Notes on SOLGM conference

SOLGM Conference, “One Step Ahead”, Rotorua, New Zealand

6th to 8th November, 2011

The conference opened on Sunday afternoon but had been preceded in the morning by a golf tournament at Springfield golf club followed by lunch at the Rotorua Stadium. This stadium had been used for some of the rugby world cup matches. The golf was played in a fairly light hearted and friendly way and was won by the international delegate from Canada, Jim Toye.

The opening ceremony commenced with SOLGM president Clare Hadley, the executive committee and international delegates, Jim and myself, being greeted outside of the conference hall by a Maori warrior who challenged us with the “Wero” (similar to the Haka at the start of a NZ rugby match). Once it had been established that we came in peace we were invited into the auditorium for the official “Pohiri” or welcome and opening ceremony. This comprised of a number of elements including chants, songs, speeches of welcome and acknowledgement all in the Maori language. The opening concluded with all of us filing past the Mayor, Chief Executive and Maori elder and greeting them with the “Hongi” (pressing of the nose).   

Kevin Winters the Mayor of Rotorua welcomed delegates and challenged us and our Councils to engage with a new generation of New Zealanders. Those like his son who were networked via social media and embraced new technology into all aspects of their lives.

President of SOLGM, Clare Hadley gave her presidential address in which she used a video clip from the ICMA “life well run” campaign which promotes the value of public services and management. You can view the video here  I’d like to hear from SOLACE colleagues as to whether or not they think that we should follow this campaign example. Clare described SOLGM as a family built upon strong relationships between its members.

Lawrence Yule is president of Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) which is their equivalent body to the LGA. In his address to conference he referred to elements of the National Party manifesto. NZ is about to have a general election and the National Party is the centre right party ( Conservative party equivalent).  Efficiency in local government, regionalisation, resource management and hazard management all feature in the manifesto. He referred to eight small councils who had failed to meet deadlines to submit annual accounts and their need to do better if they are not to have a negative impact on the sector overall. Something I found personally interesting, as someone who has previously volunteered to work in emerging local democratic areas in eastern Europe ( Albania, Georgia ), was that LGNZ had persuaded the Government to contribute funding towards local authorities in NZ who are supporting local government in nearby Pacific countries. Come on LGA how about trying to achieve the same here. 

We were then introduced to the master of ceremonies (MC) for the rest of the conference, Ben Hurley. Ben is a stand up comedian who appears in a weekly TV programme which I understand to be similar to “Have I Got News for You”. A sort of New Zealand Paul Merton.  This was a interesting approach and something we don’t do at SOLACE. It provided pace and continuity throughout the conference in a light hearted and sometimes irreverent way. Quite fun.

The opening address to conference was from Marcus Akuhata-Brown, described as a gifted communicator. A motivational speaker. The phrase that the conference was left with following his address was “shake it off and step up” based on a story of a donkey in a well. When others start throwing muck onto you intending to bury you if you shake it off your back and step up on it you’ll eventually get out of the well. “Shake it off and step up.”

Day two began with the SOLGM AGM at 07.30am !! I cannot tell you if it was well attended as I didn’t make it. (the effects of a 24 hour flight). I was there in time for the first conference session of the day. Jonar Nader was a last minute replacement for the original speaker who was unable to make it because of family illness. Jonar is author of a book “How to lose friends and infuriate people” and spoke on social change and innovation. I found I had a mixed reaction to this presentation. It was definitely a strong and worthwhile contribution to the conference and later I chose to attend his optional workshop session in the afternoon. But there were things he said that I disagreed with and I would loved to have had the opportunity to debate with him over a pint in the bar. I missed the fact that with the exception of one speaker there was not the opportunity at the end of a presentation to ask questions of the speaker or challenge with an alternative viewpoint. His thrust was on innovation being a way of life and not a project. On incremental, evolutionary innovation rather than by big leaps forward. Doing what you do today 1% better tomorrow. Things I took away from his talk were; 1. “you cannot innovate if your team doesn’t have a stop button” i.e. the ability to call a halt to the production line when faults are occurring and decide how to address the problem rather than waiting for the ‘product recall’  2.  “little things that are allowed to go on point to a culture and leave you wondering about the big things” i.e. if carelessness or poor customer service is tolerated in the small visible things what is happening that cannot be seen. If a lack of cleanliness is tolerated in the hospital waiting room what’s the operating theatre like? 3. “the more senior you are the less busy you should be” not that senior people should not work hard but that their diary should not be filled with meetings and activity in order to give time to keep close to and understand their organisation and how it’s working and where it can be improved. 

Nigel Latta, Beware of the Beige Brigade, why modern thinking is letting down young people. Nigel is a clinical psychologist with some interesting and challenging things to say about our rational mind (not) , the teenage brain and the use of punishment. However, his foul mouth and apparent desire to shock and be disrespectful of the feelings and beliefs of others left me deciding that I would not go out of my way to listen to him again. He did however have the best video clip used at the conference - I’m not saying what but I’m sure some of you will see it in my future presentations - courtesy of youtube. 

