Managing in uncertainty

Prof
Chris
Mowles
Dr
Sophie
Wong
26.06.2022
9:00 am
AEDT (UTC+11:00)

Live

Melbourne

About the event

This workshop was intended as an antidote to the dominant tendency of talking in abstractions and ‘management speak’. It focused instead on what participants find themselves doing in the daily messy reality of organisational life, which involves dealing with power and politics, and processes of inclusion and exclusion. The workshop provided participants with an opportunity to explore complexity ideas and to critically reflect on their own and other participants’ working methods.

The workshop offered a broadly critical view of contemporary theories of leadership and management and drew on the complexity sciences to help participants think about and work with organisational uncertainty. It aimed at managers/leaders who have been round the block, and perhaps were a bit jaded by seminars/workshops offering the next best thing in management. It was demanding, however, in terms of the requirement to bring practical experience to discuss. The participants found themselves working as hard as the workshop leaders did.

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Speakers / Respondents
Prof
Chris
Mowles
Chris is Professor of Complexity and Management at the University of Hertfordshire Business School, and has directed the Doctor of Management programme (DMan) for more than 15 years. He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Group Analysis and teaches at Copenhagen Business School. Chris is interested in the complexity of trying to get things done with one another. Through his consultancy, he has led projects for the UN, EU, and British government across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and China, as well as the UK’s public, private, and voluntary sectors. 
Dr
Sophie
Wong
Sophie holds a Doctor of Management in complexity and organisational dynamics, and a Master of Brain and Mind Sciences from the University of Sydney. An experienced fund-raiser and a psychotherapist in private-practice, Sophie has volunteered as a social worker and counsellor at homeless shelters across Sydney. She served as a trustee at Neuroscience Research Australia Foundation Board. Extracts from her doctoral thesis were published as a chapter examining power relationships among high-net-worth donors, research institutes, and cross-cultural identities in practice-based research.
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