On 20th September 2017 we held the latest in our series of thought leadership talks, this time examining the impact of decision making on others.
Our first speaker, Maggie Semple, is a successful business woman and entrepreneur. Maggie is a member of the Queen’s Counsel Selection Panel and is a non-executive director of the Criminal Cases Review Commission where she chairs the Diversity Group and the Audit & Risk Committee. She also finds time to be the owner of two businesses, a lifestyle business called Maggie Semple Limited, and The Experience Corps Ltd. which provides strategic advice, leadership development programmes and coaching to companies on a range of issues including diversity, inclusion and ethics, and cultural change. Maggie is also a board member of the South Bank Centre.
Maggie has worked with the Cabinet Office as a Civil Service Commissioner and was a director of the New Millennium Experience Company. Maggie was awarded the OBE in 2000 for her services to learning and is a Fellow of the City and Guilds Institute holding one of only 500 fellowships awarded since 1878.
Our second speaker, Dr Avi Shmueli, is a renowned clinical psychologist, couple psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the psychoanalysis unit at University College London. Avi originally qualified as a clinical psychologist before training as a couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist and subsequently as a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society. He has always been interested in combining clinical work with research and completed a PHD at University College London. Avi has worked for many years at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, where he has held the position of co-head of the Divorce and Separation Unit. He has also worked at The Anna Freud Centre and has a busy private practice. Committed to psychoanalysis as a theory for understanding the mind and as a mode of clinical practice, Avi has pursued its different applications including in both family and criminal law. Avi is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the Institute of Psychoanalysts.
Maggie discussed four themes on the topic How do our Decisions Affect Others? drawing on her experience of working with global companies on ethical decision making and her work with the Criminal Cases Review Commission. She began by examining how technology has enabled us all to outsource the decision making process and the impact that this has on our sense of responsibility. Her second theme explored how small decisions and choice, both individually and collectively, require us to consider our intentions. In the third theme, Maggie discussed ethical bias and gave examples from her personal experience of her own biases, the decisions that followed and the impact that they have had on others. Lastly she highlighted a way to consider how we can overcome ethical bias to make a balanced decision.
Avi examined conscious and unconscious decision making and the repercussions of both, drawing on his extensive experience as a clinical psychologist, couple psychotherapist and psychoanalyst.
If you would like to learn more about the Family Law in Partnership thought leadership talks or if you would like to receive invitations to future talks, please contact Sarah Cloke on T: 020 7420 5000 or E: hello@flip.co.uk.