Presidents Forum

4th May 2010

New Thinking for a Complex and Fast-Changing World
…The future is ‘now’ because many of us are already late!

Speaker – Professor Eddie Obeng

10.00 for 10.30 to 12.30 (followed by buffet lunch)
at the National Liberal Club, One Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE

Aren’t you a little bit ‘fed-up’?
Even before the ‘Crisis’ the HR agenda was growing far too long and unwieldy. In any industry this is a sign that the fundamentals have changed and need a re-think. But the ‘crisis’ meant you had immediate challenges. You’ve now spent the past eighteen months focused on emergency and prudent management of costs. You’ve succeeded but as the surveys show, many of your staff plan to seek pay rises or new jobs once the ‘crisis’ subsides.

Now what?
You know that you need to look more strategically to the future. You need to identify what to prioritise but you have little time, the pressures of now are overbearing. And it not obvious where the future is heading.

Why join this session?
Eddie spent a over decade focused on a strange quest. He wanted to discover what managers and executives would need; to learn, to be able to do, and how they would need to think once the pace of change around them exceeded their ability to understand it. He calls the current business environment the “World After Midnight”.
Uniquely Eddie has taken a view across the whole organisation looking at how what we do, has long-grown obsolete and contributes to our difficulties by absorbing our time and attention. He has developed and successfully applied, with his client organisations, concepts and frameworks designed to help resolve some of today’s questions and challenges and prepare the ground for the future.

What will I get of it?
As an individual in our ‘new world’ you need to develop a capability for dual roles, enabling change and ensuring that the current business priorities and objectives are achieved. Eddie will describe how to build your capability and offer some concrete tools.

How will this help my function?
The current conventional thinking assumes that the current priorities, out of a sea of choices, are Talent retention and development, employee engagement, compensation, controlling cost and managing the perception of HR. This view does not go far enough to address the real challenges. For example, it is not just about Talent retention but more about how to deploy the Talent so that they can lead and deliver the results anticipated. For this we need to explore how to build an organisation which operationally and culturally resonates to the complexity, ambiguity and fast change we are experiencing. Eddie will use his OrganoWeb concept to explain how to achieve this. Maintaining and improving the perception of HR by the rest of the organisation though important is not enough. The function, which has become a strategic partner over the past decade, must now become an effective but ‘invisible’ leader.

What will the experience be like?
Intensely interactive and dynamic. You will have fun whilst you learn.

What will I leave with?
You will:
• leave the session with a new view of the key priorities and how to begint o tackle them
• leave with some concrete tools and frameworks with which to think and act
• be able to explain the functional and personal change agenda to colleagues
• leave saying, “That was very interesting – I need some more time to digest it but it really helped.”
• enjoy the experience of being provoked and challenged by Professor Obeng

For further information on Professor Eddie Obeng : Click here

This event will take place at One Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE. Coffee will be served from 10.00 for a 10.15 start and the day will end at 12.30pm.
The per-person fee is £190 plus VAT for members of the HR Society and £275 plus VAT for non-members. A 20% discount will apply to the second and subsequent participants from the same company attending the same event.

Fee is inclusive of materials for the session, refreshments and a buffet lunch.

If you have any queries about this event or others in the HR Society Calendar please contact:
Lara Roberts, Programme Administrator
Tel: 01264 774004 ~ Fax: 01264 774009 ~ Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Previous Speakers

Here are examples of speakers that Society has attracted over the past decade, starting with the most recent.

Speaker	Theme
Sir Andrew Likierman, London Business School	Performance Measurement - some myths and realities in HR
Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive, Fast Future	Winning in a Downturn - The HR Challenge
Will Hutton, Chief Executive, The Work Foundation	The Future of HR
Richard Beresford Director, Centre for Creativity and Enterprise Development	HR, the creative profession
Gillian Stamp, Director, Bioss the Foundation	Decision Making in Uncertainty
Professor Daniel T. Jones, Founder and Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy	Leading and Managing a Lean Enterprise: from managing by results to managing processes
Kevin Green, People and Organisation Development Director, Royal Mail Letters	Managing Change in the Royal Mail
Dr Lynda Gratton, London Business School	Hot spots - why some teams, workplaces and organisations buzz with energy - and others don't
Professor William Scott Jackson, Visiting Fellow at Oxford University	Building strategic capabilities for sustainable competitive advantage
Tim Miller, Director, People, Property and Assurance, Standard Chartered Bank	Employee Engagement - HR's key to driving business performance
Neil Foulger, Liberty Global	The Role of Compensation in Defining Strategy
Linda Holbeche, Director, Work Foundation	Aligning HR and Business Strategy: How desirable and how feasible?
Chris Bones, Henley Management College	Dilemmas of Modern Management
Richard Donkin, Columnist, Financial Times	Human Capital Management and the OFR
John Cridland, Deputy Director General, CBI	Future Prospects for HR Policy
David Clutterbuck, ITEM Group	Dialogue and the Open Culture
Brendan Barber, General Secretary, TUC	An Agenda for the Workplace
David Guest, King's College, London	Human Resource Management and Performance
Paul Kirby, Change Strategy, Cabinet Office	Reforming Government - success and failure
Harry Scarbrough, Warwick Business School	Measuring Human Capital
Andrew Campbell, Ashridge	Making Organisation a Source of Advantage
John Ormerod, Andersen UK	Organisation in Crisis: Challenge for Leadership
Will Hutton, The Work Foundation	The Future of Work
Graham Slight, MD, Burton Brewery	Managing Change
Sir Richard Wilson, Secretary to the Cabinet	Modernising Government
Stephen Connock, Instit of Customer Service	Achieving Service Leadership
Mike Kinski, Stagecoach Holdings plc	Management of Change
Terry Morgan, British Aerospace plc	Living The Values
John Monks, TUC	The TU Role in Change Management
Margaret Salmon, BBC	Remodelling Auntie
Ann Grinstead,IBM (UK) Ltd	The Triggers for Change
Geoff Armstrong, CIPD	Reflections on the Management of Change
Eric Caines, University of Nottingham	What Price the HR Professional of the Future
Genie Turton, Citizens Charter Office	Public Services
John S Leggate, BP Exploration Co	The Next Level of Business Performance
Lesley Sutherland, TGWU (Scotland)	Trade Unions Role in Achieving Change
Rodney Buse, W H Smith	Customer Influence on Organisation Change
John Hougham CBE, ACAS	A View of Evolving Change Processes
Kevan Hunt, British Coal Corporation	Motivation in a Downsizing Environment
Sir Bob Reid, British Rail & Shell	Managing Change within BR & Shell
Charlotte Chambers, YSC Ltd	No Change Without Learning
Roy Williams, BP Chemicals	Positioning Organisations for Success
Sir James Ackers, West Midlands RHA	Problems & Pitfalls of Managing Change
Dr John Ashworth, LSE	Managing a Workforce in Rapid Change
Dr David Grieves, British Steel	Restructuring to Survive