It was a great privilege to be invited lead a workshop at the annual national residential conference for the British Association of Construction Heads (BACH) held in Norwich.
BACH focuses on enabling and empowering the Construction Heads within Further and Higher Education in England and Wales to achieve the very best outcomes for their students and colleges. In its 30 years BACH has gone from strength to strength and has an enviable tradition of delivering excellent professional development to its members.
My talk focussed on developing the self-confidence of the delegates who work in complex and politically changing environments. The workshop looked at our self-awareness, managing teams, why we so often firefight and how to do things differently. We used reverse brainstorming which is a powerful technique to address some of the complex issues currently facing the heads.
On a lighter note we used De Bono’s six thinking hats to organise a village fete – the outcome of which is always staggeringly effective in just 20 minutes! The ‘hats’ can be used to improve the speed and efficiency of planning many different sorts of projects – not all of them as sensitive as a village fete!