Get Involved: Systems Leadership Workshops 2024

By GM Moving | 29 February 2024 | TAGS: Systems Leadership

We can all help people live more active lives. Everyone has a role to play: volunteers, communities and the paid workforce

• Some people like to be active by going to the gym or taking part in organised sports. 
• Some want to walk on streets that feel safe and welcoming.
• Some people want to reduce their car use and travel by public transport more.
• Others want to play with their children or friends in a park that is well looked after

We can make a real difference together when we understand each other’s experiences.

When we try new ways of working together, we can achieve lasting change

Why does it matter?

We’ve created a world that's difficult to be active in. Too much gets in the way. Too much stops us from moving every day, and some people and communities face bigger barriers.

How we’re working to change this.

We’re working across Greater Manchester to understand the barriers and inequalities. This will help us recognise what we need to do to reduce them, with a focus on collaboration.

Join us.

We’re creating opportunities to come together to learn new skills and share our ideas. These are open to anyone who feels like moving matters to you or your work.

This is in partnership with Macc and 10GM.

 

> TED Talk Cinema Club Local

• Tuesday 29 October, 12:00-13:30
• Virtual

Sustainability Community Development: From what’s wrong to what’s strong
Cormac Russell and Bolton Council Public Health Team

Following on from the TED talk Cinema Club in 2022-2023 we are back with a more local take. This time round we will be hosting a space for 90 minutes over lunch (feel free to bring your lunch) where we will watch a TED Talk then hear a local story from Greater Manchester about how they have explored these ideas in practice.

This first one will focus on Asset based community development and feature a TED Talk by Cormac Russell alongside members of the public health team from Bolton who will share their experiences. There will then be time to have a conversation and to think about what this means for your work.

The purpose of this session is to:

• Explore ABCD principles from theory to practice
• Connect people across GM who are working wit ABCD principles
• Share practice learning and ideas for people to take away and work out what this means form them locally

Sign-up here 

> Active lives - Focused co-learning sessions (Over a Brew ☕) 

• Monday 25 November, 14:00-15:30
• Virtual 

• Are you involved in /interested in reducing inactivity and enabling active lives?
• Do you find the systems you work in and the lives of the people you work with are increasingly complex?
• Are you looking for solutions and ideas?

If you answer yes to these questions (or are simply curious) - grab a brew and join us for online sessions (1.5 hours) every other month. We are offering an informal, but guided space, to reflect, get curious, learn together and problem solve across traditional boundaries of sector, organisation and locality.

Sign-up here

 

> Community Reporting by Peoples Voice Media 

This series of workshops will provide people and organisations in the GM Systems Leadership programme with an overview of the skills and techniques to work with lived experience stories as a changemaking tool.

As part of this programme of workshops, attendees will be: 

• Provided with an introduction to Community Reporting and how storytelling can be used to create change.
• Supported to develop skills in using digital storytelling techniques to support systems leadership and change.

The workshops are 3 x 2-hour online sessions (held on Zoom) that will cover the following: 

• Story Gathering: 12th November, 1pm - 3pm. Virtual.
• This will cover an overview of the Community Reporting methodology and how it can support organisations to work effectively with lived experience stories. It will showcase the dialogue interview technique and provide space for people to practice this technique in small groups/pairs.
• Sign up here 
• Story Curation: 26th November, 1pm - 3pm. Virtual.
• This session will provide an overview of the Community Reporting curation method and explore how stories can be used in insight and research contexts. It will provide participants with a simple analysis framework to use to analyse stories.
• Sign up here 
• Story Mobilisation: 10th December, 1pm - 3pm (this date is subject to change) Virtual.
• This session will cover Community Reporter stories can be mobilise - showcasing examples from past projects. There’ll be time in the session for participants to think about how Community Reporting/lived experience stories can be used in their work in systems leadership.
• Sign up here 

The sessions will be a mixture of presentation, examples of work taster/practical activities, and time for reflection/discussion. Whilst each session will be self-contained, we recommend that people attend the whole programme in order to get the most of the programme.  

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Share your experiences...

Do you have a story or experience to share about leading and influencing change when you don’t necessarily have traditional power? We are looking for people who are happy to speak at informal ‘lunch and learn’ sessions as part of the GM Systems Leadership approach! This is all about amplifying a model of leadership that’s not about managing but about how to make things happen, across sectors, in a collaborative way.

Topics and themes that your experience touched on can be broad and shaped by you – they just need to be linked to Systems Leadership in some way. Examples include:

• Shifting organisational culture
• Overcoming imposter syndrome
• Pioneering a new approach in your organisation/community/system
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in leadership

We are keen to hear from people in different sectors in Greater Manchester, especially those working and volunteering in the VCSE (voluntary and community) sector, or spaces where your voice is not always heard. Perhaps you are in a more ‘traditional’ leadership position, or perhaps not.

