Experiment Your Way to Excellence--Becoming an Experimental Leader
In this talk, Melanie will talk about how becoming an Experimental Leader will jumpstart your leadership success. Based on her book The Experimental Leader, this keynote helps the audience engage in new ideas about leadership and leave with a short next step action plan on where they will experiment first in their own work.
“I've been in a leadership position in my profession for over 20 years and The Experimental Leader has given me an opportunity to refresh my approach working with my team. I navigate, on a daily basis, a fast moving and multi faceted environment on a television show. The Experimental Leader helped me to evaluate my current leadership skills and to identify and troubleshoot in areas where I will see positive change for myself and my team. I look forward to using experiments and techniques such a Gemba walks and utilizing the "test the theory" questions after each chapter. I will be returning to this book again and again. My best takeaway from the Experimental Leader that I will apply to my daily leadership challenges is "Intents describe what will be accomplished. Your people determine how the work will be done."
-Shawn Reeves Emmy winning costume designer
The Experimental Leader--Overcoming Your Disfunctional Leadership Style by Becoming an Experimental Leader
In this talk based on the book The Experimental Leader, Melanie Parish goes through seven disfunctional leadership styles and how becoming an experimental leader can help you leave the disfunction behind. Learn to identify your own disfunctional style or styles and figure out how there is a new path forward. Leave with 3 key next steps to step into a new way of leading.
“In the digital age, leaders are being called on to be more innovative, more creative, and more flexible than ever. And now, they have the means to do so. Melanie Parish shows leaders how to apply the rigorous methodology of scientific experimentation to create a culture of innovation and achieve continuous improvements. It’s a radical new approach to leadership that is long overdue!”
— Libby Robinson, MCC, managing partner and CEO of Integral Leadership & Coaching
Mel speaks about leadership from the perspective of a transman whose first experience with leadership was a “Glass Cliff” position. In July of 2021, he became one of only a handful of transgender leaders in academia when he was appointed department chair of psychology at McMaster University. But his appointment was inherently challenging. It was a “Glass Cliff” opportunity that was available only because his department was in crisis. His approach to leadership was different from other leaders at McMaster. A champion of radically inclusive leadership, Mel embraces formal consensus decision making and values-based governance. His talks delve into the challenges he faced while doing his best to take a values-based approach to leadership, his struggles to maintain integrity in such an environment, his tapping into personal strength, community, and resilience, and the leadership lessons he learned along the way.
