Sept 2007
Another year, another conference and this one was our biggest yet. Over 40 associates, friends, clients and those meeting us for the first time joined the core and support teams from Bath Consultancy Group for a two-day event at Leigh Park Hotel near Bradford on Avon.

Designed on the Open Space principle, everyone contributed themes or ideas. From the numerous potential discussion groups and endless post-it notes, a structure emerged that incorporated and joined together linked themes. These ranged from deference to wisdom, from well-being to women's needs as leaders, and from culture change to business strategy.

The deference session was particularly popular and was led by Nick Smith. For more information on deference, below is an excerpt from Coaching, Mentoring and Organizational Consultancy - Supervision and Development by Peter Hawkins and Nick Smith - Open University Press 2007.  

Download:  The Deference Threshold 134 Kb 

Another group highlighted the constituent elements of resonant leadership as the ability to empathise, to act on concerns and to inspire action in others. The discussion also highlighted that if a leader becomes stretched, resonance can collapse into dissidence. For a related article on why relationships in leadership matter click here. 

Another theme we are exploring in our leadership looked at mindfulness and how paying mindful attention helps us to live our lives more richly. As Michael Chaskalson said: "Paying attention is not hard, remembering to pay attention is tricky."

A very rich discussion focussed on how to support women leaders. Interestingly, the subject seemed mainly to appeal to women with the lone male presence of Bath's Clinton Lucy. The session included personal experiences of women in leadership positions as well as stories from consultants working with women leaders in public and private sector organisations.

Mike Worsley, Bath's new Business Manager, ended the conference with a real example of leadership and team spirit with a presentation on an expedition to the North Pole. After ending up on life-support following a routine dental operation, Mike felt inspired to take on a unique challenge. With his brother-in-law and a close friend, Mike undertook a trip to the North Pole. They formed the City Extreme Team and after over a year of planning and training, they set off on the 400 mile expedition. They combated frostbite, injury and extreme exhaustion but finally planted the flag and in doing so raised over £10 000 for Acorns Children's Hospice and Cancer Research UK. An amazing lifetime achievement, which is an inspiration to us all.

If you are interested in finding out more about any of the themes or discussions that occurred at this year's Network Conference, we would be more than happy to put you in touch with those that led the discussions, please email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .