2023 CAMA CONFERENCE

DON'T DELAY ON BOOKING YOUR ROOM


The hotel room block for the May 29-31, 2023 CAMA Conference at the Deerhurst Resort opened on September 7, 2022 and is 75% sold out.  If you haven't booked your room yet visit the Conference website for details. 

WELCOME CAMA'S NEW BUSINESS PARTNER

CANOE BENEFITS


Canoe Benefits is built specifically to address the unique needs and objectives of municipalities, public sector entities, and not-for-profit organizations.  Through a strategic partnership with People Corporation, Canoe Benefits develops and delivers innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable solutions tailored to members' unique needs and wants.  To contact us visit the CAMA website. 


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HAVE YOU AND YOUR EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT COMPLETED YOUR SURVEYS?


CAMA is preparing a "Toolkit for the Effective Executive Assistant to the Chief Administrative Officer” and we would like to get our member's feedback and the feedback from your Executive Assistant. A survey was sent to all Regular Members on September 8 with a link to forward to your Executive Assistant, followed by an additional e-mail on September 9 with a survey for your completion.


If you and your Executive Assistant haven't already completed these surveys, please take ten minutes to help us ensure that we highlight the important aspects of their job and profession. Please e-mail Jennifer Goodine, Executive Director, at admin@camacam.ca if you require the links. 


We look forward to launching this toolkit at the 2023 CAMA Conference. 

CAMA’S FALL 2022 VIRTUAL NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES


CAMA is pleased to offer two virtual networking opportunities this Fall 2022 for Regular Members.  Details were sent to your inbox last week.

 

CAMA Connects

CAMA Connects is a one-hour facilitated informal social networking event to still make those “face to face” connections and discuss pressing municipal issues.  This session will be held on Wednesday, October 19, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST and the topic will be "Managing a Hybrid Workforce." If you are a Regular CAMA Member and would like to participate e-mail Jennifer Goodine, Executive Director at admin@camacam.ca


NEW: CAMA Masterminds Networking Forum

CAMA is excited to pilot a new program called “Masterminds” which will be facilitated by Chris MacPherson, CAMA Past President and Honourary Member for Life.


Masterminds is a networking forum with a small group of your colleagues (12-15 people) to provide you with a safe, confidential space to explore sensitive issues and challenging operational programs. This is meant to provide you with some candid pragmatic advice on how to manage complex problems that you may have already experienced or that you may encounter in the future. Since this is a pilot project, we will be seeking the first group’s observations following the completion of the Forums to evaluate its success.

 

How Does Masterminds Work?

Time Commitment. The Masterminds will consist of one moderated session per month for 1.5 hours for a period of four months beginning in October 2022 and ending in January 2023. The day and time of the month will be chosen following the confirmation of the attendees.

Size of Group. The maximum group size will be fifteen CAMA members.

Topics. The topic for the first session in October 2022 will be “Dealing with Difficult Employees”. At the first meeting, the group will set the topics for the following three sessions.  


If you are a Regular Member and would like to register, please e-mail Jennifer Goodine, CAMA Executive Director at admin@camacam.ca no later than Tuesday, September 20th, 2022.

DON'T GET YOUR ACTIONS AHEAD OF YOUR CULTURE'S READINESS TO ACT

By Tim Rahschulte, Ph.D. | Chief Executive Officer

The Professional Development Academy


Aristotle said, “Change in all things is sweet.” From some perspectives, that may be true, but if you’ve ever experienced periods of big transformation or massive and disruptive change, you may very well take issue with Aristotle’s fervor in explaining it with such palatability.


In business and in life, even change brought about by a leader with a clear vision and proper planning can be fraught with risk and challenge. It’s for this reason that most efforts to bring about a new order of things fail. The odds of success are usually worse than the odds of failure. As David Pottruck, a former chief executive officer at Charles Schwab, said, when it comes to change, “the deck is stacked against you.”


Regardless of the odds, most actions you take as a leader are in an effort to change the status quo to something better – take a bad situation and stabilize it or take a good situation and make it even better. This effort of continual change is necessary for anyone or any team, organization, or community hoping to keep pace in an increasingly competitive and complex world that is constantly changing. Nothing and no one survives, let alone realizes mild achievement or especially great success, without vision, preparation, and action to change. Business author Alan Deutschman reminded us of this fact, noting our option to either “Change or Die,” which was the title of his FastCompany article. Grim, but true.


Change is hard. Even when options are limited, to change takes mindset, willingness, and work to overcome resistance.  If individual and cultural resistances to change are greater than the compelling vision of the future and how to get there, the change will fail. The truth is, if there’s limited dissatisfaction in the current state of things, lackluster vision of a possible future state, and ambiguous or overly zealous steps to get there, cultural and human resistance will overcome the effort to realize the envisioned change every time. In addition to making sure there’s sufficient dissatisfaction in the current state, clarity in the vision of the future state, and proper preparation in the planned steps to get there, leaders can also increase their probability of success by ensuring their actions don’t outpace the readiness of their teams or enterprise of employees. Because any effort to realize a vision likely requires people to operate on the fringe of their capability and bring about new ways of performance and behaving, the best leaders know not to go too far beyond that fringe too quickly; otherwise, they end up in the fear zone, which will fuel significant resistance and freeze any action or momentum toward change.


As you go about any aspect of change, you’ve got to make sure the path of change is aligned with a readiness to change. Any time you get change ahead of your employees’ readiness, you’re going to have problems. So be aware of the current state of change readiness, and don’t get your actions to bring about some change ahead of the employees’ readiness to act in support of that change.

WELCOME NEW CAMA MEMBERS


Ben Addley, Interim Chief Administrative Officer, Oxford County, ON

Jeremy Crosby, Chief Administrative Officer, Town of Stratford, PEI

Lindsey Lee, Chief Administrative Officer, Township of McNab/Braeside, ON

Peter Neufeld, Chief Administrative Officer, The Corporation of the Municipality of Leamington, ON

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Canadian Association Municipal Administrators

PO Box 128, Station A

Fredericton, NB E3B 4Y2 CANADA

1-866-771-2262

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