There is such a thing as good conflict in organizations. Good conflict feels alive, has traction, stretches you, and draws you in. Good conflict produces results, drives change, solves problems, creates value, and strengthens relationships. Unfortunately, good conflict is rare. And don’t write it off as a skills gap. Sure, we could all improve on our difficult conversation skills, but the real culprit here is your conflict system. Every organization has one, and it can push people in subtle ways to head down the path of bad conflict. In this keynote, I’ll shine a light on your conflict system, revealing how it operates, and showing you how to make concrete changes to the system that will start delivering good conflict right away. Stop trying to survive your conflicts, and start turning them into a strategic advantage.

Now, more than ever, we need to be good at change. Every aspect of our strategic landscapes seems to be shifting beneath our feet, so our very survival depends on our ability to change, adapt, and pivot with skill and speed. In most organizations, however, change feels like we’re trying to turn the Titanic. We often blame this on resistance, poor communication, or lack of resources, but the real culprit here is your culture. There are six roadblocks to change that most cultures create, without you even realizing it. In this keynote I’ll share my research on how these roadblocks are formed and show  you how to make concrete changes inside your culture that will transform these roadblocks into change accelerators. You’ll leave knowing what to do—and stop doing—to turn change into an ally rather than a disruptor.

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Most leaders strive to create strong workplace cultures that value things like collaboration, innovation, agility, and transparency. We all know we need those capacities to thrive. What leaders don’t see, however, are the many ways your culture works against those values, and actually incentivizes employees to engage in behavior that can put your whole organization into gridlock. In this keynote, culture expert Jamie Notter will reveal the hidden culture patterns that he discovered over the last ten years of his research and practice, show you how they mess with your success, and (most importantly) offer you concrete strategies for changing culture and fixing these patterns for good. Don’t block the box—change your culture patterns and unlock your potential.

We’re all wondering how AI is going to impact the workplace, but we may be asking the wrong question. I have argued that common culture patterns (like incomplete innovation, awkward collaboration, and lagging transparency) make it harder for organizations to adopt AI, but I don’t think adoption is the core issue. AI just graduated from a tool to a permanent part of our shared operating environment, and that is the game changer. In that context, these culture patterns aren’t just inconvenient, they threaten our relevance as organizations. We need innovation that’s turbocharged with rapid iteration, collaboration that’s fully integrated and boundaryless, and transparency that doesn’t just show information but interprets it for shared understanding. Regardless of how your organization adopts AI, thriving in an AI-based environment now demands this culture transformation, and in this keynote, I’ll show you what that will look like, along with some concrete culture plays you can run that will move the needle in these three critical areas of culture.