I offer a variety of keynotes about Agile, leadership, navigating constant change and strategies for thriving in the modern world of work.

These keynotes are designed for a 45 minute delivery with an optional Q&A. That’s a standard delivery structure, and I’ll be happy to do that. There is another option that has greater impact, however.

I propose to radically increase the value you receive through an Immersion Day:
Keynote + Immediate Application = Value NOW!

Like me, you have probably been wowed by a keynote; moved by the inspirational stories, had your eyes opened to new ways of working and thinking and then… what? What actually happened? Sometimes, like me, you probably took action on some small aspects of the new ideas. Maybe you bought the book or watched more videos on the topic. You may have had lots of good intentions that went by the wayside once you “got back to work.” And this is the impact from the really exceptional keynotes! The ones that are just OK are forgotten within a day.

When I think about the return-on-investment for keynotes, especially for ones that cost tens of thousands, it’s just pretty low. Maybe it’s not so much the fault of the keynote as it is a deficiency of the delivery structure.

If you want clear value, it’s time for an Immersion Day.

IMMERSION DAY

Here’s how the Immersion Day works:

  • Delivery of the keynote in an extended workshop-style format +
  • Live agile coaching by Lyssa to address the group’s most pressing issues through using the concepts in the keynote, along other models and tools from her depth of experience

Imagine that your organization could substantially increase its “systems intelligence” not only on the ideas in the keynote, but through the ideas in the keynote.

Imagine that you could generate novel approaches for your challenges and spark the emergence of new opportunities.

This is what’s possible!

SAMPLE KEYNOTES:

THE LEADERS’ “AGILE” TRANSFORMATION

The business world is too unpredictable and complex for the “predict and plan” approach to work, especially when it’s coupled with a heroic leadership style at the top. This combination simply can’t handle our environment of volatility. If that’s not enough, there is also pressure for change inside the organization itself. By and large, teams are successfully using Agile to deliver value and their needs have shifted. They no longer need leaders to tell them what to do or even try to motivate them through an exciting top-down vision. They are looking for a new type of leadership that can harness constant change for good, promote the smooth flow of business value and create conditions where leaders can emerge everywhere.

How do organizational leaders step into the post-heroic leadership capability all this requires when their inner workings are still running on a “predict and plan” operating system? Especially when their superskills, such as visioning or problem solving, have landed them squarely in the heroic leadership stance?

Join Lyssa Adkins, Agile & Leadership Coach, for a deep dive into what it means to lead in today’s modern business reality. We will explore the essential shifts necessary for leading during these turbulent times and we will go where others dare not! This exploration will take us into some (perhaps) unexpected territory where we investigate what it would mean for leaders to upgrade their mental complexity, downshift their nervous systems and expand into the collective intelligence of their own teams.

THE NEXT WISE STEP:
SEEING MORE & TAKING WISE ACTION IN YOUR EVERYDAY, COMPLEX SITUATIONS

Let’s face it, the days of simple situations and clear answers are in the past. In our everyday, complex world with fast-evolving customer needs and an ever-accelerating pace of change, knowing the “right” or “best” thing to do seems impossible. Perhaps it is. But there is a better way. What if you could discern the “next wise step” to do? And, what if that approach were a better match for our complex and confounding world, anyway?

In this keynote, Lyssa Adkins, author of Coaching Agile Teams and Agile and Leadership Coach, takes us on an exploration of a more complete way to see the complex situations we face everyday. Having seen the situation more holistically, areas for investigation become clear and with that information on-board new possibilities arise and many options become apparent. From these options, you can choose the “next wise step” to positively affect the situation. With the application of key Agile practices and values, that “next wise step” can be part of an ongoing way of working that works with the complexity you experience rather than attempting to ignore it or “dumb it down” just to cope. When you work with complexity in the way you will experience in this keynote, you can do more than cope. You can thrive. Then all the doors open… to greater professional impact, to cleaner decisions that galvanize action, and to more spot-on products that customers love.

COMFORT IN THE DISCOMFORT:
USING AGILE & EDGE THEORY TO METABOLIZE CHANGE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

We Agilists have long held that we are in an age of VUCA — volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Given what we have been through in 2020, and are still going through, even that feels a bit outdated. Harvard Business Review “ups the ante” on VUCA and tells us we are living in a time of 3-dimensional change. It’s perpetual — occurring all the time, it never lets up. It’s pervasive — unfolding in multiple areas of life at once, you can’t escape it. And it’s exponential — accelerating at an increasingly rapid rate, and humans aren’t built for exponential. In other words, it is not likely that you will be getting off the change bus anytime soon and it’s almost impossible for you to see what is coming next. Feeling any discomfort yet? 

In such conditions, how can we best survive, and possibly even thrive? This is the territory Lyssa Adkins, Agile & Leadership Coach, will help us navigate. She will lead us through a process using the Edge Theory of Change so that each of us can consider what “edge” we are on, and how we can find comfort in the middle of discomforting change. We will also explore how we can count on Agile to create stability. This will be a hands-on keynote and you will leave with insights for yourself and ways of working with others as we make the best of our ride on the change bus.

HOW DO WE START?

Fill out the form below and a member of the Lyssa Adkins team
will be in touch to help…