Heather 'simplifies the complex' with stories and visuals delivered in an authentic and engaging manner that leave people feeling empowered to become adaptable, lifelong learners.
Heather McGowan
Solve Tomorrow’s Problems™: Harness Human Ingenuity to Navigate What's Next
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Heather McGowan
Biography
One of Forbes' Top Futurists, Heather E. McGowan brings fresh energy and actionable insights to the future of work. A sought-after strategist, keynote speaker, and 2x bestselling author, she equips organizations to navigate relentless change by activating their most critical resource: their people.
Heather’s audiences range from startups to publicly traded Fortune 500 companies, including Google, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, and Kaiser Permanente. Through data-driven insights and powerful visual frameworks, she helps leaders and teams transform their distinctly human capabilities—adaptability, empathy, and curiosity—into strategic advantages.
Often quoted in The New York Times, with Thomas Friedman calling her an "oasis" for her insights, Heather’s bestselling books include The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage, which was named a Top 10 Business Book of 2023.
By teaching people to ask better questions, she enables them to adapt at the speed of possibility to Solve Tomorrow's Problems™.
Heather McGowan
Featured Videos
Current: The Importance of Curiosity in Building Organizational Capacity
Time 03:27
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Heather McGowan
Featured Keynote Programs
SOLVE TOMORROW’S PROBLEMS™:Harness Human Ingenuity to Navigate What's Next
SOLVE TOMORROW’S PROBLEMS™:Harness Human Ingenuity to Navigate What's Next
Think organizations can't change quickly? History proves otherwise.
When naysayers said "it can't be done," humans accomplished the impossible—in weeks, not years. Each pivotal moment reminds us of humanity’s most underestimated asset: our ability to adapt in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
In this perspective-shifting keynote, Heather challenges the myth that we resist change using unforgettable stories about a mop, a burrito, and a hermit crab to demonstrate how we can tap into our natural curiosity and hardwired drive to collaborate to see and shape what’s next.
Drawing from her bestselling books “The Adaptation Advantage” and “The Empathy Advantage,” Heather reveals how leading organizations thrive when they place adaptability at their core, allowing them to find breakthrough opportunities where others least expect them.
The audience will leave with:
* A powerful understanding of how to frame the right question
* Practical approaches to optimize how they adapt to new realities
* Clear frameworks for mapping the past to navigate the future
* The leadership mindset shifts that guide team success in uncharted territories
THE AUGMENTED ADVANTAGE
Unleashing Human Potential in the AI Era
Think you can't remember phone numbers like you used to? You're not alone. As we hand off more tasks to technology, some of our more-human capabilities will naturally fade. Yet while automation may lead to atrophy in some areas, augmentation opens doors to entirely new human capabilities—if we are intentional. The key isn’t only using AI to replace what we currently do by automating it, but transforming work as we know it.
In this eye-opening presentation, Heather cuts through the AI hype to demonstrate why thriving alongside AI isn't about having the right answers. Instead, it's about asking better questions, framing new challenges, and treating AI as our partner—enhancing our capabilities and expanding our cognitive horizons.
The audience will leave with:
* A clear understanding of what to automate vs. augment—and why it matters
* Practical ways to learn from AI as a collaborative partner
* Fresh insights on how to build on uniquely human advantages in an AI world
* Necessary leadership shifts to drive optimal human performance
THE CURIOSITY ADVANTAGE
Leading in the Age of Uncertainty
Remember when being a leader meant having all the answers? Today's most successful leaders are asking better questions. In a world of unprecedented opportunity, they’re not the most certain, but the most curious. According to research, this shift in profile—from know-it-alls to learn-it-alls—means we may be overlooking the very leaders we need right now.
In this paradigm-shifting talk, Heather reveals why the future belongs to forward-thinking leaders who can navigate relentless change by activating their team’s innate potential to learn, adapt, and grow.
