Events
Leadership and Strategy Series
The series aims to explore and consider
new and existing leadership beliefs and approaches, to enable
the Public Service to address the governance and policy challenges
ahead. It will promote wider sharing of leadership experiences
and the tacit leadership knowledge amongst public sector leaders,
and also pave the way for new insights on fresh approaches
needed for leadership. This will pave the way for us to better
distill, articulate and codify our key leadership principles,
practices and lessons.
 The Honourable Jocelyne Bourgon
24 October 2011
Lecture on "Governance In An Expanding Public Space"
Political and economic uncertainties around the world have made our operating environment more complex and volatile. Singapore's success thus far has been predicated on a stable government, and our ability to adopt a long term perspective and nimbly tap on opportunities. As Singapore's governing landscape evolve and issues we face become more complex and susceptible to shocks and surprises, how do we continue to develop holistic policy responses and public outcomes? How do we go about building a resilient society that continues to be able to anticipate, optimise opportunities and thrive in adversity?
In her book "A New Synthesis of Public Administration: Serving in the 21st Century" — a synthesis of findings from the collaborative efforts of six countries; Australia, Brazil, Canada, Netherlands, Singapore and United Kingdom — Mme Jocelyne Bourgon advocates that government is part of a dynamic system where it continually interacts and co-creates with other stakeholders of society, rather than one that only plans, organises, directs, and control. She describes how achieving public outcomes is increasingly a collective enterprise between government, people and society. Good governance is more than what governments alone can do. How do we conserve what is of enduring value, while tapping on systems, structures and authority of the State to lever collective capacity? How do we build anticipative and adaptive capacity to prosper in unforeseen circumstances and adversity?
 The book bridges theory and practice with examples from countries, including Singapore e.g. the Singapore Prison Service, Workfare, and NorthLight School. The forum will provide participants an opportunity to understand some of its key ideas from the book, and explore how they could apply to Singapore today.
A copy of the book "A New Synthesis of Public Administration: Serving in the 21st Century" is now available from McGill-Queens University Press and Amazon. It will also be sold at the end of the forum.
For more information on the New Synthesis project, please visit www.nsworld.org.
About The Honourable Jocelyne Bourgon
Mme Bourgon joined the Public Service of Canada in 1973. Between 1989-1994, she served as Deputy Minister in a number of departments. From 1994 to 1999, she was Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. Subsequently, Mme Bourgon served as President of the Canadian Centre for Management Development from 1999 to 2003, where her role in creating a learning culture throughout the Public Service of Canada culminated in the creation of The Canada School of Public Service. Mme Bourgon currently holds the position of President Emeritus at the School. Mme Bourgon is also a senior visiting fellow at the Civil Service College, Singapore. Her CV can be found at http://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/aut/jb-eng.pdf
 Peter Capelli
28 September 2011
Lecture on "Embracing the Power of a Multi-generational Diverse Workforce"
The workplace of today offers opportunities for us to tap on the energies and talents of four generations. The varying values, attitudes and aspirations of the diverse workforce present tremendous possibilities for creative collaboration, but also pose possibilities of sub-optimal results if not managed well.
Even as we encourage employees to stay longer in the workforce, how can we tap on their rich experiences and skills, and fully appreciate the value they bring to the workplace? With increasingly varying and inter-related approaches towards career, personal development and aspirations, how can we best embrace the diversity in the public sector workforce and design effective HR policies to bring out the best in our people?
In this session, Professor Cappelli will be addressing some of the pertinent HR issues prevalent in the Singapore public sector:
- What are the Asian social mores which may make managing older workers challenging in the Singapore public sector context? How might we mitigate the issues of managing an inter-generational workforce, including situations of a older supervisee reporting to a younger supervisor?
- What might be the upsides and downsides of the legislation of the Re-Employment Policy in Singapore? What might be useful HR policies and practices to put in place to ensure that this initiative is implemented effectively?
- Besides generational (or age-cohort) diversity, what other issues relating to diversity in the Singapore public sector workforce would it be useful for us to pay attention to?
- How might the concept of a Corporate Lattice (an alternative to the traditional hierarchical corporate ladder, allowing employees to explore new areas of work through dynamic "anytime, anywhere" teams and communities and multi-directional relationships) be applied in the Singapore Public Service context?
