Stephen Shapiro

What if your organization had an effective and systematic approach to deal with any problem or opportunity? To find better solutions, you need to first ask better questions. The questions you ask determine which solutions you’ll see and which will remain hidden.

This interactive keynote contains a very simple tool to reframe any problem multiple ways: twenty-five lenses that help you gain different perspectives. Packed with powerful stories and practical tools, this speech will enable everyone on your teams to start mastering any challenge.

This keynote/workshop will help the audience...

• Discover why we are hardwired to ask ineffective questions and how to work through those barriers
• Understand the power and importance of well-defined questions
• Reframe any problem multiple ways to help you find the optimal solution
• During this customizable and interactive keynote, the audience will not just leave with new concepts, they will have powerful tools they can apply every day.

For longer sessions, teams will have a chance to apply the twenty-five lenses. Not only does this leave people with a deeper understanding, but you also will capture valuable insights that the company can use. This can be done with audiences of any size.

In our fast-paced modern world, workplace burnout and confusion have become the norm. But it doesn’t need to be this way. Stephen Shapiro’s keynote offers a powerful antidote to the dizzying spinning and relentless chaos overwhelming countless organizations (and individuals) today.

He provides practical tools to help you distinguish genuine opportunities from mere distractions, thereby creating stability in your professional and personal life.

The concept of stability is akin to a basketball player executing a pivot. While one foot moves in a circular motion, the other remains anchored to the ground. The unsung hero is the foot that doesn’t move, as it provides the solid foundation and stability needed for future shifts. This speech champions the planted foot. By focusing on what doesn’t—and shouldn’t—change, you can build a robust foundation that supports future shifts without wasting valuable resources on bright shiny objects or fleeting fads.

We live in challenging times. Inflation. Supply chain disruptions. Pandemics. War. Talent shortages. An unpredictable economy. Given this level of uncertainty, we need a different approach for innovation. When you can’t predict what will happen next, traditional long-term investment strategies fail.

The key to being nimble during these turbulent times is to focus on placing many small bets – rather than a few large ones. But what bets do you place? Which bets should you kill? And when should you double down? Answering these questions is the key to success.

During this interactive session, you will discover:

• How to place better (more frequent yet smaller) bets
• How to determine which bets are not worth further investment (experimentation)
• How to avoid failure – and what to do when you do fail
• How to create a culture of experimentation – quickly and inexpensively
• To demonstrate how we can lower our risk with our bets, we have fun with a simple gambling simulation . The key is getting as many insights about the future, for the lowest possible investment.

This practical session will not only give everyone the tools and mindset for creating small experiments, but also will leave them with specific actions they can take within the next seven days to make progress with their innovation efforts.

The concepts are so simple to implement that companies can create an entire culture around experimentation with little effort, time, or cost. The “small bets” approach demonstrated during this session are truly a game changer for any organization of any size.