Speaking
Since 2011, David has had the amazing opportunity to share leadership concepts with audiences in over 300 companies spanning 5 continents. While the content has changed a bit, the intent is the same – to help leaders create environments where people want to come to work, not where they have to come to work. Below you’ll find David’s speech topics. If you’d like to invite him to share these ideas with your team, let’s chat!
The Future of Work and Why Humanity Matters
Length: ~45 mins
Who it’s for:
Leaders and teams eager to navigate the future of work in a way that builds trust, performance, retention and well-being.
Talk overview:
In many ways, the pandemic catapulted us into the future of work at a speed that some of us weren’t quite ready for. The lines between work life and personal life have blurred like never before. As we all learn our way through a new way of working, major changes in how, when and where we work are having a significant impact on leaders and their teams.
As we deal with shifts in technology, geography and flexibility, we must stay grounded in our humanity. Successfully navigating the future of work demands knowing, accepting and caring for the whole human, not just the “work” human.
This interactive talk explores why humanity matters to the future of work. David challenges participants to focus on culture and how they can take individual responsibility for it. By intentionally building and maintaining a culture of trust and human connection, leaders and teams can ignite transparent communication, collaboration and a sense of belonging, which become the rocket fuel for future engagement, performance and growth.
Drawing on his personal experience, as well as the patterns he has observed in leaders and organizations around the world, David offers a simple, actionable framework that gives participants:
A greater awareness of their own leadership potential, no matter their role
A framework for building and maintaining sustainable relationships at work and beyond
Actionable tools and practices that build trust and human connection, tailored to their individual context
A shift in mindset that increases their ability to face the future, together, with a sense of hope and possibility
Turn Attrition Into Attraction
How to build trust and human connection on your team
Length: ~45 minutes
Who it’s for:
Leaders eager to create and maintain an environment in which trust and human connection lead to greater well-being, higher individual and team performance, increased innovation and higher levels of retention.
Talk overview:
Every organization strives for high performance, growth, productivity and results. And often, organizations don’t realize they are self-sabotaging those efforts through the experience they create for their people.
When the culture we talk about doesn’t align with the culture our people experience, Culture Dissonance occurs. People go into self-preservation mode and they find it more difficult to trust and develop connections with others. Healthy, productive environments have Culture Congruence, where the stated culture aligns with daily behaviors.
In this interactive talk, David draws on his personal experience, as well as the patterns he has observed in leaders and organizations around the world. He will identify the symptoms of Culture Dissonance and explore three specific leadership traits that, when put into practice, lead to Culture Congruence.
As a result of this session, participants will:
Have a greater awareness of how their leadership impacts their teams and its outcomes
Understand a framework that can help them lead with greater consistency - Have tangible tools that increase performance, retention, transparent communication, well-being and more
Trust and Connection in a Hybrid World
Making the culture we talk about the culture people actually experience
Length: ~45 minutes
Who it's for:
Leaders and teams facing the challenges of hybrid and remote work who want simple, actionable tools to build and maintain strong connections to their organization and each other.
Talk overview:
The way we work has changed. What hasn’t changed is the importance of trust and human connection. Although the human element was vital pre-pandemic, it was often ignored or minimized. Now, it demands our attention and the leaders and teams who embrace the human element of business will be those who thrive in the long term.
This interactive talk covers three essential traits required to infuse the human element into our cultures, along with simple, frictionless daily practices we can implement regardless of whether we hold a position of authority or not.
When we put these traits into daily practice, we experience work in a new way. Trust increases, psychological safety becomes the rule rather than the exception, innovation and creativity bloom, performance and retention increase. The result? Individuals thrive and organizations flourish.
As a result of this session, participants will leave with:
A better understanding of how to connect with their teams, in person and remotely
A mindset that guides them in behavior and decision-making
Tangible tools that increase their teams’ engagement, productivity and a sense of belonging
Leading During Times of Uncertainty
How to confidently take on the unknown we face, together
Length: ~45 mins
Who it’s for:
Those who want to prepare for challenges and uncertainty by unlocking the creativity and open minded thinking needed to weather the storm.
Talk overview:
It’s human nature to seek the sense of comfort we feel with consistency and stability. Yet, we look toward the future and see more change and uncertainty than ever - economic downturn, shifts in the workforce, residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more unknowns to come. A Stanford University survey assessed business uncertainty is at its highest since 2015, with the level accelerating at an unprecedented rate. So, the only thing that’s certain is that there is more uncertainty ahead.
This state of instability can leave us feeling unsettled, demoralized, and anxious about the future. As a result, decision-making tends to become fear-based and progress slows; we become more rigid, and effective leadership declines. Rather than becoming adaptive, organization tend to be reactive.
During these times, leadership expert David Mead urges you to stop resisting uncertainty and choose to run toward it by building and maintaining a resilient culture. In this interactive talk, David will share simple ideas to shift our perception of challenging situations and how we can see them as opportunities.
Through polling and Q&A, David will encourage active participation that can prompt ideas for action for attendees. Audiences will walk away with tangible tools that can be practiced daily in order to fully engage their hearts and minds when obstacles arise.
Key concepts of the session include:
Our two primary drivers - Love and Fear
Leading when we don’t know the answer
How to create an environment of trust and collaboration where people feel confident to share ideas and take risks