About Peter Capelli
Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, US and has been a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore since 2007. He has degrees in industrial relations from Cornell University and in labor economics from Oxford where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He was a staff member on the U.S. Secretary of Labor's Commission on Workforce Quality and Labor Market Efficiency from 1988-'90, Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, and a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center on Post-Secondary Improvement at Stanford University. He currently serves on commissions for The Business Roundtable, the World Economic Forum, and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Professor Cappelli's recent research examines changes in employment relations in the U.S. and their implications. These publications include The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce, which examines the decline in lifetime employment relationships;Talent Management: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty, which outlines the strategies that employers should consider in developing and managing talent (named a "best business book" for 2008 by Booz-Allen); and The India Way: How India's Top Business Leaders are Revolutionizing Management (with colleagues), which describes a mission-driven and employee-focused approach to strategy and competitiveness. His latest book Managing the Older Worker (with Bill Novelli) dispels myths about older workers and describes how employers can best engage them. Related work on managing retention, electronic recruiting, and changing career paths appears in the Harvard Business Review.
 Professor Francis Flynn
23 August 2011
Lecture on "Communication: The Art of Persuasion"
As a public officer, you spend the majority of your time communicating with others—subordinates, clients, and external constituents. This session will provide guidelines for improving your communication, and in particular, your persuasive skills. Drawing on exemplars from highly successful leaders, we will describe how you can convince others to accept your ideas or support your position, even if they are skeptical at first. We will also move beyond stated attitudes and focus on actions -- getting people to change how they behave, not just how they feel.
About Professor Francis Flynn
Professor Flynn is a winner of multiple teaching awards and focuses his teachings on leadership issues particularly how young managers can learn to navigate complex political environments and build interpersonal influence. He has worked for the Department of Commerce in the International Trade Administration, the Institute for Business and Economic Development, and the Institute for Urban and Regional Development.
Professor Flynn currently sits on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal and is a member of the Academy of Management and the American Psychological Association.
Professor Francis Flynn
24 August 2010
Lecture on "Motivating People in Lean Times"
Leaders must motivate their employees to work hard, in ways that advance the mission of their enterprise. To this end, managers typically rely on "carrots" (pay, bonuses, perks) as means of motivation. In today's increasing competitive and cost-conscious environment however, the number of carrots that companies have at their disposal is rapidly dwindling. Now managers must somehow learn to motivate their employees with other, more cost-effective, means.
In this session, you will learn about alternative "psychological levers" that can help build employee motivation—tools that truly motivate employees without excessive spending. We will discuss a framework for thinking about "intrinsic motivation" and consider exemplars from successful organisations that have used these psychological principles to rethink and improve their own motivational strategies.
Professor Francis Flynn's research focuses on interpersonal relations in organisations. In particular, he studies psychological issues that most managers confront on a regular basis (motivation, decision making, influence). His work bridges the fields of management and social psychology, leading to scholarly as well as practical insights on organisational life.
About Professor Francis Flynn
Professor Flynn is a winner of multiple teaching awards and focuses his teachings on leadership issues particularly how young managers can learn to navigate complex political environments and build interpersonal influence. He has worked for the Department of Commerce in the International Trade Administration, the Institute for Business and Economic Development, and the Institute for Urban and Regional Development.
Professor Flynn has also provided executive education for various companies, including Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Standard & Poor's, Ixis Financial, and M&T Bank, training that focuses on improving employee decision making and interpersonal leadership skills. Professor Flynn's research investigates issues of employee cooperation, diversity in work groups, and leadership in organisations. His recent work considers how employees can develop healthy patterns of cooperation and whether the influence of gender stereotypes on workplace dynamics can be mitigated. His scholarly articles appear in more than a dozen publications that span the fields of management and social psychology.
Professor Flynn currently sits on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal and is a member of the Academy of Management and the American Psychological Association.
Lecture Notes
 Professor Adrian Furnham
25 June 2010
Lecture on "The Elephant in the Boardroom — The Causes of Leadership Derailment"
A surprising large number of leaders and senior managers fail and derail. One paradox is that the very characteristics that often help managers climb the corporate ladder are exactly those which cause their failure. Prof Furnham will then discuss how to prevent management failure in the selection phase (by considering the issue of select out, rather than select in), the development phase (using mentors), and the production phase (by having good corporate governance). Various examples will be discussed, including the Icarus Syndrome which is related to the failure of high flyers.
In this lecture, Prof Furnham will share how some potentially great leaders get appointed but then fail and derail. Prof Furnham will also share how to spot the signs, as well as the factors that lead to derailment.
About Professor Adrian Furnham
Professor Adrian Furnham is a British organizational and applied psychologist, management expert and Professor of Psychology at University College London. In addition to his academic roles, he is a consultant on organizational behaviour and management, writer and broadcaster.
