Marking its 50th anniversary as a national organisation, Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA) staged its 2003 National Congress and Expo in Adelaide from 25–28 May. As Adelaide was the venue for its inaugural conference in 1953, this was a fitting return to South Australia.
With 2,500 members across Australia, once again LGMA presented a high quality forum for managers, elected members, overseas delegates and exhibitors, reaffirming its position as a major event on the Local Government calendar.
Federal Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government, Wilson Tuckey, threw down the challenge to Local Government to map out a future for itself. He said that the current Cost Shifting Inquiry is the ideal opportunity for Local Government to present a case as to what it does best and how it can best meet the needs of its communities.
“The proposal from the Australian Local Government Association for an intergovernmental agreement is a good start,” Wilson Tuckey said.
He urged Mayors and Councillors to ask their residents what they want.
“The issue of which services Councils should be providing needs to be debated at the local level,” the Minister said. “There is no point merely asking for more money. Local Government must present a clear case and sell itself on these issues – give me a strong position I can take to Cabinet. I cannot do this for you. It is up to you to show leadership.”
In his keynote address, South African author and futurist, Clem Sunter, said that it is not merely a matter of having a vision for the future, but we need also to have planning systems in place to deal with the things that are beyond our control.
“We live in turbulent times, yet few planning systems have been developed to assist us in dealing with the surprises,” Clem Sunter said. “Consistent growth since World War 2 has developed systems reflecting the tranquillity in which the world has grown, but as we move into more turbulent times we need to have a framework to deal with the surprises.”
He advocates scenario planning, covering both best and worst case scenarios.
“There is much to be learned from the negative scenarios,” he said. “These will tell you what you need to avoid or pre-empt. We need to have the mind of a fox, not a hedgehog. Foxes are adaptable, resourceful animals: their lives are all about balancing many different ideas and quickly responding to changes in their environment. Hedgehogs’ lives, on the other hand, tend to evolve around the one big issue and when things go wrong they simply roll up into a ball.”
He said that 60 per cent of the bottom line of the best performing organisations is directly attributable to top managers being resourceful strategists, able to deal with the unpredictable.
Cheryl Miller, Chief Executive of East Sussex County Council and Vice President of the Society of Local Authorities Chief Executives (SOLACE) presented a paper on Transformational Leadership. Referring to the current situation in the United Kingdom she said that never before has Central Government had so much control over Local Government.
“Two thirds of our budget now comes from Central Government and it has rules covering how 80 per cent of this can be spent,” she said. “My Council is required to have 66 different strategic plans, meet over 400 statutory performance targets and is subject to 16 separate inspectorates.”
She said that trying to stay above all this bureaucracy is very difficult and cannot be done using a traditional management model.
“We need to find a new model but we need to do this without upsetting our political leaders within Council,” Cheryl Miller said.
She sees the essential skills of Transformational Leadership as the following.
- Self awareness – knowing yourself, your strengths and weaknesses.
- Understanding your organisation – where it has come from and where it is going.
- Political awareness – enjoying the political tensions and complexities, and being able to work with all the tensions and conflict.
- Judgement – making decisions and setting priorities including careful time management.
- Creativity and analytical skills.
- Being comfortable with failures and successes and relaxed about both.
- Being inspiring and inspirable.
- Having the ability to enjoy yourself.
“If you are not having fun, it is highly likely no one else in your organisation is as well,” she said.
