Richard Gerver
PROFILE
Richard Gerver is a sought-after speaker, bestselling author and world-renowned thinker. His career began in education, first as a teacher and then as a school principal, when he turned the fortunes of a failing school and its pupils around in just two years.
Since the success of his first book, focusing on his experience in frontline education, Richard has devoted himself to advancing society’s thinking on learning, change, and how best to realise our full potential. He has since written several books on leadership and innovation, including the bestsellers Change and Simple Thinking.
Now regarded as one of the world’s leading thinkers on human leadership and organisational transformation, Richard has worked with an extraordinary range of people, from elite athletes to former US President Barack Obama. Named UK Business Speaker of the Year three times, Richard has been invited to speak on the world’s most recognised stages, including TED, the RSA and the BBC.
In 2019 Richard was asked by LinkedIn to create bespoke courses for their online learning portal LinkedIn Learning. Drawing on content from Richard’s keynote speeches and his best-selling books, the courses teach Smart Thinking Under Pressure and Developing Mental Toughness. The courses have been taken by hundreds of thousands worldwide, and translated into several languages including Spanish, French and Japanese.
With his unique insight into our development from infants to adults, Richard helps us understand the nature of our personal and professional responses to risk, change, creativity, and development. His ability to connect experiences across many, often seemingly different, environments help individuals’ companies and organisations expand their thinking and their perception of their own potential.
SPEAKING TOPICS
Learning to Love Change
Why does change feel so exhausting and why do we resist it? How can we nurture and develop an organisational culture which embraces change and encourages collaboration? In this session, Richard examines why change has become increasingly challenging and how risk aversion can stifle individuals and organisations. He explores how to harness the power of creativity, curiosity and confidence in uncertain times and why we must shift the paradigm to understand that change is not a program or a strategy but an ever-present organic part of the 21st Century.
Who this is for: All senior leaders, middle managers and especially those with responsibility for HR and Professional development.
3 Key Takeaways:
- How to build resilience, even in the most high performing teams and people.
- How to develop a culture of proactive activity even under intense pressure.
- What transformational leadership looks like and how to really deploy it.
Mental Toughness
First developed in the 1980s to help elite athletes perform better under pressure and duress by developing high levels of belief and focus. Richard shares the insights and strategies he has learned, developed and applied, working across a wide range of contexts, to help organisations grow a culture of mental toughness in staff and teams so that they can collaborate better to contextualise, plan and overcome challenges both current and future.
Who this is for: All senior leaders, middle managers and especially those emergent leaders in your organization.
3 Key Takeaways:
- How to use failure to build confidence.
- Strategies to reframe challenges and manage perspective
- How to foster a culture of active problem solving
Simple Thinking
Richard brings his pragmatic, insightful and people-centric approach to success; what it is and how we can achieve it. He offers strategies that will lead to success and the tools individuals need to succeed both individually and as part of an organisation. Based on the research in his book, Simple Thinking, Richard will share with participants the mindsets, behaviours and attributes needed to aim higher and achieve more.
Who is this for: All senior leaders, middle managers and especially those with responsibility for HR and Professional development.
3 Key Takeaways:
- An understanding of why we seek complexity and how we can overcome it.
- The importance of confidence and how to develop it.
- Why collaboration matters and how to develop a meaningful culture to promote it.
A Sense of Direction
What do people and organisations that have enjoyed sustained success have in common? A sense of purpose. In this session, Richard explores how communication, skills development, leadership, and empowerment must be developed and nurtured to encourage a genuine sense of purpose.
