I was delighted to be asked to deliver a presentation this week for the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA).  CFOA’s members, like many leaders in public sector agencies, are facing significant cuts and challenges to deliver their service in the future.  Collaboration, partnering and transformation were therefore top of the agenda for the Spring Conference held in Manchester on the 20 and 21 March.

However like many public body leaders are experiencing, it is not always easy to navigate the path to acting different. Despite great forces pushing for change from the top of government downward, it remains a complex world with many barriers to address.

So I needed to think hard about what to say  in order to engage and inspire the audience to move their particular ‘mountains’.  That job was made all the harder because the senior management audience had all travelled to the venue early in the morning and then faced a day of powerpoint ‘talk to’ presentations before I did my 90 minute piece at 1600.  I therefore made the event a fun interactive affair with very serious messages laced throughout, balancing theory with practice, private sector experiences with public services.

I told a range of stories and adopted the analogy of One Direction.  They are made up of hitherto struggling artists who work together under great leadership with a compelling building and repackaging of their assets in order to become the world’s best selling band (get it?;).  

I was also excited to have Mike Maiden share the stage with me to share his complementary experiences of change and lessons learnt from his probation days.  Amongst other great things, Mike and his team conducted the biggest merger in probation history and  used pam to achieve that efficiently, whilst also following many of the principles from my book, Alliance Brand.

Our One Direction analogy and band metaphor applies much more widely than just the fire service, and you will no doubt hear more from us on that in due course.  Also see my work on elegant performers on my own website too.  We will be refreshing that soon as well. In the meantime if you’d like to learn more about pam, or our provocative engaging workshops and presentations on partnering, collaboration and change, contact us now.