Professor Furnham is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and is on the editorial board of a number of international journals, as well as the past elected President of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences. He is a founder director of Applied Behavioural Research Associates (ABRA), a psychological consultancy. He has been a consultant to over 20 major international companies with particular interests in top team development, management change performance management systems, psychometric testing and leadership derailment.
Professor Furnham has written over 700 scientific papers and 57 books. He has lectured widely abroad and held scholarships and visiting professorships. He has also been a Visiting Professor of Management at Henley Management College and has recently been made Adjunct Professor of Management at the Norwegian School of Management (2009).
Since 2007, Professor Furnham has been nominated by HR Magazine as one of the 20 Most Influential people in HR. In 2009, he was nominated by HR Magazine as the 7th Most Influential Thinker.
Lecture Notes
Performance and Talent Management: Insights for Tomorrow's Workplace
Professor Francis Flynn
26 August 2009
Professor Francis Flynn is a winner of multiple teaching awards and focuses his teachings on leadership issues particularly how young managers can learn to navigate complex political environments and build interpersonal influence. He has worked for the Department of Commerce in the International Trade Administration, the Institute for Business and Economic Development, and the Institute for Urban and Regional Development.
Prof Flynn has also provided executive education for various companies, including Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Standard & Poor's, Ixis Financial, and M&T Bank, training that focuses on improving employee decision making and interpersonal leadership skills. Professor Flynn's research investigates issues of employee cooperation, diversity in work groups, and leadership in organisations. His recent work considers how employees can develop healthy patterns of cooperation and whether the influence of gender stereotypes on workplace dynamics can be mitigated. His scholarly articles appear in more than a dozen publications that span the fields of management and social psychology.
Professor Flynn currently sits on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal and he is a member of the Academy of Management and the American Psychological Association.
Lecture Notes
New Governance and Public Administration—A Dynamic Synthesis
Jocelyne Bourgon
30 June 2009
Notes from Mme Jocelyne Bourgon's Lecture
Strategic Thinking and Decision-Making
Professor Michael Useem
25 June 2009
Michael Useem is William and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Useem has completed several studies of corporate organisation, ownership, governance, restructuring, and leadership. He is author of The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide (Crown Business/Random House, 2006); the co-author and co-editor of Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits (Crown Business/Random House, 2003); the author of Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win (Crown Business/Random House, 2001), The Leadership Moment: Nine True Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for Us All (Random House, 1998), Investor Capitalism: How Money Managers Are Changing the Face of Corporate America (HarperCollins, 1996) and Executive Defense: Shareholder Power and Corporate Reorganization (Harvard University Press, 1993); co-author of Change at Work (Oxford University Press, 1997) and Turbulence in the American Workplace (Oxford University Press, 1991); co-editor of Transforming Organizations (Oxford University Press, 1992); co-author of Educating Managers (Jossey-Bass, 1986); and author of The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. (Oxford University Press, 1984).
Prof Useem has presented programmes and seminars on leadership and change with many organisations, such as Accenture, Coca-Cola, Federal Executive Institute, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, ICICI Bank (India), Nokia, Petrobras (Brazil), Securities Association of China, Singapore General Hospital, the U.S. Department of Justice and the World Economic Forum.
He has also consulted on governance with Fannie Mae, HealthSouth, Tyco International, and other companies; and on organisational development and change with the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Organization of American States, and other agencies in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Prof Useem's university teaching includes MBA and executive-MBA courses on leadership and change management, and he offers programmes on leadership, teamwork, governance, and decision making for managers in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He also edits the monthly electronic bulletin, Wharton Leadership Digest. He holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan and a M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Lecture Notes
Trends in Talent Management, Retention
and Leadership Development
Dr
Michael McGrath
1 June 2007
Dr Michael McGrath is an Adjunct Faculty member in Executive
Education at the University of Michigan Graduate School of
Business with over 25 years of experience in executive and
organisational development. He will conduct an exclusive closed-door
Roundtable, focusing on talent management, retention and leadership
development within the Public Sector.
Transformation Leadership: Australia's Networked Government
Experience
Dr
Peter Shergold
30 April 2007
Dr Peter Shergold has been Secretary of the Department of
the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) in Australia since
February 2003. This position is similar to that of the Head
of Civil Service in Singapore. Under Dr Shergold's leadership,
the Australian Public Service (APS) has built up its capacity
to deal with complex, cross-cutting issues. The PM&C has
reoriented itself into an effective taskforce to coordinate
key projects with other Departments, promote innovative policy
solutions, and ensure effective service delivery. Some of
PM&C's recent projects include the review of Australia's
energy policy, access to water, emissions trading, and counter-terrorism.
PM&C has also taken on the role of monitoring policy delivery
across government agencies.
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