Robert Sutton

Featured Keynote Programs

Robert Sutton, along with colleague Hayagreeva Rao, spent six years working to uncover how the best leaders and organizations spread excellence: from people and places that have it, to those that don’t. Sutton shows how the fate of every organization depends on building or finding pockets of exemplary performance, and—more importantly—how to spread those splendid deeds from the few to the many. Scaling well requires more than just creating a big footprint in a small amount of time.

He shares principles that can be applied to organizations of every size and stripe: including large and small nonprofits, government agencies, schools, universities, and hospitals. Sutton closes by emphasizing that successful scaling requires relentless attention: a concentrated effort throughout the entire organization. There is no quick and easy way to do it well. Indeed, the most successful leaders are so persistent that they seem to take the path of most—rather than least—resistance as they spread excellence from the few to the many.

Sutton weaves together the best psychological and management research with true stories to reveal the mindset and moves of the best bosses – which he bolsters by contrasting them with evidence on how the worst bosses think of themselves and treat their people. Sutton shows how bosses can master essentials including striking just the right balance between being too assertive and not assertive and doing dirty work like disciplining and firing employees in timely and humane ways.

Combining ideas from HBR top book of the year Weird Ideas That Work, his experience as an IDEO fellow, academic research on innovation, and his experience in the new Stanford Institute of Design – where the focus is on teaching and coaching student teams that are doing real creative for real companies like Mozilla, Fidelity, WalMart, SAP, Timbuk2, Google, and others – Sutton talks about and leads workshops with organizations about the challenges of managing and doing creative work.

Stanford Professor Robert Sutton leads workshops that combine his vast knowledge of theory and research about innovation with a real-world, hands-on approach. He has conducted these design thinking workshops with groups including Arco gas stations, Tesla Motors, Del Monte Foods, the Ministry of Manpower in Singapore, and the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi.

These workshops typically run three hours and are highly interactive, resulting in lessons about key elements of innovation and design thinking including leadership, group dynamics, human resource management and, especially, the fundamentals of the design process and hands on learning about how to apply it to a host of business problems. In addition, they work with clients to develop and deliver workshops that are customized to the client’s needs and interests.