Drawing on her bestselling books The Adaptation Advantage and The Empathy Advantage, along with compelling research and real-world examples, she demonstrates how exceptional performance depends on empowering rather than managing, building trust rather than enforcing processes, and harnessing collective intelligence for breakthrough results.
The audience will leave with:
* Practical tools for activating their team’s collective potential
* Clear methods for building high-trust environments where curiosity is encouraged
* Frameworks for transforming management into performance enablement
* Real examples of how curious leaders unlock performance
CLEAR ON PURPOSE
Turning Purpose into Performance Through a Shared Vision
In an era of unprecedented social division, our professional success hinges not on discussing politics at work, but on mastering the tools of constructive dialogue—active listening, intellectual humility, and genuine curiosity—to create environments where diverse perspectives transform friction into fuel for innovation.
The ability to bridge divides through emotional intelligence and skilled communication may be our most valuable professional competency in today's interconnected world. When organizational purpose aligns with human potential, extraordinary things happen.
In this inspirational keynote drawn from Heather’s most recent book, The Empathy Advantage, Heather reveals how purpose can become your organization’s most powerful performance driver.
Through compelling research and real-world examples, she demonstrates how a shared vision can create the trust, belonging, and motivation needed to transform individual potential into collective impact—through increasing engagement, reducing turnover, and unleashing performance.
By getting clear on purpose, we don't just adapt to change—we shape the future.
The audience will be able to:
* Foster brave dialogue that transforms differences into innovation
* Link individual roles to organizational purpose through clear vision
* Transform purpose into measurable actions and celebrated outcomes
* Make necessary leadership shifts to build shared vision
Heather McGowan
Featured Books
The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce
by Heather McGowan
The Adaptation Advantage
by Heather McGowan
A guide for individuals and organizations navigating the complex and ambiguous Future of Work
Foreword by New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas L. Friedman
Technology is changing work as we know it. Cultural norms are undergoing tectonic shifts. A global pandemic proves that we are inextricably connected whether we choose to be or not. So much change, so quickly, is disorienting. It's undermining our sense of identity and challenging our ability to adapt. But where so many see these changes as threatening, Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley see the opportunity to open the flood gates of human potential--if we can change the way we think about work and leadership. They have dedicated the last 5 years to understanding how technical, business, and cultural shifts affecting the workplace have brought us to this crossroads, The result is a powerful and practical guide to the future of work for leaders and employees. The future can be better, but only if we let go of our attachment to our traditional (and disappearing) ideas about careers, and what a good job looks like.
Blending wisdom from interviews with hundreds of executives, The Adaptation Advantage explains the profound changes happening in the world of work and posits the solution: new ways to think about careers that detach our sense of pride and personal identity from our job title, and connect it to our sense of purpose. Activating purpose, the authors suggest, will inherently motivate learning, engagement, empowerment, and lead to new forms of pride and identity throughout the workforce. Only when we let go of our rigid career identities can we embrace and appreciate the joys of learning and adapting to new realities--and help our organizations do the same.
Of course, making this transition is hard. It requires leaders who can attract and motivate cognitively diverse teams fueled by a strong sense of purpose in an environment of psychological safety--despite fierce competition and external pressures. Adapting to the future of work has always called for strong leadership. Now, as a pandemic disrupts so many aspects of work, adapting is a leadership imperative. The Adaptation Advantage is an essential guide to help leaders meet that challenge.
Disrupt Together: How Teams Consistently Innovate
by Heather McGowan
Heather McGowan
Featured Reviews
Heather McGowan
Featured Articles & Resources
Why learning how to handle failure is the key to career success
What does the future of work look like for businesses in a world where machine learning and artificial intelligence are replacing people with routine and repetitive tasks? The...
Future-Proofing Your Career
Author: Barbara Palmer
“If you’re not learning every day, your job is moving away from you,” future-of-work strategist Heather McGowan told Convening Leaders...
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