Events

Next Event

Responsibility Without Authority: Getting Things Done Across the Matrix

Friday 20th November 2026,
9:30am – 11am

Monday 23d November 2026,
2:30am – 4:00pm

FREE TO ATTEND

If you work in a matrix organisation, you’ll know the situation. You’re accountable for outcomes that depend on people who don’t report to you. They have their own priorities, their own pressures, and their own managers. They agree in the meeting, and then nothing happens.

Most of us respond by building a stronger case: more data, more detail, more emails. It rarely works, because the problem usually isn’t the argument. Lasting influence rests on the quality of the working relationship, and relationship skill can be learned and practised like any other professional ability.

In this practical, participative session you will:

• Work on a real situation of your own: someone you depend on but don’t manage
• Assess yourself against a twelve-point framework for professional relationships and influence
• Learn three practical techniques you can use in your next conversation
• Understand why some people seem naturally influential, and how to close the gap

The session draws on David’s book Relationship Mastery: A Business Professional’s Guide and his work with leaders and managers in engineering, manufacturing and professional services organisations.

Who it’s for: managers and project leads who need commitment from colleagues across functions, sites or organisations, without the authority to demand it.

Coming Soon

Too Close to See It: Keeping Perspective When You Lead the Whole Business

Friday 27th November 2026,
9:30am – 11:00am

Monday 30th November 2026,
10:00am – 11:30am

FREE TO ATTEND

When you lead a whole organisation, you carry it with you in a way nobody else does. The business can come to feel like an extension of yourself. Long-standing relationships with staff make difficult decisions harder. People often tell you what they think you want to hear, and the habits that built the business can quietly start to hold it back.

Most leaders lose perspective from time to time. The difficulty is noticing when it’s happening, and finding someone to talk it through with who has no stake in the outcome. That’s rarely anyone inside the business.

This session is a working sample of an online mastermind group for leaders of small and medium-sized organisations. During the 90 minutes, we will:

• Look at the common ways leaders lose perspective, and the warning signs to watch for
• Give you a private self-check to see which of these might apply to you
• Run a live “surgery”, in which one or two participants bring a real issue and the group helps them see it afresh

You’re welcome to bring an issue of your own, but there’s no obligation. Many people prefer to watch the first time, and you’ll still come away with something useful. Everything discussed stays in the room.

Who it’s for: Owner-managers, managing directors, chief executives and general managers of SMEs and non-profit organisations: people responsible for the whole organisation rather than one part of it.

David is host and organiser of the Leadership Conversations series of evening events, held in the Mercer Suite in the Corinthian Club in Glasgow, every couple of months. Each event involves a dialogue with a prominent leader of a business or other organisation.