CAPIO Advanced Track – Championing Change and Engaging Resistance in Public Agency Cultures
Power Lunch Webinar

Webinar

“Manage the culture, or it will manage you.” While developing our personal leadership and management skills are critical for career advancement, they must be paired with an understanding of agency cultures and the many ways, both visible and unseen, in which they influence the workplace. This webinar will explore the different types of organizational cultures within public-sector agencies, how organizational culture influences decision-making, the relationship between culture and leadership, and strategies to successfully champion change. Participants will learn how to identify various types of resistance and how they can use different leadership styles as necessary to avoid or navigate opposition in change-averse agencies. The webinar will cover different types of resistance that may be encountered in public-sector organizations, along with strategies to engage and overcome roadblocks to new ideas and initiatives.  

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to better understand and decipher public agency cultures. 
  • The different types of public agency cultures they are likely to encounter as communicators. 
  • How to identify various types of resistance they may encounter to new projects or initiatives. 
  • How they can use different leadership styles as necessary to avoid or navigate opposition in change-averse agencies. 
  • Strategies to engage and overcome roadblocks to new ideas and initiatives.
SPEAKERS

Date: September 16, 2025
Time: 11 am to 12 p.m.

Register

Cost: $30 CAPIO members/Free for Professional+/$45 non-members

This session is good for: APR Continuing Education Unit

SPEAKER BIOS

John Pope is an award-winning communications professional with extensive public-sector experience in media relations, community outreach, marketing, writing and public speaking.

He joined the City of Newport Beach as Public Information Manager in January, 2020. Prior to joining the Newport Beach team, he served as Public Information Officer for the City of South Pasadena, and Communications Director for Long Beach City College, where he managed public affairs, marketing and government relations for the 25,000-student campus.

Pope spent several years with the City of Long Beach Harbor Department (Port of Long Beach) where he led strategic communications efforts for more than $2.5 billion in port construction projects, including the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement and Middle Harbor terminal redevelopment project.

Throughout his career Pope has helped government agencies respond to variety of crises, including the COVID pandemic, air and water quality issues, public safety emergencies, protests, labor strikes and more. In 2018 he worked with the County of Santa Barbara in the aftermath of the deadly Montecito debris flow and in 2011 assisted the City of Seal Beach after the largest mass shooting in Orange County history.

Before entering the public sector communications field, Pope was an award-winning journalist, writing for the Los Angeles Times, Long Beach Press-Telegram and other Southern California media outlets.

He was honored with CAPIO’s Paul B. Clark Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025.