Leading Organizations through Uncertainty with Tony O’Driscoll

Driving change in an organization is never easy. The failure rate for organizational transformation over the past fifteen years is as high as 60-90%. But today’s strategists recognize that change is necessary—technological advancement, rising customer expectations, geopolitical tensions, and supply chain disruption prompt an irrefutable dilemma: Organizations need to change or they will not survive.

The fact is, most transformation efforts fail because they underemphasize the emotional side of change. It is not the organizations that need to change but the people working inside them. In order to guide successful transformation, leaders need to put people at the center, to develop a culture that fosters a sense of aspiration, alignment, autonomy, and accountability.

Tony O’Driscoll is a professor, speaker, author, and advisor whose message emphasizes that the key digital-age differentiator is not technology, but people. Tony’s current positions as adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Pratt School of Engineering coupled with his role as research fellow at Duke Corporate Education afford him the unique opportunity to apply cutting-edge academic research to increasingly complex business challenges. He has spent the bulk of his professional and academic career at the nexus of business, innovation, technology, change, and learning, creating and implementing strategies that enable organizations to realize the full potential of their most valuable asset: human beings.

In this roundtable, Tony will introduce his concept of People-Centered Transformation, which proposes that people are the organization’s most important source of competitive advantage and yet they are often the least leveraged asset. Tony will cover ten key elements of his people-centered transformation framework and a company assessment to determine how you might change your own beliefs and behaviors to cultivate a culture that enables your organization to transform to its highest aspirations.