James Kerr

keynote speaker james kerr

James Kerr advises the 'best of the best' on leadership, high performance and culture change for competitive advantage. His recent clients include SEAL Team 6, the British SAS, Manchester City, Leicester City and Liverpool FCs, the New York Mets, Team GB and the World-cup winning England Cricket Team. He has worked with Eton College, the Hospital for Special Surgery, FBI SWAT teams, UEFA, America's Cup and Formula One teams, as well as with corporate clients including Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co, Dyson and Google. His global bestseller, Legacy, 15 Lessons in Leadership, goes to the heart of the most successful sporting team in history, the New Zealand All Blacks, and explores the transferrable principles that all great teams have in common and how leaders can apply them to lift their game. He is currently working on two books: Where the Earth Meets the Sky is about the Everest basecamp disaster and what it takes to overcome adversity in order to reach the top. The Legacy Workbook, a Curriculum for Change, addresses the practical challenges leaders face in implementing change. He regularly advises elite clients on galvanising teams, resetting standards, and rebooting a winning culture and mindset. Aim: To drive connection, collaboration, cohesion and communication in challenging times. The masterclass will provide leaders or future leaders with practical tools to implement lasting change within their teams and organisations.

Masterclass overview

COVID presents many challenges for leaders; how to pivot strategically to meet new demands, how to drive rapid and continuous transformation, how to enable and encourage initiative and agility at every level, how to lead teams through uncertainty, how to create cohesion and common cause through times of social distancing and remote working, how to maintain morale, resilience and mental balance in anxious times, how to lead and communicate powerfully from a distance, how to turn crisis into opportunity – how to change, and change fast, in order to win.

In response to the crisis, high performance consultant James Kerr has turned the principles developed with some of the world’s most iconic sports, military and business teams into a powerful 60-90-minute masterclass that enables leaders to reboot, re-evaluate and reconnect as they pivot to face the new normal.

Value and expected outcomes

  • Go for the Gap: recognising the pace of change – not completing the change curve before going again. Turning crisis into opportunity.
  • When you’re on top of your game, change the game –  adapt to a swiftly changing context. Recognise the need to become expert learners.
  • Leaders Create Leaders – imprinting the flexibility to take on responsibility. Building an environment of trust, autonomy and initiative.
  • People will rise to a challenge if it is their challenge: leading your people through change – the key to an engaged and motivated team. Creating a coalition of the willing.
  • Champions Do Extra: creating a mindset of marginal gains. Pound the Rock!
  • Leaders Are Teachers: developing a growth mindset within a learning environment. Encouraging Expert Learners.
  • Go for the Gap – developing a creative mindset, unafraid to try new things, to experiment and learn fast.  Developing and maintaining a winning mindset.
  • Write your legacy – developing a framework for the future by creating common cause through an uncommon story.

What is covered?

Objectives:

  • Best Practice – Participants will begin to understand the performance principles governing the best teams in the world.
  • Growth Mindset – Participants will be inspired to incorporate some of these principles into their leadership practice.
  • Marginal Gains – Teams will benefit from developing tangible actions to improve the business in multiple areas
  • Stickability – the storytelling format creates cut-through and memorability;
  • Connection – the interactive component enables participants to connect with their team mates in a new way, sharing mutual challenges to design a new future for their team.
  • Intensity – the fast, concise programme accelerates learning and builds engagement.
  • Inspiration, insight and information – a fast paced, stimulating discussion with immediate practical application.
  • Interaction – participants ‘bring themselves’ to the game.
  • Accountability – participants are encouraged to commit to actions to take the themes forward.
  • Lifting Performance – proven techniques for increasing performance.

Key Themes:

Key themes can be agreed depending on the client’s needs. These can be discussed and agreed in a briefing call, at which point a formal proposal would be submitted, including a masterclass ‘script’. The following themes are a menu to begin discussion – points of departure to begin the process of co-creating a session:

RE:BOOT: resetting your culture to survive and thrive in the new normal

  • RE:EVALUATE

In difficult times, great teams focus on the fundamentals – the principles and values that define your culture. How do you turn your values into value?

  • RE:ENVISION

Without vision, the Bible says, people perish.  You won’t get there unless you can see where you are going. What is your vision and is it clearly understood?

  • RE:PURPOSE

How can teams lift their game by connecting around common cause? How can shared purpose drive high performance?

  • RE:FRAME

How do leaders reframe their narrative to repurpose their people? What’s your story?

  • RE:CONNECT

Social distancing has created social distance, yet the key to all high performing teams is cohesion.  How do leaders create real cohesion in a virtual world?

  • RE:EMPOWER

Working from home raises issues of trust; employees must step up and take initiative, leaders must step back and enable increased autonomy and independence.  How do leaders create a culture of empowerment and trust?

  • RE:SET

A new world demands more from your people; they must step up, accept new responsibility and take the initiative. How do leaders create leaders?

  • RE:SILIANCE

Pressure is a privilege. How teams and individuals maintain a winning mindset during challenging times and use adversity to propel them to greater success. How individuals develop mental strength, fortitude and focus during uncertain and pressurised moments. How do winners turn pressure into performance?

  • RE:SPONSIBILITY

Responsibility is the hallmark of a leader. During the session, participants are challenged to take on ‘one thing’ from the discussions to champion and make real. What is the one thing from this session that you will take the lead on making happen?

  • RE:VIEW

World-class teams are learning organisations – they get better every day. How do leaders create a growth mindset?

 

 RE:PEAT

This is an opportunity, if required, to put into place a series of follow-up sessions; either in a group format, in order to develop the thinking and ‘sharpen the saw’, or as personal leadership coaching with selected leaders to provide ‘a still point in a changing world’ and hold them to account. These could be:

  • Fortnightly check-in calls with the group;
  • Fortnightly coaching calls with selected leaders;
  • Monthly/quarterly re:boot sessions with full team.

Looking for fees and availability for James Kerr?

You can directly contact Eugenia, Head of executive learning

Eugenia Feoktistova​ Head Of Executive Learning +44 208 748 9595

Or you can use the form to submit your enquiry

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