Keynote Presentations

Presentations by Scott Campbell

Inspire, Invest, & Involve:

Three Keys For Creating Highly Engaged Employees

Creating an environment of high employee engagement is the critical leadership task in today's competitive environment. Highly engaged employees produce more, stay with the organization longer, have less conflict with coworkers, and provide better customer service. This energizing keynote will explore the meaning of employee engagement and it's link to sustained levels of high productivity. You will leave with numerous practical tips that you can use immediately to start creating a highly engaged workforce in your organization, department, or team.

Rising to the Challenge:

Thinking and Acting as a 21st Century Leader

The world of work grows increasingly complex. Constant technological innovations, rising customer and employee expectations, globalized competition, the pressures of climate change, and a culture of speed are just some of the realities organizations are struggling with. Highly effective leadership is key to being able to succeed in this brave new world.

And yet, many companies are still using concepts and practices of leadership that are rooted in a more tranquil and stable time from the past.

Rising to the challenge of leading well in today’s complex world requires some fundamental shifts in how we think about and practice leadership.

The Captain Has Turned On the Seatbelt Sign:

Navigating Your People Through Turbulent Times

When the going gets tough,…

…employees get nervous. Productivity often declines. Morale plummets. Conflicts escalate.

At the very time your business needs everyone at their best, people tend to be at their worst.

The antidote to these typical responses is outstanding leadership.

Using the inspiring story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s remarkable leadership in a time of severe crisis during a calamitous expedition to the Antarctic, you will discover seven keys to leading well in the midst of crisis – keys that will help you motivate, inspire, encourage, and focus you, your people, and your organization to survive and thrive in turbulent times.

You Can’t Win At Golf With Just One Club:

Five Dimensions of Leading in a Complex World

Imagine this scene: Tiger Woods arrives for the Masters in Augusta, Georgia with only a driver in his golf bag. When asked, “Where are your other clubs?” he replies, “Well, my driver is my favorite club, and I figured I could just use it for all my shots.”

As ridiculous as this sounds, many executives and business leaders use the same logic when leading their organizations or business units; they utilize a single approach to leadership—typically “command & control.” This inspiring, yet practical keynote destroys the myth that there is one right way to lead and reveals the five dimensions of leadership today’s business leaders need to master to achieve and sustain outstanding business results.

To book Scott to present to your organization or association, call: 866-855-8631

or email: Scott Campbell

Presentations by Ian Cook

Want to Be Their “Best Boss Ever?”:
What to Do and How to Show Up

Do you remember what it was like working for the best boss you’ve ever had? You probably worked harder for this person than anyone else, before or since. You most likely contributed extra effort, enthusiasm and creativity to your job. And you felt really good about yourself.

Now you are the manager. You have a choice to make. How good a leader do you want to be? Would your staff say that you are their “best boss ever?” Would you like them to?

Or, perhaps you are satisfied with being an average boss, one who gets at least OK results from your staff. Hey, your employees seem content and no one above is complaining about your unit’s performance.

This presentation challenges you to transform yourself into a superb leader and lays out what it will require from you and how you can go about it.

We look at the two domains where you grow your leadership capacity:

1. Your external environment–how you operate, what you do, your skills of engagement
2. Your internal world–your habits of thought, beliefs, assumptions, intentions, how you choose to “show up” each day as a leader

What you will learn from this presentation:

• Three “external” ways that the best leaders fully engage their staff
• Three “internal” mindsets that drive extraordinary leaders to extraordinary results
• Where you should direct your own growth as a leader
• The benefits that await you when you become one of their “best bosses ever”

Ideal Audiences:

• Managers who intend to develop excellent leadership capacities
• Individual contributors and functional specialists who aspire to move into a formal leadership role in their organizations
• Senior managers called upon to coach and support the development of individuals who possess the will and potential to become effective leaders
• Leaders of project teams or matrix/cross functional teams who want to inspire their team to greater accomplishment

“Best Bosses” from Top to Bottom:
Reap the ROI from Leadership Development

Are your employees sufficiently committed and engaged in their work?
Do they often go the extra mile for the organization or do just enough to get by?
Are you satisfied with their level of productivity?
Would you like turnover–especially for your better employees–to be lower?

The research is clear. Investing in effective leadership throughout your organization pays back dividends through significantly higher results.

Despite this, developing superb leaders is the most overlooked pathway to superb business outcomes…

Too often senior decision makers see leadership as something perhaps worth “throwing some training at” but certainly not a strategic priority. Many pay lip service to its importance while, in their heart of hearts, regarding it as just the soft, “touchy-feely” side of managing.

