Dominic Thurbon

- Make change happen in their teams (and for themselves!)
- Drive more innovation and collaboration in your team or business
- Attract, engage and retain the next generation of workers
- Thrive in the workplace of the future

To get ahead in the knowledge economy, companies must capture the expertise already floating around inside their four walls. Using everything from better technology to better meeting discipline, unleashing collaboration is a sure-fire way to drive innovation, productivity and engagement. In a competitive market, we cannot afford to let collaboration be a buzzword – we need to implement real strategies for making it happen. In this insightful and empowering presentation, Dominic will:

- Give you the 5 behaviours to unleash collaboration, both personally and organisationally
- Identify the common barriers to making it happen and show how they can overcome
- Demonstrate the link between collaboration and innovation, productivity and engagement.

It has never been harder to stand out. In B2B, B2C, even in job markets, it's getting harder and harder to differentiate, compete and win. There are many reasons for this: digitisation has flooded the market with content and competition; commoditisation is driving prices and margins down, and making it harder to sustainably compete; rising complexity is making it harder for companies to articulate clear, relevant value propositions; and customer loyalty is 'so 20th century'.

In this changing world, we can't compete on features, service or price... we have to matter.

In this provocative and dynamic presentation, Dominic will:
- Unpack the major disruptive forces that are redefining the way business is being done, and value is being created
- Use inspiring, real-word case studies to show how a diverse array of companies are responding effectively
- Show how we can make our products, our services and our brands matter to our customers and staff
- Give you the formula for effectively dealing with and thriving in times of disruption and change

Leading Through Uncertainty, Change and Disruption

COVID-19 is an example of an entirely predictable disaster. Serious, novel pathogens emerge regularly. None of this minimises or plays down the effects of the current pandemic but it does illustrate that this should be an occurrence that that precisely no one finds surprising. Not only was it bound to happen sometime, evolution tells us it is certain to happen again, too, So how do we lead our teams in times of change and massive disruption?

COVID-19 is an example of an entirely predictable disaster. Yes, its effects will likely be economically devastating (and in some cases personally devastating for those affected in the individual sense), but nonetheless it is still absolutely predictable. Serious, novel pathogens emerge regularly. In the last 20 years, we’ve seen things like H1N1, H5N1 and SARS all emerge, as well as outbreaks and epidemics of older viruses such as Zika and Ebola. None of this minimises or plays down the effects of the current pandemic (which many experts predict may well be worse than all of the above); but it does illustrate that this should be an occurrence that that precisely no one finds surprising. Not only was it bound to happen sometime, evolution tells us it is certain to happen again, too.

But there is no doubt – predictable or not – that many of us have found ourselves blindsided by just how far-reaching the effects of this pandemic have been. I, myself, have been dealing with my own form of crisis management – I have a team of over 50 people delivering programs in around 4,000 schools a year – including hundreds in the next few months. So you can imagine what operational planning has looked like in my office for the last few days!

Crucially, we cannot allow ourselves to be sucked into thinking purely reactively. We must resist the temptation to be pulled purely into the day-to-day of managing what is right in front of us, and find ways to keep ourselves thinking strategically and learning the lessons we can from this that will help us manage the highly predictable reality of crises, uncertainty and disruption that we will continue to face into the future.

So in this future-focused, provocative and instructive session, we will:

-Look at the curious reality of just how ‘predictable’ most surprises in the marketplace actually are, and look at what the current events should teach us about strategic, scenario and contingency planning
-Unpack the ‘physics’ of disruption; how it moves through markets, and how various sources (technological, demographic, geopolitical, consumer and – yes – even biological!) combine to create an ‘edge’ of disruption in every market
-Examine the four mindsets of the change-ready leader, and how we can arm ourselves with an approach that makes us more resilient to external shock

Understanding and unleashing the power of face-to-face experiences.

In an increasingly digital world, you’d be forgiven for thinking that face-to-face connection is somehow ‘old school’ or ‘outdated’. But the truth is, an increasing body of evidence – supported by significant first-hand experience – is reminding us that there is something uniquely powerful and irreplaceable about face-to-face human connection. Done right, it seems to be that nothing changes people, like people.

But why is face-to-face connection so powerful, and how do you ‘do’ it in a way that maximises connection and impact? And how do you capture the essence of what makes it so powerful in a COVID-compatible way, in a world where increasingly even face-to-face is having to be ‘virtualised’ to some degree?

In this provocative session, behaviour change specialist Dominic Thurbon will:
- Unpack the art and science that sits behind the power of face-to-face connection, based on inputs from behavioural neuroscience, psychology, education and the arts
- Look at the differences between best-practice, mid-practice, and bad-practice when it comes to face-to-face engagement
- Examine how we can capture the ‘essence’ of face-to-face in an increasingly digital world, especially when COVID comes calling to force our hand

2018 represented the first year on record where the Edelmen trust barometer registered a drop-in trust across every single measured domain. Between royal commissions, enterprise scandals, government instability and global economy uncertainty, 'trust' is the new currency. So what are the real drivers of trust in business, and how can we go about building it and keeping it?

Based on the up-to-the-minute research into trust, confidence and purpose, in this session Dom Thurbon will:
- look at the forces that are driving the emerging trust deficit in a fresh, new way
- demonstrate the clear links between building trust and confidence and driving performance
- unpack simple strategies for understanding trust in the context of your business, and building it with customers and staff
- share stories and examples of unique approaches to driving trust

In today’s market, companies that can’t innovate can’t survive. The market is changing so quickly that our ability to innovate now sits at the heart of remaining relevant and competitive in an ever-changing world. That’s probably why ‘innovation’ is one of the most discussed and debated topics at conferences, off-sites, workshops and strategy sessions around the country.

But most places can’t connect all the talk with real action, and in too many places innovation is simply as a buzzword. We need to develop a deeper and more practical understanding of what innovation is, in all its forms, and how we bring it to life. The truth is, innovation is a behaviour: you’re either doing it or you’re not. And learning the behaviours of innovation, and then finding ways to enable and promote them in your business, is the key to turning innovation from empty rhetoric to real-world change.

In this session we will:

-Unpack the forces of change that mean we need to challenge assumptions about how we make innovation a living thing in our business.
-Examine the four types of innovation that can be used in your business to drive improved performance
-Look at the behaviours of innovation, and how we enable and promote them as leaders across the business

- Unpack the mindsets of Gen Y, and factors that have combined to create them
- Look at clear and practical strategies for successful intergenerational management
- Help you drive change in the way managers work with and engage their team
- Show how creating a Gen-Y friendly team actually creates a talent friendly team