Invisible Solutions:
A Systematic Approach for Solving Difficult Business Problems

What if your organization had an effective and systematic approach to deal with any problem?

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 the formulas 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.

Take-aways: 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.

This enlightening experience brings to life the concept in Stephen Shapiro’s latest book, Invisible Solutions.

Innovate the Way You Innovate:
Uncovering Innovative Solutions to Difficult Problems

Well-intentioned leaders, in their attempts to boost innovation, are inadvertently destroying it. What if “thinking outside the box” actually kills innovation? What if failure is not a necessary component of innovation? It’s time to innovate the way you innovate.

During this customizable and interactive keynote, you will discover that innovation isn’t just about generating occasional new ideas; it’s about staying consistently one step ahead of the competition. This enlightening experience brings to life the concept in Stephen Shapiro’s latest books, Invisible Solutions and Best Practices Are Stupid.

Take-aways: You will discover why:

• You don’t want to innovate everywhere. Avoid trying to improve every aspect of your business. Instead, “innovate where you differentiate.” Focus your energy where there is the greatest potential impact.

• Asking for ideas is a bad idea. Avoid suggestion boxes or abstract questions. They create a lot of noise and wasted energy. Instead, provide well-framed challenges to increase creative output. “Don’t think outside the box, find a better box.”
• Expertise is the enemy of innovation. Breakthroughs are rarely developed by experts within your industry or area of specialization. Instead, reframe your challenge to find solutions elsewhere.
• The pragmatic approaches shared in “Innovate the Way You Innovate” have increased innovation ROI tenfold or more.

Personality Poker:
Creating a High-Performing Innovation Team

Contrary to conventional wisdom, opposites do not attract. As a result, in business, we tend to surround ourselves with people who are similar to us. Although this is great for efficiency, this lack of diversity can kill innovation.

How can you increase your innovation potential? Play Personality Poker® with Stephen Shapiro! This fast-paced, highly interactive game will help you discover (Take-aways):

• Your primary innovation personality
• Your innovation blind spots
• Why the person you like the least is the person you need the most
• What is missing from your team that is limiting innovation and success
• How to create a high-performing innovation team that leverages divergent points of view

This is the most interactive keynote you will ever experience and has been done with audiences of more than 1,000 people in a Vegas casino! Be ready for an incredible way to kick off your conference as it will set the tone for the rest of your event!

Innovation for Innovators:
Create Your Best Innovation Culture

You’ve decided to invest in innovation.

You have a team of innovators ready to change your culture.

Now where do you begin?

Stephen’s presentation, consisting of content from his best-selling book, Best Practices are Stupid, is specifically designed for individuals tasked with making innovation a reality in your organization. Throughout this impressive presentation, Stephen will address a wide range of issues such as (Take-aways):

• Why failure is bad but experimentation is good
• How to measure innovation to ensure you are innovating efficiently
• What organization structures help push innovation to the lowest levels of the organization
• How to identify your organization’s differentiator and its impact on innovation
• How to motivate everyone in the organization to participate in innovation
• How to maximize your innovation ROI with a challenge-centered approach

“Innovation for Innovators” provides the basics and the specifics necessary for any company to create a pervasive culture of innovation.

Making the Impossible Possible:
Developing Breakthrough Solutions

Innovation isn’t just for innovators! It’s for everyone. This interactive keynote – which can be done with any size audience and is relevant to everyone – shares a number of practical techniques that anyone in your organization can use.  

Take-aways – techniques to help:

• Sales reps develop new and better ways of closing the deal
• Marketers create more compelling and persuasive campaigns
• IT develop better technology more rapidly with lower risk
• HR professionals better engage employees and improve performance management
• Manufacturing reduce costs and improve quality
• Everyone be more productive and better at solving your business challenges

Some common activities include

Make the impossible possible
This fun technique has its roots in magic and is fundamentally different than how most people solve problems.

Predict what the competition will do
A good source of creative inspiration is to look at what you fear your current – and future – competitors will do…and then beat them to the punch.

Make connections
Most people solve problems through their “expertise” lens. But this limits potential solutions. Instead find someone else who has solved a similar problem.

Speaker’s Corner
Inspired by Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, London, this technique is a free-market approach to developing solutions. It is fast, fun, and wildly efficient.