Speaking

Leadership development talks from BLUECASE

BLUECASE Speaks is a set of experiential, public talks that show what it takes to become a high performing, innovative organization. Each talk is one hour long, including audience participation. The Four Pillars of Innovation series as a whole is a half-day workshop.

The Four Pillars of Innovation Capability

Innovation is the name of the game these days. It’s a buzzword of the time because it’s true: innovate as a way of doing business or get out of the game. There are no rules to innovation, so it can be hard to know how to increase it. But some organizations have figured it out.

  • How do they do it?
  • How do they evolve, adapt and grow more quickly than everyone else?
  • How do they deal with things getting more and more complicated every day?
  • What does innovation really mean?

We have identified Four Pillars that show up in the processes and leadership culture of leading innovative organizations around the world.

The Four Pillars of Innovation are:

  1. A robust feedback system relying on honesty and empathy
  2. Alignment: among Executives, Managers and Directors, Teams
  3. Tools of Change and Innovative Leadership Development
  4. A process that anyone can follow to make change happen at any level

Talk 1: A robust feedback system

One performance review a year isn’t enough. People dread them.

Feedback needs to be a way of communicating, all the time.

Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to mastery.

We say great feedback cuts that time in half.

Learn:

  1. What makes a great feedback system
  2. Why feedback is innovation
  3. How to listen to use feedback
  4. How to give it

Talk 2: Alignment

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”

Teams rarely align around a clear vision and path forward. They think they do, and then everyone leaves a meeting with a completely different understanding.

Great organizations and great times know how to align around a clear, actionable vision.

The get stuff done because they know where they’re going and how they’ll get there.

Learn:

  1. What aligning behind a vision looks like
  2. Exactly what makes a vision inspire others
  3. How to create a simple action plan
  4. Who does what by when

Talk 3: Tools of change

Leadership development is a must. The world’s greatest organizations understand this.

In order to have innovative cultures, you have to have innovative leadership development.

And it’s not just developing your leaders, it’s providing them with clear tools they can share with those who work for them.

Learn:

  1. What kinds of tools innovative leaders should be using
  2. How to teach and coach others towards high performance
  3. What is “innovative leadership” and how do you develop it
  4. Bringing your core values alive

Talk 4: Implementing change at any level

We have hierarchies, but change should not come from the top.

The people who do the work are the ones best suited to adapt the work. Innovations happen where the work is done.

What if you could see ownership emerge at every level of the organization?

What if people knew how to make things happen?

What if there wasn’t a bottleneck of decisions at the top of the chain?

You need a clear, repeatable process to ensure people know what it takes to get things done quickly and easily in your organization.

Learn:

  1. The kind of process you should have so people know how to get things done
  2. Why others can’t seem to get things done
  3. How to coach your people to get things done
  4. The difference between change management and a cultural transformation

David Butlein, Ph.D., is a management consultant, facilitator, and strategic planner in Austin, Texas, BLUECASE Strategic Partners specializes in culture change, high-performance organizations, strategic planning, and execution management. David has 13 years of experience working with both senior executives at Fortune 100 companies and executive teams of fast growing private firms of all sizes. Notable clients include Exxon, Halliburton, Gilbane Inc., Caffe Vita, Ace Hotel, Allegiance Ambulance, ESO Solutions, and Intersys.

Justin Follin is partner and head of leadership development at BLUECASE. He is an organizational consultant and Executive coach with primary expertise in the areas of visionary leadership development, Executive Presence, and creating innovative cultures. He has coached presenters for multiple TEDx events and has designed or executed leadership development and consulting approaches delivered inside some of the world’s largest companies, including Shell Oil, Chevron, Barrack Gold Mining, and Atkins (Engineering).