We can provide support as needed in the run up to the session, and a facilitator will be leading the session. Please get in touch with us at [email protected] if this opportunity sparks your curiosity!

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Past workshops in this phase.

‘The Value of Values’ with Jackie Le Fevre, Magma Effect

• Tuesday 12 March, 10am - 1pm

Across the fields of leadership, business and psychology there is agreement that values matter. What makes things difficult is lack of consensus about what values are, the functions they fulfill and how to tap into the benefits they can bring. This introductory session will detangle what values are (and what they are not) and provide an overview of ways in which connecting to values is useful for individuals and teams. Highly interactive and peppered with real world examples of values in practice the session also includes guidance on working with our values.  

‘Introduction to Facilitation’ with Curators of Change

• Monday 18 March, 12pm - 3:30pm

Join this workshop with Cat and Naomi from Curators of Change, to learn about the skills of facilitation through doing. Participants will be led through supported processes, learn about novel tools, and focus on their ideas, content, relationships and outcomes. 

The workshop includes:

• Understanding your purpose and aims
• Design of workshops
• Who to invite - how to reach out
• Basics of organization, including accessibility and diversity
• Tips and practical tools (ground rules, tone etc)
• How to avoid common pitfalls
• Takeaway resource to include useful workshop activities and other training offers

‘Introduction to Systems Leadership: How to lead when you’re not in charge’ with Debbie Sorkin, The Leadership Centre

• Wednesday 3 April, 10am - 12pm

Systems Leadership is designed to help you lead when you don't have positional power, levers to pull, or a large budget to wield. It can help you get your message across and influence when working in hierarchies or political environments, trying to bring traditional silos together, or working across professional or other boundaries. It can help you tip the scales in your favor, find allies and get yourself room for maneuver. In turn, this will help you do real work on the things that matter to you, and make progress towards the changes you're aiming for rather than anticipating an overnight transformation.

We'll cover what Systems Leadership is and how it works; what you can do; what to watch out for; and approaches that we know work in these situations. The aim is to help you make sense of what you're experiencing; to give you practical tools and techniques you can use straight away; and to provide a space for you to apply the ideas to real-time issues you're facing. This workshop is open to anyone working or volunteering in Greater Manchester, who share the aim of changing lives through movement, physical activity, and sport.

‘Putting Values into Practice’ with Jackie Le Fevre, Magma Effect

• Tuesday 16 April, 10am – 1pm

A session for those who have begun to think about values and have an interest in how we can harness values for better outcomes. Using reputable theories and real world evidence, Jackie Le Fevre a specialist in values, will facilitate conversations about how we can use what we already know about the systems around us and the nature of human values to influence how things are done in future.

There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion alongside demonstrations of simple activities to undertake with peers and/or colleagues to support their understanding of values in practice. By the end of the session you will be equipped with new knowledge, some practical skills and connection with a group of people across GM interested in the same challenges as you.

'Community Engagement and Leadership' with Kat Pursall from 10GM

• Monday 13 May, 2-3.30pm
• Virtual

Community engagement and participation in decision-making spaces feature heavily in a number of regional and national strategies. Conversations have shifted from doing to to doing with communities, and questions have moved from What’s the matter with you? to What matters to you? But what does this mean and look like in practice? Is there an art to good engagement and what is its ultimate aim? How do you speak with communities who are “consulted-out”? Can we shift the dial from community engagement to community leadership and what system enablers would need to be in place for that to happen?

Active lives - Focused Co-learning sessions ( Over a Brew ☕) with Cat and Naomi from Curators of Change

• Monday 20 May, 3.30 - 5pm
• Virtual

Are you involved in /interested in reducing inactivity and enabling active lives?

Do you find the systems you work in and the lives of the people you work with are increasingly complex?

Are you looking for solutions and ideas?

If you answer yes to these questions (or are simply curious) - Grab a brew and join us for online sessions (1.5 hours) every other month starting on Monday 20 May at 3.30.

We are offering an informal ,but guided space, to reflect , get curious ,learn together and problem solve across traditional boundaries of sector, organisation and locality.

Keeping Change Going: Leading Through Uncertainty with Debbie Sorkin from The Leadership Centre

• Tuesday 11 June, 10 - 12 noon
• Virtual 

How can you work with complex issues in shifting and uncertain environments: when you’re looking to address inequalities or any of the wider determinants of health, in a world of multiple financial and operational pressures.  

It can be hard to keep change going, for yourself and others.  So in this session, we look at how you can take people with you and retain their commitment, alongside looking after yourself, using approaches that will actually help.  

