Sessions

Opening Keynote Speakers

Day 1 Concurrent Sessions

Think Tank Roundtable for Permanent Secretaries & Chief Executive Officers

The public sector is faced with increasingly complex (wicked) problems which can only be satisfactorily addressed by teams with adaptive capacity. Team leadership plays a pivotal role in fostering team adaptability (Kozlowski, Watola, Jensen, Kim,& Botero, 2009). This session is designed for Permanent Secretaries, CEOs and other heads of public sector organisations. It provides an opportunity for this group to deliberate on their collective and individual roles in building adaptive capacity and exposes them to some of the resources, tools and strategies that are available to them in achieving this outcome.

Speaker - Dr. Lois Parkes

Why Risk it? - The Benefits of Being an Adaptive Leader

In this session Senator the Honourable Ruel Reid will share how he, his organization and the wider system have benefited from his experience as an adaptive public sector leader. Session delegates will also be exposed to some of the key strategies employed, as well as lessons learnt; and will gain key insights that they can apply to their own professional situations.

Speaker - Senator the Honourable Ruel Reid

Retain the Best, Challenge the Rest: How to Shake Up Your Organization in the Quest for Talent

This session will explore practical strategies and tools that will support leaders in creating and sustaining a high performance culture. Engaging and retaining high performing employees has become a top priority for today’s organizations and therefore must reside within the ambit of leadership. It is imperative that all leaders develop a talent-mindset where talent management is viewed as mission critical to the success and sustainability of the organization. This approach requires leaders who are not afraid to challenge the status quo of mediocrity, and are able to unearth the untapped potential and competencies within their team.

Speaker - Ambassador Joan H. Underwood

Professional Hurt

Professional hurt is a combination of the deep hurt a leader experiences as a professional, pooled with the undermining of his/her sense of professional pride, dignity, confidence, capability, credibility and worth as a leader. While all facets of the leaders’ hurtful and humiliating experiences are sometimes stretched over a period of time, there is actually an identifiable point at which professional hurt occurs.

This session will therefore examine ‘Professional hurt’ across the public services of the Commonwealth Caribbean and how this concept can be used to provide insight into the nature of relationships with the practice of leadership. It will also explore an understanding of ‘Professional hurt’ that could inform the design of leadership development programmes to help develop leaders who can navigate or avoid hurt.

Speaker - Dr. Ruby Brown

Challenging Assumptions - Environment Centered Governance

It has become increasingly clear that in order to ensure there is a sustainable future, a full understanding of current, highly dependent, interrelated systems must occur.

The public sector must begin to apply multiple lenses to policies, processes and projects in order to realize sustainable and impactful outcomes for citizens.

In this session Dr. David Lee will highlight the current state of critical environmen-tal capital, and engage the audience in dialogue around how they can apply the
environmental lens to the work that they do.

Speaker - Dr. David Lee

Panel Discussion - The Generational Divide - How to Get Multi-generations to Work Effectively with One Another

Today’s workplace is filled with distinct generations interacting to achieve organizational goals, with each generation bringing unique perspectives, experiences, skills and challenges. Therefore leading this multi-generational workforce requires an understanding of the potentials, values and differences that each group brings, so that we can embrace and harness these differences to the benefit of the organization.

In this session, public sector leaders, from across generations, will share their perspectives, experiences and strategies towards building workforce synergy and bridging the generational divide.

Moderator - Dr. Winston Sutherland

Panelists:
Mrs. Ava Whyte-Anderson
Dr. Alwyn Hales
M. Audrey Stewart-Hinchcliffe, C.D., J.P., M.Sc., B.A.
Dr. Teneisha Ingleton,
Dr. Wayne St. Aubyn Henry

Day 2 - Plenary Sessions

Rear View Mirror

Moderator - Latoya Anderson-Swaby

Building an Innovation Agenda for the Future - Institutions, Strategy and Governance

There will be a full exploration of the value of innovation within the context of modernization, transformation and ultimately national development. It involves an interrogation of the critical role of adaptive leadership in unearthing and harnessing creativity and innovation as a systems perspective.

Speaker - Ms. Jermaine Jewel Jean-Pierre

Bend not Break - My Adaptive Leadership Journey

In this very interactive session Permanent Secretary Audrey Sewell will engage in dialogue with two fellow senior public sector leaders, as they use appreciative enquiry to help her unveil her story, and share how it is that she has been able to successfully navigate this “dangerous”, unwieldy path with many blind spots.

She will share the items in her toolkit that have served her during this time, and how relationships and collaborations personal and professional, as well as, those internal and external to the organizations fueled her journey and successes.

Speaker - Mrs. Audrey Sewell CD, JP

Interviewers

Ambassador Shiela Sealy Monteith

Mr. David Dobson