Tuesday, May 15, 2018
On the Edge: The Art of High-Impact Leadership
Unleash your potential in today’s competitive business environment with unconventional leadership concepts that the MBA experience and corporate America can’t – and won’t – teach you from Alison Levine. You want to talk leadership? Imagine yourself on the highest mountain in the world. You’re at 26,000 feet above sea level—a place known as the death zone; an elevation at which human beings cannot survive for long. Your brain and body are oxygen-starved. You have to deal with the physiological effects of extreme altitude—along with bone-chilling temperatures, battering winds and a climbing team that’s counting on all of its members to make smart decisions. There’s simply no room for poor judgment. Why? Because one mistake or misstep can result in an “unrecoverable error.” Be it a high mountain, a polar landscape, a military battlefield or any situation where lives on are the line or the stakes are exceptionally high—there’s no better training ground for leaders than settings where people are pushed beyond their perceived limits. Drawing on her experience as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition Levine makes a compelling case that the leadership principles that apply in the world of extreme adventure also apply to today’s rigorously competitive business environments. And Levine argues that it’s everyone’s responsibility to lead—regardless of title, tenure, where you work, or what you do. Your survival—and the survival of your team—depend on it.
About Alison Levine
Alison Levine served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, climbed the Seven Summits and skied to the North and South Poles. A history-making adventurer who also spent time in the business world, she has survived sub-zero temperatures, hurricane-force winds and sudden avalanches – and that was while climbing the corporate ladder! In her New York Times best-selling book, “On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Everest and Other Extreme Environments,” Levine asserts that the principles that apply to the world of extreme adventure also apply to demanding business environments. A former part-time faculty member at West Point, Alison Levine understands what it takes to lead teams through challenging situations. On stage, she uses stunning imagery from her various expeditions to demonstrate how progress can be made going backward, why egos are a good thing and how complacency can kill you. One of today’s most in-demand speakers, she inspires audiences to push themselves further than they ever thought possible.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Red Teaming: How Your Business Can Conquer the Competition by Challenging Everything
Today, most — if not all — established corporations live with the gnawing fear that there is another Uber out there just waiting to disrupt their industry. Red Teaming is the cure for this anxiety. The term was coined by the U.S. Army, which has developed the most comprehensive and effective approach to Red Teaming in the world today in response to the debacles of its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the roots of Red Teaming run very deep: to the Roman Catholic Church’s “Office of the Devil’s Advocate,” to the Kriegsspiel of the Prussian General Staff and to the secretive AMAN organization, Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence. In his keynote, Bryce Hoffman shows business how to use the same techniques to better plan for the uncertainties of today’s rapidly changing economy.
As president of Red Team Thinking, Hoffman teaches companies around the world how to strengthen their plans, stress-test their strategies, identify missed opportunities, and expose hidden threats in order to help them succeed in today’s rapidly changing global economy.
About Bryce Hoffman
Bryce G. Hoffman is an author, speaker, strategic adviser and management consultant who believes that individuals have the power to transform companies and cultures. Hoffman wrote the bestselling book “American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company,” which has become a manual for leaders who want to transform their companies. His new book, “Red Teaming: How Your Business Can Conquer the Competition by Challenging Everything,” was published this year by Crown Business.
Red teaming is a system developed by the U.S. Military and intelligence agencies to make critical and contrarian thinking part of an organization’s strategic planning process. Red Teams operate as specific divisions within an organization whose sole purpose is to stress-test strategies, identify missed opportunities, and expose hidden threats. In 2015, Hoffman became the first and only civilian to graduate from the U. S. Army’s Red Team Leader Program at the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Hoffman spent 22 years as a business reporter, covering Silicon Valley, the biotech industry in the San Francisco Bay Area and the automobile industry in Detroit. His work received numerous awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Associated Press and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He was also a three-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award, the most prestigious honor in business journalism.
Hoffman left journalism in 2014 to work as a consultant full-time, but he continues to write a column on leadership and business culture for Forbes.com. In addition, he appears regularly on television and radio shows in the United States and around the world, including the BBC, NPR, CNN, FOX, PBS, CBS, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, the CBC, RTÉ, Radio New Zealand, al Jazeera, Deutschland radio and other local, national and international networks.
A native of California, Hoffman majored in anthropology and philosophy at San Francisco State University and later completed a fellowship in economics at the California State University in Hayward. He now resides with his wife in Fenton, Michigan.
Conference Emcee
About Tony Neuman
Tony is a Marketing Manager in Cargill’s Foodservice Protein division where he challenges himself and the team he leads to blend creativity with practicality to deliver programs that increase sales. Neuman’s career has spanned roles in marketing, sales and communications which allows him, in his words, “to effectively speak all three languages.” He also enjoys public speaking and has a passion for coaching which recently led him to launch his own business; Mid-Career Coaching. Neuman is excited to help bring some energy to kick off our conference each day!
