CIPD 2005

Citation

(2006), "CIPD 2005", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 20 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo.2006.08120bac.001

CIPD 2005

CIPD 2005

Held in Harrogate in the UK, the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition is one the most comprehensive of its kind. The conference itself is a mixture of keynote speakers, masterclasses, “how to” workshops and talks from industry experts.

For 2005 the three keynote speakers were:

1. 1.

   Rosabeth Moss Kanter, speaking on the subject of leading through turbulence.

2. 2.

   Charles Handy, speaking on the subject of the changing face of success.

3. 3.

   Dave Ulrich, speaking on the subject of the HR value proposition.

The rest of the conference was as usual spilt into seven streams designed to deliver the latest thinking and ideas on the driving forces behind business decisions and performance in today’s environment. The seven conference streams were:

1. 1.

   Strategy and leadership.

2. 2.

   Innovation.

3. 3.

   The future role of HR.

4. 4.

   Achieving high performance.

5. 5.

   Managing change.

6. 6.

   Talent management.

7. 7.

   Topical updates.

Two key seminars from the achieving high performance stream were “Coaching: a set of skills, or a way of life?” and “Developing our leaders”. Alison Hardingham, Director of Yellow Dog Consulting, was speaker for the coaching seminar. She asked the questions, “what makes a good coach?” and “is it life experiences that teach us how to coach, or can we learn the skills of coaching?” One of the key points to come out of the seminar was the similarities between therapy and coaching as she covered the principles covered in Miller, Duncan and Hubble’s 1997 book Escape from Babel and specifically the fact that changes in therapy are made up of:

• •

  40 percent extra therapeutic factors;

• •

  30 percent relationship;

• •

  15 percent technique; and

• •

  15 percent hope.

The use of coaching tools to remove absence from a situation was also outlined. This absence could have been caused by anxiety, judgment or self-absorption. The seminar took the participants below the surface to see what really goes on between two people in a coaching relationship.

The two speakers for the “Developing our leaders” seminar were Martin Tiplady, Director of Human Resources for the Metropolitan Police Force and Nigel Jeremy, Head of Learning and Capability Development for Vodafone UK. The seminar explored whether the next generation are being equipped to lead and how we can engender creativity and vision in our leadership development programs. This month’s development and learning in organizations includes a leading edge interview with both speakers.

Thursday’s keynote speaker was Charles Handy, who is now describes himself as a social philosopher. Handy spoke on “The changing face of success”. He believes that we are undergoing a shift in what people both want and expect from their working lives with more people being hungry for something beyond materialism. This will consequently mean that organizations of the future will have to offer more than just a decent salary to both recruit and then keep the best people. He went on to discuss what this would mean to the providers of financial capital who will increasingly have to share power with those who contribute the intellectual capital. How this is organized could be the next big challenge for the HR profession as they face up to the changing face of business.

More information about the CIPD can be found at www.cipd.co.uk