Amir Ghannad

This inspiring talk aimed at aspiring and existing leaders is one of Amir’s signature keynotes, and its life-changing message has received rave reviews from thousands of people all over the globe! The overwhelming feedback from past audiences has been that it is one of the most powerful and impactful talks--on leadership or otherwise--they have ever attended! In this session, Amir introduces the Transformative Leadership philosophy that has been proven effective in diverse business situations across multiple industries and regions. Audience members will leave empowered to be--and show up as--the Transformative Leaders they already are. They will also be equipped to begin making a significant difference in their organizations and communities, regardless of their title or formal authority, immediately following the session.

Part motivational speech and part leadership development primer, Amir not only introduces the tools and skills necessary to practice Transformative Leadership, but guides participants in adopting the proper mindset to make the most of the tools and skills they already possess. Beyond that, this surprising and disarming presentation makes building leadership capability accessible to both aspiring and existing leaders alike. The end result is that audience members will leave the session excited and ready to boldly declare, courageously pursue, and abundantly achieve the extraordinary!

Key Takeaways:
• How Transformative Leadership differs from traditional leadership.
• The difference between change and transformation and why it matters.
• Inspiration and personal reflections on actionable steps the participants can take to get out of their own way and tap into their leadership potential to transform their results and the quality of their experience.
• What almost all conventional leadership training and development is missing.
• Understanding the Hidden Saboteurs of Success and Fulfillment, and how they hold us back from delivering extraordinary results and experiencing unprecedented fulfillment.
• Insight into the Habits of Transformative Leadership we can practice to be and show up as Transformative Leaders in any aspect of our lives.
• A simple roadmap to powerfully get in action on these key takeaways immediately.

Note: Although the above represents the key message of this keynote, Amir spends ample time with each client in advance to understand their specific challenges and opportunities to customize the delivery in a way that resonates with their specific target audience.

In this talk aimed at existing and aspiring leaders, Amir paints a picture of what a “High Commitment Culture” (HCC) is and makes a compelling case for culture being what really sets High-Performance Organizations (HPOs) apart from others. Participants will learn the foundation of and blueprint for creating High Commitment Cultures that consistently deliver breakthrough results for stakeholders and generate unprecedented fulfillment for team members.

Far from being a dense slideshow of numbers and graphs, Amir’s knowing sense of humor and appreciation for the small victories and challenges of transforming workplace cultures make this talk relatable to both veteran and rookie leaders alike. As practical as it is entertaining, this session introduces approaches that have been proven effective over decades of implementation in multiple industries across the globe. These approaches themselves are the result of reverse-engineering several turnaround cases involving culture transformation into repeatable, customizable steps that anyone can apply in their own organization or community to achieve unprecedented success and fulfillment.

Using specific examples of personal experiences from the case study he presents, this talk reveals to participants the greatest obstacle to their organization’s transformation, and how to finally get it out of the way. Participants also learn about small tweaks they can make to their behavior and language to create significant and immediate shifts in their organization’s culture and results. Applying his skills as a master storyteller, Amir invites the audience along on his journey of implementing Transformative Leadership principles to achieve benchmark results in areas such as safety, efficiency, and productivity while propelling trust and teamwork to new heights and inspires them to see themselves doing the same for their organizations. Audience members will leave the session confident in their ability to create extraordinary cultures that consistently deliver breakthrough results, even in the most unfavorable circumstances.

Key Takeaways:
• Why an organization’s culture is its most important defining characteristic.
• Actionable steps that can be taken immediately by participants to create a culture of commitment that transcends drama and ignites passionate engagement.
• The soft skills that must be mastered to ensure that culture transformation is successfully implemented.
• The reasons that culture transformation efforts often fail, and proven steps to ensure the most favorable outcomes.
• Insights into practical approaches that Transformative Leaders use to compel and energize their teams to move the organization toward a common vision.
• The characteristics and principles of a High Commitment Culture, and how they are related to creating HPOs.

Note: Although the above represents the key message of this keynote, Amir spends ample time with each client in advance to understand their specific challenges and opportunities to customize the delivery in a way that resonates with their specific target audience.

Immigrating to the U.S. on his own at age 16, with hardly any money and extremely limited English proficiency, Amir learned early on what it takes to survive--and thrive--in an uncertain environment. As a young Iranian in the ‘80s with no outside support, negotiating a foreign culture, attending school, and trying to make ends meet, Amir’s journey inevitably led to adventures (and misadventures) so various that they could fill a book! Then, not too long after he had settled into his new home, he set off to live and work in such diverse locales as Thailand and Germany, which each presented their own unique challenges and opportunities. All along, these experiences were teaching Amir valuable lessons about survival, resourcefulness, resilience, diversity, growth, determination, success, leadership, life and so on. In this often humorous, always insightful talk, Amir imparts the hard-won wisdom of a lifetime of cross-cultural navigation, and the fascinating ways in which he came by it, in hopes of inspiring others to build on his learnings, avoid his mistakes, and relate to themselves as capable of overcoming any obstacles that stand in their way.

Aimed at general audiences, this more personal talk, at once captivating, entertaining, and educational, employs Amir’s skills as a master storyteller to transport listeners back to specific episodes in his life as an immigrant and expat encountering the trials, tribulations, and trivialities of those times. Audience members will learn deep, insightful lessons, laughing along with Amir as he shares some of the most fascinating and surprising stories they have ever heard.

By sharing the adversity he faced and how he was able to overcome it, Amir aims to inspire others to see that they have what it takes to rise above whatever challenges they are facing and achieve extraordinary success and fulfillment. This talk will reassure audiences that, no matter where they are starting from, they have what it takes to overcome their circumstances to survive, thrive, and eventually become a source of inspiration to others around them to do the same!

Key Takeaways:
• Your life shrinks and expands to match the size of your commitments.
• Survival is the lowest form of commitment and bold declarations bring out the best in you.
• The difference between surviving and thriving, and how the focus on the former prevents us from achieving the latter.
• How our erroneous and limiting beliefs are survival tools that no longer serve a purpose.
• How to turn today's challenges into tomorrow's victories.
• Why stories with happy endings rarely feel like it along the way.

Note: Although the above represents the key message of this keynote, Amir spends ample time with each client in advance to understand their specific challenges and opportunities to customize the delivery in a way that resonates with their specific target audience.

In this interactive presentation, participants are invited to examine the practical application of proven approaches to energize and motivate their team members to move the organization toward a common vision.

Participants will learn how Transformative Leaders use these approaches to create cultures that consistently deliver breakthrough results for all stakeholders and unprecedented fulfillment for team members. These approaches have been proven effective over decades of implementation in industries across the globe and are the result of reverse-engineering several turnaround cases involving culture transformation.

Key Take-aways:
• The unique role of Transformative Leaders in transforming the culture and results of an organization.
• Insights into practical approaches that Transformative Leaders use to align the organization’s “why” with those of the individuals.
• Personal reflections on how participants can become more effective at leading a culture transformation effort and which of the approaches they must prioritize and act on immediately.
• Actionable steps that can be taken immediately by participants to create a culture of commitment that transcends drama and ignites passionate engagement.