Our Year in Review - the Leadership, Talent & Professional Development Committee
Chair: Joe Tofield, Co-Chairs: Don Rapley, Ellie Rich-Poole
How do you develop relevant content for chamber members when the world of work keeps changing? This was the key challenge faced by LTPD this year.
From business as usual, to work from home and now with many offices at 50% capacity; leaders have had to constantly adapt to maintain engagement, productivity and even business continuity during 2020. LTPD has followed suit and we adopted a flexible approach to react quickly to the changing world around us. It feels like an age ago when we had our last in person event at Google in January. A sold-out ‘fire side chat’ where we discussed how to build a culture of innovation across a business. No one at the time could have predicted just how relevant this event would be less than two months later. When COVID-19 hit, all our 2020 plans we had been working as far back as November 2019 were put on hold. With so many active members who had put time into this planning, it was a difficult decision for us however with the world changing so dramatically overnight, we had to adapt and focus on what BritCham members now wanted from our group.
With all of us dealing with the impact of these changes, the first task was looking at quick wins we could deliver to support members. We seized on the new podcast channel starting with a conversation on Leadership in Education with Dover Court and Dulwich College, followed by an interview with Tim Collins OBE. Both these podcasts were a chance to discuss the challenges at the time and how leaders could navigate them, providing an immediate platform to explore these concepts.
After these podcasts, we had more capacity to move into planned events. Starting with a webinar on creating elite performance by former footballer Paul McVeigh we shifted back into panel events and were joined by H.E Kara Owen, MTI, Facebook and Sage to discuss remote work now and in the future to explore the challenges of engaging their teams during COVID-19.
We then provided a panel event which focused solely on personal leadership experiences from an Asian perspective, which was an open an honest sharing from a former fighter pilot turned CEO, A general legal console and a researched-based view from HCLI based in Singapore.
To round off the year, we had a fantastic video conference masterclass from professional actor Robin Kermode. This masterclass gave tips and direction on how to efficiently present yourself over screen with many of us learning the importance that sound, posture and screen resolution can play on how effective we are at influencing over video.
This was followed up by an event on neuroplasticity with IFN Singapore where we explored how we can truly create and maintain a healthy lifestyle in body and
mind which then drives all aspects of our lives. A huge thank you to the committee and member companies for making these events happen.
Find out more at britcham.org.sg/committees/leadership-and-talent.