The first part of the afternoon was taken up with parallel education sessions on the themes of collaborative consumption, lean thinking, optimising people performance and handling the media in a crisis. Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hide then addressed conference. He is part of a coalition Government and represents a small party which as I understand it has a similar outlook to our taxpayers alliance. He is now coming to the end of his term and is not standing for re-election. Whilst I think SOLGM initially faced the prospect of him as Minister with some concern it was obvious that over the years a mutual respect had developed between them. He spoke of the collegiate working during the recent disasters facing the country,  the restructuring of Auckland into a single Council, the benefits of shared services, the importance of spacial panning and of keeping costs down for the rate payer. He also referenced the recent Hamilton City audit report and how lessons needed to be learnt from this.

Monday concluded with Doug McKay, chief executive of the newly formed Auckland Council  on the experiences of merging eight Councils into one. He spoke of the aspirations of Auckland to be a global competitive city. Of planning and strategies to build the economy, of reducing overall costs and minimising rate increases and the importance of embedding the values into the new organisation.

Monday evening was the conference dinner. No bow ties and party frocks for these delegates. The theme was Monday night fever so lots of fuzzy hair and flares. 

Tuesday was the day of the “pomms” starting with Andy Gibson. Quietly spoken and at a measured pace he brought insight into the internet and social networking. He gave examples of how the internet is being used to change the way we produce things. Moving from mass production and centralisation to millions of people across the world all doing a little bit. He spoke of the characteristics of successful campaigns such as “invisible children” rescuing child soldiers in Uganda and “it gets better” addressing teenage suicide amongst young gay people. He told of the case of musician Dave Matthews whose guitar was broken by United Airways and his “United Breaks Guitars” website which eventually brought him suitable recompense from them.  Other examples of mass action such as when HSBC withdrew their student graduate overdraft. Throughout he illustrated how these new approaches might impact upon or could be used by local government. He spoke of opportunities for citizen participation, social change, staff to engage with communities and the challenge for inclusion. A quote from Andy that I wrote down was “it doesn’t matter if you don’t like it (the internet / social media) your citizens are using it” and therefore we must engage with it. Andy gave time for questions on his presentation and it was apparent that there was a keen interest in his presentation.

Sandwiched between the two “pomms” were Jonathan Slater and John Shackleton talking on local government litigation based upon some recent cases. On the basis that NZ law is different from UK law I missed this session for a walk in Rotorua’s wonderful Tawharakurupeti gardens. 

Conference split into concurrent sessions entitled “Leaders in Action” before coming together again for my presentation. I spoke on the impact of Government initiatives on Local Government in the UK.  The slides I used for my presentation are available to download.  Afterwards i received much interest in the shared chief executive model which some districts, including my own, are adopting in response to the Government’s agenda. 

After lunch a panel was assembled comprising the Chief Executive of Christchurch plus the chief executives of two neighbouring districts and the region. They each gave an insight into their experiences of the earthquakes and how they and their Councils responded during the response phase and the continuing recovery phase. Christchurch and the Canterbury region experienced earthquakes in September 2010, February 2011 and June 2011 plus the occurrence of many after shocks. There were some common themes in all their contributions. Praise for the way their staff responded and that sometimes they were surprised that staff they thought least likely were shining examples. Rotate staff during the response phase. Adopt a command and control leadership style. Bring in extra staff help. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Whilst response is hectic the recovery phase is enormous; a marathon not a sprint. Programmes to tackle the devastation to infrastructure; bridges, roads, sewerage, buildings and homes are having to be revised and time scales lengthened. There continue to be psycho-social issues some of which are only now surfacing. Have trained recovery manager(s) in place. These presentations were both inspirational and humbling. It made me proud to be a chief executive and I hope that if I’m ever called on to respond to a similar incident in my community I respond with the same courage and leadership as these chief executives demonstrated. The final message was one of hope and determination they’re back in business and are also rebuilding a Christchurch and Canterbury fit for the future.

The final address to conference was from Sir Ray Avery a well known kiwi social entrepreneur, scientist and businessman. He’s written a book “Rebel with a Cause” and used his life-story as a backdrop to illustrate his thesis that observation is the key to innovation. 

SOLGM president Clare Hadley concluded the conference by presenting long service awards to delegates for service to local government ranging from 20 years to 45 years. SOLACE doesn’t give long service awards and I wonder if members would think this a good idea. Let me know. 

My thanks to president Clare and husband Ken for their hospitality and generosity, Karen, CEO of SOLGM and the staff for their kindness. The delegates & the Sunday golfers for the warmth of their company and Paul of CMNZ for his brilliant organisation and for showing me the countryside of NZ as we travelled from Auckland by car.