S. Chris Edmonds

What separates good companies from great companies? Great companies are as intentional about values alignment as they are about company performance.

Based on his book, The Culture Engine, Chris presents the three secrets of how leaders create high performing, values-aligned companies:

1. They design their desired culture,
2. They align behaviors to that desired culture, and
3. They refine practices over time as the culture evolves.
Chris shares how culture clients have boosted engagement, service, and profits by creating an organizational constitution and then managing to it.

Chris shares how to implement culture change using an organizational constitution. He outlines his practical, step-by-step approach to engaging team members in the creation of your organizational constitution. He helps leaders understand the need to model the values and behaviors outlined in their organizational constitution. Chris then provides examples of how leaders have held themselves, managers, and staff accountable for both performance and values.

How engaged are your team members? Would they say they are treated, in every interaction, with dignity and respect?

Employee morale and engagement continues to erode in workplaces around the globe. Research by Blessing White revealed that only 4 in 10 US employees are engaged at work. Research by World at Work showed that employee engagement by top performers dropped nearly 25% in the last five years.

This keynote helps leaders understand their primary responsibility of creating a safe, inspiring work environment for all employees.

Chris shares examples and stories from organizations that have created a psychologically safe work environment, and experience employees that:

1. Bring Their Skills & Interests – a workplace that lets every employee leverage their unique skills and interests out-performs a workplace that does not. Every day.

2. Bring Their “Best Selves” – a work environment that allows every employee to do what they do best in service to team and company goals generates authentic enthusiasm for tasks and customers.

3. Bring Their Brains - a workplace that is safe for employee’s to think and share ideas about how to get work done more efficiently generates improvements in the work flow every day.

Chris brings insights from 30 years as a performing musician to help leaders create inspired, cooperative performance - not self-serving, competition between team members.

Great live performances require well-prepared, skilled musicians who work WITH each other, listening carefully to leave space for others’ contributions, and not step on anyone’s toes with an unfortunately timed vocal or instrumental. Every note played, every word sung, needs to serve the song’s message and the listener’s receipt of it. Every tune played needs an intentional strategy to guide the players and the performance.

Yet most work teams create an environment where individual success trumps team success. If one team member wins while the rest lose, that’s not creating sustainable value for your customers - nor is it a compelling environment to work in for team members.

This presentation outlines proven practices to compliment a team’s performance requirements - with clear team purpose, values, and behaviors that help everyone align, cooperate, and succeed, together.