Dominic Thurbon

Ever had someone in your business say “we need to be more innovative”, “we need to respond to disruption” or “we need to do things differently”?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how much you know about innovation, how many books you’ve read on AI and disruption, how many podcasts you’ve listened to on sales effectiveness… if you can’t do behaviour change, you can’t do, any of them.

That’s because organisations don’t change, people do.

In this thought-provoking and compelling session audiences will:
• unpack the core drivers of human behaviour, and the 5 universal responses to ALL change you will encounter
• share inspiring, industry-relevant case studies and stories that are packed with usable insights
• unpack a simple 3-step toolkit we can use to be more effective in making change happen inside our organisations

The world is changing more rapidly and profoundly than ever. Around 40% of CEOs say their business will cease to exist within 10 years without radical reinvention.

Responding to disruption with innovation and behaviour change is an urgent business priority. But HOW!?

In this thought-provoking and compelling session audiences will:
• explore the major forces of disruption that are affecting you and your business
• look at the difference between organisations that successfully change, adapt and thrive … and those that don’t
• unpack a toolkit for driving real, dollar-productive innovation in the face of change and uncertainty

In this highly interactive, provocative, and intensely practical session, successful senior executive, entrepreneur, and facilitator Dom Thurbon will:
• Unpack a 3-level model for executive leadership grounded in empirical science and evidence that will enable people to think about their leadership and their role in new ways
• Delve into the foundational importance of leading yourself, including the link between values, purpose and impact and the way leaders ‘show up’
• Explore the leading edge of leading teams, including setting standards, situational leadership, and the critical importance of truth-telling, feedback and dealing with the hard things head-on
• Work through the big picture of leading organisations, including setting the stage for innovative and agility, taking point of incisive strategy, and creating cultures of engagement and performance
• [when delivered as a workshop] Create space for individual leaders to discuss, debate, reflect and ultimately apply what they’ve learned to their own leadership context, leaving with not just a new way of seeing things but new tools to unleash their impact

The market has never been so ‘hot’ for conversations about sustainability and ESG. On one level, that’s brilliant: it could herald in a new age of sustainable business and accelerate our transition to a cleaner, more just, more equitable world (and help companies innovate and transform, along the way).

On another level, it runs the very real risk of going the way that many similar conversations have gone before: more marketing and PR hype than action.

The truth is, you cannot PR your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into.

In this thought-provoking and compelling session audiences will:
• demystify what ESG and sustainability really mean for you and your team
• examine mega-trends that drive both the risks and opportunities of ESG
• unpack the oft-misunderstood link between ESG and corporate ‘purpose’
• develop practical, usable strategies that can help you leverage the ESG agenda to drive greater sustainability and improved performance

Event planners spend loads of time planning the opening of their conference... but the closing matters, too... In fact, it matters heaps!

There is an established social science phenomenon called the ‘peak-end effect’.

It shows that when people rate an experience (like your event), the two things most important to their rating are the ‘peak’ (the most emotionally intense bit) and the ‘end’ (the last bit).

This finding has been repeated in many cool ways. In restaurants, we tend to judge a meal by the best dish and dessert. In health, we tend to judge medical procedures by the most painful bit and the last bit, and ... yup... even in events, researchers found that ‘end of conference [experiences] had the strongest effect on loyalty’.

That’s why the closing keynote is so critical: it’s one of the most important determinants of what people think of your event!

I call the closing keynote a ‘locknote’. A key opens a door and a lock closes it; a keynote opens an event, the locknote closes it.

There are three things a world-class locknote needs to do:
Summarise. Operationalise. Energise.

1. SUMMARISE: Artfully capture and bring together the core themes of the event in an engaging, humorous and insightful way. Often events have so many threads, and they need to be brought together for people in way that gives them the ‘a-ha’ moment.

2. OPERATIONALISE: Help people make sense of and apply what they’ve heard. The value of a conference is in the behaviour change that comes after it. Events have real impact when people take forward what they’ve heard, seen and learned. We must help people apply what they’ve heard to their lives and make plans to use it (even if just in their head).

3. ENERGISE: Have people sprint, not stumble, from the room by energising and uplifting them. Events are mentally taxing for delegates. Ironically, the better and more packed the event, the more cognitively demanding it is. The locknote
needs to provoke, entertain and inspire so the event ends on a tone that excites people.