Events

Michael Bungay Stanier (or "MBS" as those who know him affectionately call him has written books that have sold over a million copies, rebelled against a traditional path that would have been his fate after his Rhodes scholarship and developed an approach to coaching that "un-weirds" it. His latest book is "The Advice Trap: Be […]

Sharon Price John, the CEO of Build-a-Bear workshop, has had a fabled career that includes losing (even though you won), taking big risks and having them pay off, the mom thing and more recently the turnaround and transformation of the beloved brand. She's written about her experiences in a great book called "Stories & Heart" […]

Everyone knows that agile ways of working depend on effective teamwork. What is less obvious is how effective teamwork fits into the capability creation process. In this talk, we will explore the four elements that signal that a team is working effectively, debunk pervasive myths (for instance that satisfaction on a team is highly correlated […]

Dick Rumelt has often been described as a strategists' strategist, someone who can reduce the most complex problems to their essence and use strategic choices to make the most significant difference in the outcome. He has a new book out, "The Crux" in which he debunks a lot of the activity that unfortunately takes the […]

Keith Ferrazzi is a consummate networker, an iconic influencer, and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. His new book "Competing in the New World of Work" is an eye-opening tour of the new skills that are going to separate winners from losers in the post-pandemic competitive environment. He'll be joining me by the fireside […]

Winner of the 2022 New York EY Entrepreneur of the Year award, ExecOnLine co-founder Stephen Bailey has been revolutionizing access to high-quality executive development. One of the first to recognize how valuable on-line learning could be to anyone, he also emphasizes how important it can be to the career prospects of diverse talents. He's also […]

Matt Richtel is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with the New York Times, a prolific writer and author of the new book "Inspired: Understanding Creativity, A Journey Through Art, Science and the Soul." He's uniquely qualified to write this particular book, which gets at the essence of human creativity through the lenses of biology, neurology […]

Leaders today are facing challenges unlike any other era. Business and workforce disruptions have reached epic proportions, competitors are appearing from new and unexpected places, and the return to normal has been replaced by a new constant – change. How do we make sense of this new business environment, and help workforce leaders adapt and […]

In 2018, Goldman Sachs reported that Google paid Apple $9 billion to be the default search engine on the iPhone; by 2022 that number is reportedly $20 billion. Why is a position that a user could easily change with just a few clicks so valuable? The answer, according to my Friday Fireside Chat guest, Eric […]

Join us for the launch of the CBS Alumni Club of HK’s Women's Committee, featuring a hybrid panel discussion on Mindful Leadership: Why It Matters Now with our distinguished panelists from the CBS community.

I just love a scrappy entrepreneurial story, and my Friday Fireside Chat guest, Ryan Close, has a great one. A former bartender, he noticed that people would love to enjoy cocktails, but didn't have the ingredients, the skill or the time to make them up. He started to play around with the concept that would […]

The Innovator's Handbook is published every year as the "bible" for everyone leading and doing innovation in large organizations, summarizing best practices and sharing how-to advise on everything innovation management. The launch for the 2023 edition is on December 6th The overall theme for the launch event is "Innovation Management in 2023", to inform the […]

Rita Kakati-Shah, an award-winning gender inclusion strategist, is the author of "The Goddess of Go-Getting," a fun guide to making your way in the world when you are not in the majority group. Rita’s spin on diversity, equity and inclusion is that most people get it wrong and, as a result, the outcomes are causing […]

Richard Rumelt has been described by no less than McKinsey as a "giant in the field of strategy." He's also a dear friend and an enormously influential thought leader. We're going to chat about his latest book, "The Crux" in which he illustrates the principles of challenge-based strategy. The idea is that strategists need to […]

Bob Sutton is a rarity - a talented academic who knows how to translate serious research into practical use. He has more books to his name than we'll have time to talk about but some of my fave's are "The No A**hole Rule" and "The Knowing-Doing Gap." He's got a new one coming out with […]

Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There When You’d Rather Stay Home - Is this a great title, or what?? My Friday fireside chat guest is Morra Aarons-Mele, a globally recognized speaker, podcast host and author of the new book "The Anxious Achiever." She's on a mission to get people to understand that […]

Bent Flyvbjerg, a Professor at Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford and IT University of Copenhagen, is a leading world scholar on project and program management. His new book, How Big Things Get Done, was described by The Wall Street Journal as a "seminal work on big projects." Professor Flyvbjerg's research has led him to formulate an innovative approach to building […]

We all know about the big things that cause us to feel burned out. Toxic bosses. Obnoxious colleagues. Too much work. Impossible deadlines. The list goes on. But, did you know that sometimes your feeling of burnout isn't the result of one big thing - its the accumulation of tons of little things - Microstressors […]

It's easy to despair at high levels of inequality and lack of access to capital and resources that still face entrepreneurs who aren't white, male or well-connected. Freada Kapor Klein's career is a beacon of hope for those of us looking for real, practical solutions. The Fund, Kapor Capital, which she co-founded puts its money […]

