Management in Action 2023 Agenda

Turning Snakes into Ladders
Ian Morris FSLCC, Clerk to Peterlee Town Council

Have you ever wondered how you might go about enabling a change of mindset in your council to achieve better collaborative working in your local area?

In this plenary session, we’ll focus on the importance of stories, rituals and routines to your workplace culture.  We’ll use a ‘snakes and ladders‘ metaphor to explore three ‘slippery snakes’ that may be holding you back, and reveal four practical ‘ladders of opportunity’ tools that may help you to think about your local context from new perspectives.

The Importance of Trust and Psychological Safety in Team Environments
Morgen Witzel, Fellow of the Exeter Leadership Centre
at the University of Exeter Business School

In this session, Morgen will look first at the roles people play and the internal dynamics of teams, with a focus on how our social identity within teams can inhibit the formation of trust.

Drawing on the work of Amy Edmondson and others, he will show how psychological safety and inclusion can bring people closer together and give them the space and freedom they need to work effectively.

Emotional Intelligence & Assertive Behaviour Facilitated
Josie Payne, Managing Director of Bruck Payne Associates

Negotiating assertively means using both verbal and non-verbal behaviour, that makes it clear you are in the business of helping others meet their needs. At the same time, of course, you want to have your own needs met. Discover how you can achieve this with six steps.

Ethical decision-making in a professional context – exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the ethical tools at our disposal
David Whetham

Explore the difference between morality, ethics and law and gain an introduction into virtue ethics, ends-based reasoning and the idea of duty-based reasoning, briefly looking at where the ideas/traditions come from, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Discover how to collectively inform our decision-making to ensure the most appropriate results, drawing on military, leadership and governance examples to illustrate the approaches and their implications.

Future of Local Councils
Jonathan Rose, Co-Director of the Local Governance Research Centre,
DeMontfort University

While only around a third of the country is covered by a local council, these councils are the most numerous tier of government with around 10,000 existing in England and Wales. They are the tier of government closest to the people they serve and are therefore well placed to offer ‘place-based leadership’ which can support and reinforce community development.

Despite the virtues local councils hold, they remain under-appreciated both by other levels of government and often by their communities. Part of this challenge relates to a belief that local councils often have poor standards of conduct including persistent issues around bullying and harassment, which may dissuade people from standing for office and push out skilled clerks.

This session questions how local councils can continue to develop towards fulfilling their potential as key democratic institutions including a focus on increasing standards, and will cover some of the headline findings from the Future of Local Councils report adding a more analytical approach to understanding how councils can be supported – both by their own councillors and officers as well as other tiers of government.

Jonathan will examine the factors that help prevent bullying and intimidation in local councils with actionable findings for clerks and council and consider local councils in a broader historical context, reflecting on the continuities and changes since 1894.

Be Bold, Be Brave, Be You
Victoria Humphries, member of the first all-female expedition to the North Pole

A uniquely inspirational talk from Victoria Humphries who was a member of the first all-female expedition to the North Pole and went on to be MD of a successful EdTech business.  She tells the story of the record-breaking expedition, managing day to day life at -40⁰C, overcoming adversity, coping with constant change, surviving a life-threatening accident and how she has used the experiences from the trip to create her own ‘resilience toolbox.’