ICMA is committed to providing workshops that are affordable, accessible, and designed to meet the specific needs of local government professionals. By partnering with localities, state associations, and universities in the delivery of these programs, we are able to reduce travel costs and provide high-quality workshops.

Half-day workshops: $3,960 for states with a signed affiliation agreement with ICMA for up to 50 participants. Non-affiliated states pay an additional fee.

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Workshop: We’ve Always Done It That Way Is Over: Transforming from the Status Quo to the Status Go

Government organizations are often encouraged to institutionalize best practices, freeze them into place, focus on execution, stick to their knitting, increase predictability, and get processes under control. However, today governments face a radically shifting context for the workforce, the workplace, and the world of community building. To move forward toward better government, leaders must be vigilant and disrupt the fossilized mental model of “we’ve always done it that way” and replace it with a forward-looking approach to continuous improvement and transform their workplace culture from the status quo to the Status Go!  Healthy cultures lift people up, expand the capacity of the workforce to execute new challenges, and, overall, enhance the organization’s performance. (6 and 13)

Workshop: The Tools of Good Governance: What Every Manager Needs to Know

Every municipal manager wants to be judged as successful by his/her Council and feel within themselves that their career has been one of effective service. This seminar will provide you with some of the tools to effective management and to better governance. The session will include some of George Cuff’s helpful suggestions and wisdom on the importance of effective Council meetings, use of policies, use of protocols, proper agenda building, better use of management meetings, Mayor-City Manager briefings, etc. The session will also draw a few examples from George’s immensely popular sessions on “Fatal Flaws” in terms of what does not go well.
Our speaker George B Cuff, FCMC has a well-deserved North American reputation as a governance-senior management expert on the principles which undergird an effective, healthy relationship. He has served as a Mayor and as a municipal manager and has written extensively on topics of relevance to both. (Practice Groups: 1 Personal and Professional Integrity, 2 Community Engagement,  5 Personal Resiliency and Development, 7 Strategic Planning,  8  Policy Facilitation and Implementation, 9 Community and resident Service)

Workshop: The Value Of A Good Story

The presenter, a credentialed manager with over forty years of city management experience, learned some of his most valuable career lessons from stories told and retold over the years by his mentors and colleagues in the municipal management profession – sometimes in conference sessions and as often as not during evening gatherings in the hotel lounge. Using as a prompt two case studies he has co-authored for ICMA texts and relying upon interaction and feedback from workshop participants, ethical leadership principles and related management skills are explored in this three hour session. (Practice Groups: 1 Personal and Professional Integrity , 8  Policy Facilitation and Implementation, 14 Communication and Information Sharing)

Workshop: Organizational Culture: Is There a Secret Recipe?

Organization-wide collaboration, information sharing, and the development of shared goals requires trust among employees at all levels. But how do we encourage and cultivate this trust in an environment where it is lacking? Are you struggling with organizational silos and communication between departments? Do you have a sense of your organization’s culture? This workshop will hone the ambiguous concept of organizational culture. Program participants will learn about culture assessment tools and engage in small-group discussions focused on moving your organization to higher performance through culture change. We assess our systems and processes, why not our culture? In this workshop, we will explore how to ignite and lead culture change in our organizations, creating an environment of trust, cooperation and purpose.   (Practice Groups: 4 -Staff Effectiveness and 6- Strategic Leadership)

Workshop: Leading Through Conflict to Shared Success

You can’t lead an organization without leading its people. How are you leading your employees? How are you leading your executive team? How is your executive team leading the organization?
Gain strategies for attacking the root causes of organizational politics, operational confusion, siloed mentalities and dysfunctional office politics.
Practice techniques for navigating conflict with others and nurturing an environment that welcomes healthy, respectful debate.
Reimagine the power of clarifying priorities, crystalizing values and cascading communication to lead your people so they begin rowing together in the same direction.
This workshop will introduce best practices in executive leadership, communication and team building; provide you with an opportunity to practice new skills; and send you back to your home jurisdiction with a new strategy for success. (Practice Group 6 - Strategic Leadership)

Workshop: Six Ways to Engineer Employee Engagement

According to the latest Gallup report on government workers' engagement, a median of only 29 percent of them are engaged at work.   Disengaged employees stay for what they get from the organization. Engaged workers stay for what they can give.  While high employee engagement doesn’t guarantee high organizational performance, there is a strong linkage: an engaged workforce increases innovation, productivity and overall effectiveness.  In this session, six actions are shared that organizational leaders can implement immediately to improve employee engagement. 
Learning Objectives:
• How to (re)create a healthy workplace culture of personal responsibility.
• How to modernize the approach to recruitment and selection and overall, improve the candidate experience.
• How to provide learning and development opportunities to strengthen the internal bench. (Practice Group 4 - Staff Effectiveness, 6 - Strategic Leadership)

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