Do you see employees as units of cost? Do you think that offering "market based" pay, few opportunities for advancement and obsolete tools is a solid path to business success? Then please join me and MIT professor Zeynep Ton for a session that could prove life-changing. Zeynep's research shows that well paid workers, trained, with […]

Tiffani Bova, author and Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce is herself a force of nature! While everybody sort of gets it that there is a relationship between the work experience of your people and the service experience received by your customers, they don't understand the real nature of the connection. In her forthcoming […]

Jeremy Utley is a major presence at the Stanford Design School, author of the recent popular book "Ideaflow" and a serial entrepreneur to boot! In what will prove to be an exciting conversation, he and I will be talking about how you can train yourself to generate a continual flow of good ideas and how […]

You have doubtless at some point been asked to fill in a "Mad Libs" style positioning statement. Product ___ offers ___ benefits to ___ target customer, allowing them to ____. Typical. My guest this week, April Dunford, thoroughly debunked this nonsensical approach to positioning in her previous book "Obviously awesome" which is an amazing guide […]

Aside from being one of my dearest colleagues at Columbia, and someone I love to casually say I last saw at Davos, Sheena Iyengar is one of the worlds' foremost authorities on choice and choosing. She has a wonderful new book out on how we can find great solutions to truly difficult problems, with lots […]

We all know that competitive advantages often don’t last, and that means you need innovation skills to create new advantages and transformation skills to shift the center of gravity of your organization when an old advantage has eroded. But it is still a huge organizational struggle. In this webinar, Valize partners Rita McGrath and Ron […]

Kai D. Wright is many amazing things - a podcast host, an award-winning journalist, a historian, a novelist, and now (as if that wasn't enough) he's going to be joining me by the Fireside to talk about his new projects. I had the privilege of getting to know him as a guest on his podcast […]

Forensic accounting and filmmaking? How does that go together? Well, join Kelly Richmond-Pope, a Professor at DePaul University in Chicago as we delve in what she's learned from years of studying fraudsters, scammers and backroom operators of all kinds. Her new book is "Fool Me Once" and it uncovers what makes perps tick, why victims […]

Well, here's a great way to build some new, essential skills for 2024. Who doesn't want to rock their next informal meeting or be the one everyone remembers after some seemingly idle chit-chat? And who hasn't had the experience of flubbing an opportunity and wishing there was a chance for a do-over? My Friday Fireside […]

SparcHub is a software app designed to make it easy to implement Rita McGrath's famous discovery driven growth method. It allows you to track ideas and opportunities, estimate how much uncertainty you have across your portfolio, keep track of what teams are learning and find out quickly if projects are developing issues. It's easy to […]

Stanford's Bob Sutton is one of the smartest people on the planet with respect to what goes on in organizations and why (hint - he's the guy that helps you deal with organizational A**holes). He has a brand new book coming out, "The Friction Project" with Huggy Rao on the subtle ways in which leaders […]

SparcHub is a software app designed to make it easy to implement Rita McGrath's famous discovery driven growth method. It allows you to track ideas and opportunities, estimate how much uncertainty you have across your portfolio, keep track of what teams are learning and find out quickly if projects are developing issues. It's easy to […]

SparcHub is a software app designed to make it easy to implement Rita McGrath's famous discovery driven growth method. It allows you to track ideas and opportunities, estimate how much uncertainty you have across your portfolio, keep track of what teams are learning and find out quickly if projects are developing issues. It's easy to […]

Chip Conley is on a mission to make mid-life a welcome and joyous part of life's journey! His new book "Learning to Love Mid-Life" is an invitation to explore the wisdom that comes with experience, to let go of baggage that doesn't serve you well and to transform toward a fulfilling future. He'll be joining […]

Anupam B. Jena has a day job as the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and a physician in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His vantage point at the intersection of health […]

The phrase "innovate or die" has never been more relevant, yet the track record of most companies for organic innovation is dismal. But, there are leaders who demonstrate that making innovation an actual proficiency can be accomplished. Steve Wunker, together with his co-authors Jennifer Luo Law and Hari Nair, de-mystify the process. Examples include Microsoft's […]

Barron Witherspoon enjoyed tremendous success in a 38-year career with major leadership responsibilities at Procter & Gamble (as well as in a second career as an ordained minister!). Nonetheless, the journey wasn't always easy as a Black man making his way in corporate America. He's now distilled his wisdom into a new book, "The Black […]

As you aim to enhance your leadership skills, you face the challenge of fewer development opportunities in today's flatter organizational structures and the need for rapid adaptation in roles with shorter tenures. The Impact peer-to-peer network offers you a solution: access to a trusted group of peers for decision support, feedback, and shared experiences. Additionally, […]

Paul J. LeBlanc is one of my personal heroes. As President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) he did what many said was impossible - he took back on-line education from predatory for-profit schools and made it possible for tens of thousands of students to graduate and seize opportunities. He's also the author of a […]