Change, resiliency and storytelling
LEADERSHIP STORYTELLING MASTERCLASSES
CUSTOMIZED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
FACILITATING IMPORTANT OFFSITE MEETINGS AND LEADERSHIP RETREATS
REBELS AT WORK TRAINING: EMPOWERING INTERNAL CHANGE ADVOCATES
Speaking and workshops
I speak throughout the world on Rebels at Work, change and resiliency.
I offer half-day and full-day storytelling masterclasses for leadership teams.
Most of my presentations and ebooks, some of which have been viewed by 100,000+ people!) can be found on Slideshare. My books are available on Amazon and other online booksellers.
I have spoken at hundreds of corporate meetings and industry association conferences around the world, from intimate 20-person executive off-sites to large scale international conferences for 3,000 people.
Board and leadership team facilitation
Important meetings almost always benefit from professional facilitation so that every person on the team can fully participate without worrying about how to guide the meeting.
My approach is both strategic and creative, making sure that you accomplish your goal or finally figure out how to tackle what’s most important — even if it’s uncomfortable — and making sure everyone’s voices are heard, and, ocassionally making sure that some domineering voices are heard a little less. I have facilitated meetings with leadership teams of Ivy League universities, Fortune 100 companies, renown museum boards, association groups.
In addition to the designing the experience and facilitating the session, I provide a post-event summary with observations, insights, and key agreements and commitments. Clients say the observations and insights often inform their go-forward strategy in fascinating and helpful ways.
What clients say
“As a woman in the middle of a re-invention, I found your presentation to be a remarkable aggregate of compelling and current research that lays a road map to a purpose driven life.
Several core concepts found their way into multiple business and personal conversations since Thursday – the idea of seeking a wild pack and a support pack (we need both!), the idea of post traumatic GROWTH opportunities, the idea of shifting our focus on the 3% vs. the 25% (so key in my role within sales – and arguably we are all in sales) and the idea of self-compassion/ending self-inflicted verbal abuse (ironically, what I believe is the biggest challenge of all for most of us).
Wow – you are a game changer.
Thanks for being the change. Your leadership inspires.”
y
Facilitation: Facilitators and psychics
I hate telling people that I love facilitating board and leadership team off-sites. Because most really good sessions lead to uncomfortable situations and conversations. And I have to let people feel that discomfort.
If we move on too quickly and keep things “nicey-nice,” people won’t see the real issues that are causing the discomfort. More importantly, they won’t feel the issues. Without that emotional disturbance, nothing will change.
Inevitably the executive who hired me gives me a worried look like, “Hey, this meeting is going off the rails. Get it back on track.”
But clients don’t hire me to keep things on track. They hire me to help them figure out obstacles, opportunities, new ways forward. To find clarity from complexity.
I almost always find that clarity by observing what — or who — is causing the train to derail.
In many ways, good facilitators are like psychics.
We see the issues people are avoiding. The assumptions that are blinding them. The big opportunities that the so desire — and yet are so afraid to commit to. We see looming danger. Extraordinary and overlooked talent. Strategic goals that sound brilliant, but people don’t really care about. (Or they’re the wrong people for those goals.)
In other ways, good facilitators are messengers and truth-tellers.
We ask pointed questions to make sure people focus on the real issue at hand. We tell people what we are observing from their conversations. And, especially uncomfortable for us, we often have to challenge the alphas in the room so that they tune in to what’s really being said. So that they listen to their colleagues.
So much discomfort, so much clarity
During a recent session the chairman of a non-profit historic preservation group announced out of the blue that he thought the offsite was a big waste of time. Yet what came out of the meeting was a bold, electrifying new vision, grounded in activism, that has transformed a once-stodgy non-profit.
The owners of a $250 million private company wanted to figure out whether they should invest in the company or sell it. “Can our management team take this company to the next level?” After the offsite meetings with the management team, it was clear to the leaders that they couldn’t. The thrill of building a business was long gone.
Should we stay private or do an IPO, wondered the founders of a software company. Once we moved beyond the rational discussions about capital and got into how it would feel working with investment banks, institutional investors, and financial media, the founders found their own answer. The privately held, multi-billion enterprise continues to thrive.
Can our Church council become a creativity and innovation think tank, the Bishop wondered. Can we reimagine the purpose of the council to do important, new kinds of work? Apart from the fact that one participant fell asleep during the retreat, the answer was a resounding “No.” Though they participated respectfully in the day’s exercises and conversations, people simply wanted to come together to hear from the Bishop, share news from different parishes, and take care of Diocesan financial and administrative business. Starting and ending meetings on time was especially important to them. No, these committed churchgoers wouldn’t be the think-tank creativity source.
Why do we do this love/hate work?
I’m reluctant to say I love facilitating leadership retreats because it’s such intense, emotionally draining work. There’s nothing fun about it when people give you the skeptical eye for leading them into difficult conversations or exposing truths that they wish they could avoid.
Or maybe even falling asleep on you.
But I do love facilitating because it helps people see clearly.
Like any good psychic.
(NOTE: some leadership retreats are intended to be relational, others are for learning something new. The ones I’m talking about are for coming together to address a strategic issue or opportunity. When bringing people together, be clear about the purpose.)