Here are some concrete ways I might be helpful to you. They include change making, impact entrepreneurship, advisory services, education, speaking, and writing.
I appreciate your interest in working with me and hope to connect with you soon.
Advisory Services
I
advise leaders, confidentially, across the globe.
Overhear an employee say that work sucks and you silently agree? Maybe the board meeting next month will be disastrous without extreme changes your team’s unequipped to handle.
Big train wrecks or little aggravations, I’ve helped leaders at all levels work through difficult situations with confidence that comes from aligning with someone who has advised hundreds of organizations in more of a mess than you.
We can–we will!–figure it out together.
Keynote Speaking
For public and private events, I focus attention on the unspoken truths maintaining the status-quo, providing a vision for a better future. I ask fundamental questions that few people have the courage to ask, let alone unravel with compassion. One example? “Why do we hire the brightest people we can find, then expect them to excel in a culture that treats them like idiots?” Together we move from the view at 36,000 feet all the way down to step-by-step approaches, based on people’s openness to change, always focusing on specific needs. Attendees leave with a fresh perspective, an empowered sensibility and the tools to make an immediate change.
I’ve spoken at intimate dinner parties, national summits, and, once even at the Hollywood Bowl. I’ve addressed publishers, investors and VCs, school principals, graduate students, and middle schoolers, social entrepreneurs, technologists, marketers, government agencies, realtors, bankers, and many other groups.
My speaking style is vibrant, humorous, energetic, and personal. I customize every talk to the listeners’ unique needs and adjust during the presentation to ensure comprehension along the way. I’ve been known to elicit tears, whoops, and even organizational change at the deepest levels.
Contact my business manager to work out the fine details.
Seeking a more formal pitch?
Change Making
Few people view their work as directly leading to a tumbling world, yet amid such chaotic disrepair can all of us be blameless?
For years I’ve asked leaders what they are doing to dramatically improve the world. I’ve challenged businesses to rethink the rules of their corporate bottom line and helped to launch social ventures oriented toward shared values and alternative currencies.
No matter what’s next on your horizon, if it involves making an impact to create a world we can be proud to live in, I have a track record igniting work that matters, will-building, and applying complexity science to organizational growth.
If you are looking to rewrite the rules of business-as-usual, I would welcome pitching in.
Contact me directly to get started.>>
Social Learning Initiatives & Mentoring
There are times when you may want to create strategic initiatives that improve the social savvy of your leadership team or perhaps re-skill a department such as training or internal comms to learn through new social tools.
Heck, maybe it’s you alone who needs to learn what the h*ll social media could help you without being a big ol’ pain in the ass.
One mentee said of my work, “People babble on about social media all the time. You finally helped me understand why it’s vital to me and my organization.”
Along with a team of digital natives and seasoned educators, I can help you stand up and roll out full programs. Take a look at how the risk management firm, Marsh, described to their workforce a certified blogger program my team and I designed. The program gives the Marsh’s leadership team piece of mind that people will say smart things online and it gives employees at every level of the organization the tools and knowhow to communicate in a modern way.
Workshops on how to Pitch Your Business to Backers, Customers, and Hesitant Family Members
Early in any venture you will need to share your ideas with other people in the hope they will support your dreams. Whether asking for money and resources, business and partnerships, or simple encouragement, how your message lands transcendences anything you pitch. In my hands-on working sessions, you will learn how to personalize and hone your message so others hear what you need them to in order to help move your work forward fast. Expect to have fun while working through your jitters, and master skills you can apply to any sort of message you need to convey. I offer this workshop to small groups and organizations.
Writing
I am the author of four books and am working on the fifth, focused on human ingenuity for societal transformation. Believe you have a book in you, yet no idea how to get it out? I can help.
Suspect my perspective would lend itself to further your efforts? I might be able to help with that too.
Other areas of expertise you might find valuable.
For two decades I advised executives from some of the world’s largest corporations. Discreetly, we worked through the cultural practices and policies that prevented people from doing what needs to be done–individually and collaboratively, down the hall or across continents. My approaches quickly and dramatically transformed cultures that no longer served employees and the customers they supported. Shoulder to shoulder, we crafted near-term and long-range strategies to ensure comfortable change.
The executive who brought me into a company was usually the most people-focused person at the leadership table. That may have been the CHRO, head of field sales, or director of marketing and internal communications. In some cases. it was the CIO, leader of a change practice, or in several cases the CFO. My personality and sense of urgency drew people to me after hearing my name from an industry colleague or after I’d spoken at an event. It wasn’t unheard for me to hear from clients googling, “culture + business + urgent” because they didn’t know where else to turn.
Some relationships lasted less than a year because I never aim to make my clients dependent on my services. Rather, we worked from day one on how quickly they wanted to develop the skills and bench strength to help them get back to their real jobs. Other relationships lasted for a long time because senior leaders found my counsel invaluable on an ad-hoc basis, even years after our focused work concluded.
I have worked with large companies on such ventures as energy, risk management, telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, food and beverages, media and entertainment, software development, and consumer electronics. At times, I’ve also worked with these companies’ boards and social responsibility teams. One thing all my clients have in common is being what I call Octopus Organizations—complex systems with many moving arms that often don’t know what the others are doing.
You’ll find me intense, light-hearted, energetic, and very approachable. I always aim to foster workplaces people are proud to work in, without feeling overwhelmed or burdened, so they contribute in ways they have only dreamed they could.