments where the consequences of misalignment, poor communication, or unsafe behaviour directly impact both safety and production outcomes and operational performance.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
The 4th Wave of safety culture
The Zinakelkele 4th Wave of Safety Approach was developed in response to a clear limitation in traditional safety models.
While earlier approaches improved systems, procedures, and compliance, they often failed to address what actually drives behaviour under pressure.
The 4th Wave focuses on the human and cultural dynamics that shape safety and performance when it matters most.
Zinakelkele addresses the human and cultural drivers that sit beneath incidents and accidents, tension, low morale, and underperformance. By shifting beliefs, relationships, and accountability, we help organisations create cultures where safe behaviour and strong performance reinforce one another.
HOW WE WORK
a transformation partner,
not just a training provider
Zinakelkele is not a traditional training company. We work as a transformation partner alongside leadership, unions, supervisors, and workers.
Our Afro-centric approach is experiential, psychologically grounded, deeply participative and often fun! We create spaces where honest dialogue can take place across levels and roles, allowing long-standing barriers to be addressed, trust to be rebuilt, and performance expectations to be clarified.
Through inclusive facilitation, shared reflection, and practical action, organisations move from compliance to commitment and from fragmented effort to collective ownership of safety and performance.
OUR IMPACT
proven impact across industries
Over the past 30 years, Zinakelkele has supported organisations across South Africa and internationally to achieve outcomes that were previously considered out of reach.
These include sustained fatality-free periods, significant improvements in Safety Culture scores, stronger labour-management relationships, improved morale, and measurable gains in safety, production, reliability, and operational performance.
These results are not short-term improvements. They are the outcome of deep cultural change that continues to influence safety and performance long after formal interventions conclude.
OUR COMMITMENT
commitment to inclusion and transformation
Zinakelkele Consulting is a Level 2 B-BBEE contributor and 52 percent Black-owned.
Our facilitator team reflects the diversity of South Africa and works in multiple languages to ensure inclusion, dignity, and participation at every level of an organisation.
We believe that real transformation must uplift people economically, psychologically, and socially, while contributing to safer, stronger, and higher-performing workplaces.
OUR FOUNDER
Leading the way in culture transformation
In 1996 Lance Bloch was named the Junior Chamber International Outstanding Young Person of the World for his pioneering work in reconciling previously warring armies to build a unified South African National Defence Force.
Lance Bloch is a Clinical Psychologist and the founder of Zinakelkele Consulting. For more than three decades Lance has worked in some of the most complex, high-risk, and emotionally charged operational environments in Southern Africa and beyond.
His work sits at the intersection of psychology, leadership, safety, and organisational culture, with a specific focus on how human behaviour, trust, and leadership dynamics shape outcomes when pressure is high and consequences are real.
Professional Background
Lance founded Zinakelkele Consulting in 1994 in response to a recurring pattern he observed across industries. Organisations invested heavily in systems, procedures, and compliance, yet continued to experience accidents and fatalities, poor production, conflict, and breakdowns in trust.
As a psychologist, he recognised that these outcomes were rarely the result of missing rules. They were the result of unresolved human, relational, and cultural dynamics operating beneath the surface of formal systems.
Earlier in his career, Lance worked in extreme and sensitive environments, including facilitating reconciliation processes between formerly warring armed forces during the integration of the South African National Defence Force. This work required navigating deep mistrust, trauma, power dynamics, and identity under conditions where failure carried profound consequences.
These experiences fundamentally shaped his understanding of leadership, collective responsibility, and what it takes for people to shift behaviour when fear, history, and high stakes are present.
His work has since focused on helping organisations address these deeper drivers in a way that is practical, grounded, and capable of delivering sustained results.
Approach and Philosophy
Lance’s approach is shaped by a simple but uncompromising belief.
Safety and performance improve permanently only when people change how they think, relate, and take responsibility.
Rather than working only at an individual or leadership level, his work engages entire systems. Executives, managers, supervisors, workers, and unions are brought into shared ownership of safety and performance, creating alignment across authority, accountability, and lived experience.
This philosophy underpins the development of the Zinakelkele 4th Wave of Safety Approach and the Safety Culture Transformation Process.
Work at Scale
Over the course of his career, Lance has worked with major organisations across mining, manufacturing, construction, energy, and other high-risk sectors.
His work has contributed to:
- Sustained fatality-free performance
- Significant improvements in safety culture scores
- Strengthened trust and labour relations
- Greater alignment between safety and operational performance
These outcomes have been achieved in environments where previous approaches had failed to deliver lasting change.
Leadership and Role Today
As founder and senior practitioner, Lance remains actively involved in Zinakelkele’s work. He continues to guide complex engagements, support leadership teams, and ensure the integrity of the approach across all projects.
His role is focused on depth rather than scale. Zinakelkele deliberately works with a limited number of organisations at a time to ensure the quality, credibility, and impact of the work.
Lance’s work reflects a lifelong commitment to creating workplaces where people are safer, relationships are stronger, and performance is sustainable.
LOOKING FORWARD
the work ahead
Every organisation’s context is different, but the need for trust, alignment, and shared responsibility remains constant.
Not sure where to start?
The Safety Culture Rapid Diagnostic offers a clear starting point. It gives leadership an immediate, evidence-based view of what is happening on site and helps determine whether a full Safety Culture Transformation Process is required.
Zinakelkele continues to partner with organisations committed to sustainable safety and strong performance.
Join the journey to Zero Harm and High Performance.
Speak to our team about what the SCTP can unlock for your organisation.