This is unfortunate because those managers are missing a remarkable opportunity to increase their organization’s delivery capacity!

Just imagine what it would it mean for you, your organization, and the people it serves if extraordinary leaders populated not only in the top team but showed up at every level, all the way down to front line supervisor!

Here’s what you will discover at this presentation:

• What it means for your employees to be fully “engaged,” ready to contribute more than what is expected of them.
• Exciting recent research that definitively links higher levels of leadership effectiveness to higher bottom line results.
• How average managers who excel in just a handful of skills can achieve outstanding results and be regarded by their staff as their “best boss ever.”
• How, by growing your managers into better leaders, you will give your enterprise an enduring, strategic…
• competitive edge (for private companies) that is extremely difficult for the competition to replicate
• excellence edge (for non-profits and government) that enhances your credibility and value in the minds of those who provide ongoing financial support.

Now, imagine what it would it mean for your organization if extraordinary leaders were found not only in the top team but showed up at every level, all the way down to front line supervisor!

Heres’ what you will learn:

• What it means for your employees to be fully “engaged,” ready to contribute more than what is expected of them.
• Exciting recent research that definitively links higher levels of leadership effectiveness to higher bottom line results.
• How, by boosting just a handful of skills, an average leader can become an extraordinary one and be regarded by his/her employees as their “best boss ever.”
• How growing your managers into better leaders will give an enduring…
• strategic competitive edge to private companies, one that is extremely difficult for your competition to replicate
• excellence edge to non-profits and government, one that enhances your credibility and value in the minds of those who provide ongoing financial support.

Ideal Audiences:

• Executives and senior managers who want to understand the strategic value of having strong leaders in place at all levels.
• Professionals in Human Resources, Talent Management and Training who seek to make the business case for investing in the development of leaders.

Is your organization serious about developing extraordinary leaders?

For years managers, HR professionals and countless authors have been talking a good game about growing "effective" leaders. Some organizations have offered leadership skills training programs of every conceivable kind. But seldom does such training impact the quality of leadership!

In this presentation, find out how to finally upgrade your managers’ current internal “operating system” to “leadership 2.0.”

Some managers clearly do excel as leaders. They bring out the very best in their employees. But most units are headed by well meaning, dedicated, hard working, yet uninspiring leaders. As a consequence, all too often results fall short of what they could be.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Recent research has revealed the kind of leaders that master complex challenges and get greater results. Most managers have it within their reach to transform themselves into what their employees would describe as their “best boss ever.”

• Critical capacities your leaders need in order to succeed in today's complex environment
• The internal shift they must make to generate extraordinary results
• How leadership development is really adult development
• Outcome-creating vs. problem-reacting approaches to leadership
• How your organization’s internal processes and practices can support the “journey” of your leaders

Ideal Audiences:

• Executives and senior managers who want to make sure their leadership development initiatives actually result in more effective leaders.
• Professionals in Human Resources, Talent Management and Training who advise their senior management around leadership development strategies.

How to Close the "Leadership Deal":
Getting Your Employees to Want to Perform

Do you have an employee who just doesn’t put out the effort to do even a satisfactory job? In fact, maybe he (she) was once a positive contributor but now has lost any spark for doing good work. You know he is capable. It’s not a skill problem. It’s clearly a will problem. More precisely, it’s a problem of motivation.

You have probably tried everything to motivate this individual. You have probed, questioned and listened. You have suggested and advised. You have said encouraging and supportive things. You have offered training and perhaps a shift of duties. When that didn’t work, you turned to conversations around unacceptable performance and possible consequences. This is essentially a good person, however, whom you really don’t want to have to discipline and maybe fire.

This presentation begins with the proposition that you can’t motivate someone if they don’t know what they want. It will then show…

• How motivating people is a lot like sales and what managers can learn from the best sales professionals
• How people exchange their good performance for outcomes they value
• Why many people don’t know what they want
• How to help your employees identify their own motivators, what they truly want from their job

Attendees will leave with a new perspective on how employee motivation operates and what they can do to energize their staff to meet and hopefully surpass the performance requirements of their job.

Is This a "NO" I See Before Me?:

Dealing With Resistance

For managers, supervisors and leaders who encounter resistance, whether it be to an expected level of work performance or a wholesale organizational restructuring, among those they lead. An interactive presentation that first repositions resistance as a most natural human phenomenon that we must first understand from a psychological perspective. It then offers a "cutting edge" response that eliminates or diminishes resistance while maintaining one's own integrity, sense of well-being and low level of stress.

To book Ian to present to your organization or association, call: 866-855-8631

or email: Ian Cook