KEYNOTE SPEAKER & LECTURER
A sought after speaker and lecturer on leadership, transformation and system thinking. In my presentations I share just enough of myself within the narrative to make what could be a fairly impersonal narrative feel a bit more intimate, and to illustrate for the audience that I have actually practiced what I am talking about.
I have engaged audiences from around the world. I push tenaciously to establish new narratives pertaining to change, transformation, and leadership. Current assumptions and theories are often employed well beyond their intended purpose, scope, and/or means. As such, I continually push to extend conversations beyond their present standing and bring forth new ways of thinking.
SAMPLE KEYNOTES & LECTURES
What Leadership Books & Courses Gloss Over
In this talk, Hugh draws on his 3 decades of leadership experience and research to reveal the personal side of leadership. He explores personal human hard drives and blind spots, truths and untruths, and the impact they have on organizational top, middle and bottom space conditions.
Reflection Fuels
This opening captures the essence of the talk…from my experience few people are burdened by self-awareness. We all look through a window that turns out to be a mirror. When I noticed myself engaging in the same patterns over and over again, and facing the same issues with different people, I realized something: Who is always there? It’s me!
People Matter
The overall success of an organization is not established merely by the completion of tasks or the agendas laid forth, but through the care and devotion of its people. The level of devotion is founded on, and fluctuated by, feelings of inclusion, recognition, ability to contribute and the opportunity for growth. When people feel voiceless or insignificant, every other aspect of them tends to mirror that feeling of vulnerability.
Relationships Make the Difference
Leadership creates the glue that holds the fabric of a human system together, and the elasticity, bond, and effectiveness of the glue is determined by the overall relationship welfare of the organization. Organizations do not exist of fragmented parts, but rather a series of human systems within a larger human system.
Paradox of Simultaneous Continuity and Change
Complexity itself cannot be managed because it inheres in all of nature. One must be able to perceive, understand, and manage within it; in other words, leaders must engage continually in reflexive and reflective practice living in the present and thinking about the future. This cultivation requires reflection, engaged people and healthy relationship patterns.
Adaptive Action & Leadership
Adaptive action is about incremental pragmatism, dealing with polarities and conflicts of opposites with precision. It is about execution, momentum, focus, finish and finding the balance for speed and need for engagement. It includes setting direction; strategically aligning decisions to vision, values, and evidence; taking action to implement results; and assessing and evaluating outcomes. Adaptive action is not a destination, but a way of being where improvement is built on connected and overlapping principles that promote a foundation consisting of the worker’s voice, leader’s ears, and organizational support. To say it another way, it’s about how reflection fuels, people matter and relationships make the difference.
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