Public Sector Workers Urged to Embrace Innovation

Public sector workers are being urged to embrace innovation in order to transform and modernise Government services.

The call has come from Director, Policy and Information Systems, Global Learning Group, Kurt Moses, who addressed the Management Institute for National Development’s (MIND) annual Public Sector Leadership Development Conference on Wednesday (July 9), at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.

He argued that the public sector must be innovative, with the ability to adapt to changing environments, in order to make the appropriate advances.

“We have to innovate, not only to survive… we have real problems and they often demand real solutions,” he stated.

Mr. Moses pointed out that to be an innovator in the public sector “takes an enormous amount of courage,” as it means that people will have to change the way they do things.

“Many people have reached their positions of authority because they have been good at what they did and you are often reluctant to change what you did, because you became quite successful doing it that way. So innovation, which almost always means change, means that you may have to change that,” he said.

Over 200 public sector leaders are currently participating in the two-day conference, being held under the: ‘Thought Leadership – Creative MINDs: Enabling Innovation, Transforming Organisations.’

The conference, which brought together public and private sector executives from Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, features pre and post conference workshops, regional participation, plenary sessions, interactive workshops and the presentation of the Public Life Award for Leadership Excellence.

The event is aimed at strengthening the process of highlighting and formulating public sector-led strategies; for devising actionable, collaborative, socially and economically relevant research-backed solutions for addressing regional development imperatives which create citizen value.

Some of the objectives are: to provide a forum for networking among existing regional leaders and emerging thought leaders; provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on the contribution of thought leadership to national and regional development; and to further the dialogue around culture and practice of thought leadership in contributing to innovation, growth and national and regional development solutions.

The event will focus on areas such as Caribbean Regionalization; Innovation; Leadership and Coaching; Discretion and Bureaucracy in the Public Sector; the Global Logistic Hub; Cultivating Compassion; the Future of Public Service Delivery; and the Revised Treaty of Basseterre and the Establishment of the Organization of Eastern, Caribbean State (OECS) Economic Union.

International, regional and local presenters will include Principal Organization Development and Learning Specialist at the Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom, Dr. Winston Sutherland; Director General of the OECS, Dr. Didacus Jules;  Former Chief Executive Officer of the Registrar General’s Department, Dr. Patricia Holness; Executive Director of the Caribbean Maritime Institute, Dr. Fritz Pinnock; and Chief Executive Officer of MIND, Ruby Brown.