Peter Bregman

Seventy percent of all major change efforts fail, mostly because of rampant fear, anxiety and resistance. Do you think of resistance as an inevitable byproduct of change? Peter Bregman, author of Point B: A Short Guide to Leading a Big Change, argues that resistance is optional, an unintended consequence of the way most leaders try to execute change.

Done well, change is not something to suffer through on the way to something better (or maybe just different). Change is really an opportunity to deepen engagement and ownership. You will create a workplace where everyone feels responsible for the success of the entire organization.

In this lively talk, Peter Bregman begins with the obvious fact that people do not resist their own ideas. So to make a change happen, the wider workforce needs to have some control. The question for leaders is, how to share control without losing control?

The key to collaboration does not require a complicated restructuring or company-wide transformation. All it requires is that each person makes conscious, strategic choices about how to engage with others. Peter Bregman demonstrates how the right set up, the right reminders, and the right debriefs-taking just a few minutes a day-can transform conflict into collaboration and animosity into admiration.

In this lively, practical, conversational presentation, Bregman shares the most common mistakes people make with each other and offers ways to replace the downward spiral of negativity that can quickly destroy companies into an upward spiral of positive, productive collaboration that catapults organizations to success.

Organizations succeed when people use every part of who they are to take care of their top priorities in the most efficient way possible. In this counter-intuitive speech, Bregman shows us how getting people to fit in or fix their weaknesses work against us. Instead, he tells leaders to help people embrace their weaknesses, assert their differences, leverage their strengths, pursue their passions, and then focus those talents-hour by hour-on the right things, avoiding the inevitable distractions that otherwise subvert our efforts.