Keynote Topics

Is Your Organization Firing on All Cylinders?

Q.W.E.S.T… for improved performance

Got goals?…Got policies?…If you have good people in management roles but they are busy putting out fires, sitting in meetings and answering e-mails everyday…you have got a problem. No one is asking the hard questions.

Gary’s presentation will set in motion the framework for a sustainable business approach to achieve concrete results. Here’s a concise overview of what your team will learn:

Question…Gary will teach your strategic leaders to regularly question all processes and systems to make sure your organization is getting the best possible results today and in the future. Critically examining internal processes is tough. Gary shows you how your organization can apply an un-biased, un-filtered framework to uncover the gaps in your current process and the processes that are no longer effective.

Wonder…Strategic leaders need to take the time to wonder what would happen if they tried something new. Do your key people think this way, or are they stuck in tactical details that push strategy and the accomplishment of critical goals to the sidelines? Gary will explain the benefits of this exercise for your team.

Emotion…Gone are the days that an employee leaves their personal life at the front door. Gary teaches you how to understand the emotional reality of your organization. As a leader it’s your job to know your team; know what drives their motivations; where they feel the can best contribute. Gary explains why you can’t divorce the emotional reality (morale) of your employees and your business plan. Engaging your employees in the strategic goals of your organization is critical.

Strategy…Do you ever think that your strategic plan has very little bearing on what your team is working on? Gary helps you clearly align the “organizational-wide to do list” to your strategic plan and more importantly to profitability.

Tell…As leaders, your role is to communicate clearly and often. And often does not mean sending company wide emails once a quarter. Effectiveness and profitability are unavoidability linked to clear and repeated communications. Gary will teach you how to communicate to your team what is the most valuable to your organization and how you will help them achieve success in accomplishing the goals of the organization.

Riding the Change Cycle: Are You Peddling as Fast As You Can?
Every time a person is faced with a change, they go through the stages of the Change Cycle. By being able to identify where you or others are at any point in time, you will able to better cope with the change and figure out how to move to the next step, when you are ready. Managers will learn how to implement specific strategies to move through the Change Cycle themselves and how to usher others through the cycle to relieve anxiety, tension and increase the odds that their team members will speed up the process.

The Art of the Strategic Question
Every organization needs at least one senior leader who knows how to become the strategic questioner; the person who knows how to think past the current situation, build logical mental scenarios and then dissect them to discover what other possibilities are available. Gary shares how to implement this process in your organization and how other leaders have used this straightforward process to maximize their organizations effectiveness and allocation of resources. Does your organization have one? Does it allow the space for one to ask the hard questions, challenge the conventional thinking and then listen to the conversation that follows?

Strategic questions for your organization could include ones such as the following:

• What emerging markets will our new marketing plan exclude?
• If we roll out this new positioning statement, how sure are we our traditional customers will stay with us?
• Should we continue to send our best and brightest young talent to shore up our weaker performing divisions, when they could grow our strong ones so much faster?

This keynote explores the need to confront long held beliefs, sacred cows, white elephants and any other unspoken “rules” that is holding your organization back. He will help your organization develop its own hard questions and take the time to listen to the answers to those questions. Your audiences will takeaway a core strategy that is actionable at every level of your organization.

Breakout Sessions
All breakout sessions are highly interactive and developed to include practical application techniques and methods, not merely a lecture to become acquainted with a few concepts. Break-out session topics include:

• What Every Manager Needs to Know- moving from supervising to managing is more than just a promotion, it is a way of thinking. Participants will learn what the difference is and how to implement the difference in their daily lives
  Coaching for Performance- participants will discover and practice the components of “The Conversation” that moves employees from task doers to outcome achievers. Includes a skill assessment, if desired.
• Accepting the Challenge of Leadership- your participants will learn the difference between management and leadership and what it takes to move your career from day to day management to achieving strategic goals and objectives
• Credibility- how leaders earn it and how they lose it; participants will learn the four components of what followers look for in their leaders and how to execute those behaviors on a daily basis. They will also discover how credibility can be quickly lost.
• Presentation Skills for the Occasional Presenter- no more death by Powerpoint, how about a set of simple-to-learn techniques to make any presentation engaging and memorable?

Feel free to email Gary to discuss how to customize keynotes and breakouts sessions to your industry, culture and future goals.