Speech Topics

Five Challenges for the Next Five Years
Highlighting what leaders need to know to show the way effectively, Tom Stewart describes the five toughest challenges that “are, should or will keep executives up at night.” Stewart shows audiences how to meet and conquer the demands of rapid decision-making, exercising authority without control, “King Customer,” extreme competition and wise decision-making.

Talking About What Matters Most
In the Information Age, organizations and individuals are talking 24/7, but communicating less effectively than ever. How, in a disembodied and “balkanized” world of info-Babel, can organizations create the business and social systems to talk effectively about the things that matter most? With wit and unmatched insight, Tom Stewart demonstrates how organizations and individuals within them can:

· Find the teachers and experts across a global company
· Move away from sterile libraries of best practices to a true development of tacit knowledge
· Create an environment in which people learn faster than their rivals

Ideas, Creativity and Knowledge Are Capital: Everything Else is Just Money
Now, as never before, knowledge, innovation and creativity are on the leading edge of the business landscape. How well leaders understand and strategically invest in intellectual capital to transform their organizations is already separating the “winners” from other, less successful organizations. Based upon his insight as editor of the world's preeminent management journal, Tom Stewart describes and analyzes the four pillars of the knowledge economy including:

· Knowledge is what we buy and sell
· Knowledge assets separate winners from the also-rans
· Knowledge defines our work and describes what we do
· The returns to knowledge should exceed the returns to any other investment

Further, Stewart shares with audiences how to take this knowledge to market – discussing how to sell what you know, and sharing strategies for developing smart products and services.

The Tests of a Leader
Why do leaders love stories about heroic leaders struggling against great odds? We need them because leaders are ALWAYS being tested, whether they know it or not. They're always being watched, always sending a message. And – just like Hercules, or a knight who seeks to win the hand of a fair maiden, or Indiana Jones seeking the Lost Ark – the leader has to pass certain tests, slay certain dragons. Three stand out:

The initiation test – becoming a boss for the first time
The crisis test – facing the risk of failure or fighting back after failure
The rejuvenation test – the need for a leader to learn how to cope with success, continue to lead, and have a "second act."

Ultimately, the only way a leader can pass these tests is to pass the most challenging test of all: learning to tell himself the truth about his performance and about the world.

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