With apologies for cross-posting:

MLA Leadership Training Programme to be Piloted early in 2006

This spring the Museums Libraries and Archives Council appointed
FPM, a consultancy company specialising in management coaching and
training for the public sector, to design a pilot leadership
training programme for the museums and archives workforce. FPM
already provides MLA’s training for public libraries, Leading Modern
Public Libraries, which is very successful and has had participants
representing most public libraries in the country. For the Museums
and Archives pilot FPM has put together a team which includes Tim
Caulton, a former senior museums manager (now a consultant), and
Margaret Crockett, a senior archives and records management
consultant.

During the first phase, carried out during the spring and summer,
the team researched existing leadership training provision and need
in the two domains and conducted a stakeholder consultation. The
team also ran a development workshop with participants representing
a range of stakeholders. The archives workforce is outnumbered by
that of the museums domain but proportionally archives was
adequately represented and we can be confident that any archive (and
records management)-specific issues and concerns were voiced.

The second phase is to design and deliver a pilot training
programme. There are three courses:

1 Heads of Service

2 Senior Managers

3 Future Leaders

Which involve two or three two-day residential modules as well as
requiring two to three days home or work-based study/reflection. The
programme details and schedules are still being designed but will
include elements such as:


- Challenging and empowering self and others

- Developing a personal model of leadership

- Increasing personal influence

- Positioning services in a complex environment

- Increasing power and support

- Leading change

- Aligning people and systems to deliver successful outcomes

The pilot programmes will be delivered at Warwick University between
November and March. Participation in the pilot is by invitation
only. After the successful conclusion of the pilot, the course will
be run regularly and offered to the museums and archives workforce
in general. The cost of the course will be approximately £3,000 per
participant (the Future Leaders course will be around £2,000). MLA
is funding the development and piloting of the programmes. When the
programme is opened to all from April 2006, individuals and their
organisations will need to fund their own places. Museums will be
helped to do this through the Renaissance in the Regions funds. As
there is no comparable fund for archives we need to plan ahead if we
are to take advantage of this opportunity. We need to position
ourselves with Regional MLAs and other bodies to get financial
support for this development opportunity. For more information,
contact:

[log in to unmask] (to register interest)

http://www.fpmonline.co.uk/index.html (FPM’s website)

Margaret Crockett ([log in to unmask] )