Reflections on a Systems Leadership journey in Wigan

• Friday 5 July, 10am - 11:30am
• Virtual 

Following on from our ‘Community Engagement and Leadership’ workshop with Kat Pursall from 10GM, we will be hearing from Melissa Taylor from Groundwork about their journeys with community engagement and leadership, as they work to help people move more in Wigan.

We will be covering the following: 

• Community Health Building – The dream V’s reality!
• Complex systems and the confusion they create.
• The power of relationship building to connect the system.
• A sticky system challenge - Trust V's KPI's and short term funding.
• Sharing the learning – test & fail, reflections.

Inclusive Leadership with Atif Choudhury, CEO of Diversity and Ability

• Thursday 18 July, 1 – 3pm
• Virtual  

Join us for a talk from Atif Choudhury, CEO of Diversity and Ability, all about inclusive leadership. Atif will talk about moving from awareness to practical action, covering topics such as intersectionality and anticipatory inclusion. 

Diversity and Ability (D&A) is an award-winning social enterprise, led by and for disabled people. They support individuals, organisations and social justice projects to create inclusive cultures. 

Active Lives - Focused Co-learning sessions (over a brew ☕)

• Monday 22 July, 2pm - 3:30pm
• Virtual

Are you involved in /interested in reducing inactivity and enabling active lives ?

Do you find the systems you work in and the lives of the people you work with are increasingly complex ?

Are you looking for solutions and ideas ?

If you answer yes to these questions (or are simply curious) - Grab a brew and join us for online sessions (1.5 hours) every other month.

We are offering an informal, but guided space, to reflect, get curious, learn together and problem solve across traditional boundaries of sector, organisation and locality.

No single organisation or group has the answer and there are no simple processes or procedures to follow here, so we need diverse perspectives from lots of different people who collectively are part of the solutions.

 

> Community engagement and leadership in Trafford

• Thursday 18 September, 13:30-15:00
• Virtual

Following on from our ‘Community Engagement and Leadership’ workshop with Kat Pursall from 10GM, we will be hearing from those working to help people move more in Trafford about their journeys with community engagement and leadership.  

We will be covering the following: 

• Creating the conditions for engagement
• A recipe for successful engagement
• Going the distance with communities

> Different conversations workshop

• Monday 23 September, 13:00-15:30
• Virtual

These workshops are aimed at anyone who wants to have different conversations about movement and wellbeing. We are not targeting a specific role, grade or sector.

In the session we will cover:

• Myth busting the assumptions we all make about movement.
• Practical approaches to having these conversations.
• What gets in the way of having these types of conversations and what can we do
• How to approach these conversations from a wellness perspective
• The importance of communities in supporting people with long term conditions to move more

Note: this session is repeated on Monday 7 October, see above.

> Active lives - (over a brew) on sustainability

• Monday 30 September, 14:30-16:00
• Virtual

Grab a brew and join us for online sessions (1.5 hours) every other month. We are offering an informal, but guided space, to reflect, get curious, learn together and problem solve across traditional boundaries of sector, organisation and locality.

This session will focus on sustainability:

How might your programmes of work become sustainable for the long term? Currently 'sustainability' is justifiably, centered around planetary health and environmental needs. 

We support this, but alongside know that this term also relates to the issue of funding, even medium to long term, that will come to an end.

Even when time-limited funded 'innovations' show great outcomes, there's usually still a need for deeply entrenched norms, beliefs (and even budgets) to shift and become the 'new normal'.

That shift is rarely easy and we need to come together to share our learning and ideas about how we can ignite the spark that creates new ways of working and desired change.

> Different conversations workshop

• Monday 7 October, 13:00-15:30
• Virtual

These workshops are aimed at anyone who wants to have different conversations about movement and wellbeing. We are not targeting a specific role, grade or sector.

In the session we will cover:

• Myth busting the assumptions we all make about movement.
• Practical approaches to having these conversations.
• What gets in the way of having these types of conversations and what can we do
• How to approach these conversations from a wellness perspective
• The importance of communities in supporting people with long term conditions to move more

Before registering please note that: this is scheduled for the 23 September AND 7 October. This is the same workshop to be run twice so more people have a chance to attend if they cannot make the date in September.

> Different conversations - Train the trainer course

This is a three-part training programme that will give you everything you need to be able to run the training independently and you need to attend all three sessions in order to be able to deliver the ‘Different Conversations workshops’.

• Digging into the Theory - Friday 11 October, 9:30 -12:00 (in person) 
• Practical tips for facilitation - Wednesday 26 February, 13:00-16:00 (in person) 
• Drop in session - Wednesday 27 November, 10:00 – 11:00 (online)