Ted Talks for Business Leaders

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When you own a business, you’re not just leading the way for your company, but you’re also seeking leaders to stand with along the way. Not everyone will successfully lead with you or have the best interest for your company, but choosing the right leaders play a key role in the success of your business. But choosing the right leaders is only half the challenge. Once you have a dedicated team, you have to keep everyone communicating, growing, working as a team, and excited about your brand. The selected Ted Talks below focus on leadership skills and how to create a focused team set to achieve your same goals.

Amy Edmondson | May 2018

Business school professor Amy Edmondson studies “teaming,” where people come together quickly (and often temporarily) to solve new, urgent or unusual problems. Recalling stories of teamwork on the fly, such as the incredible rescue of 33 miners trapped half a mile underground in Chile in 2010, Edmondson shares the elements needed to turn a group of strangers into a quick-thinking team that can nimbly respond to challenges.

 

John Doerr | April 2018

Our leaders and institutions are failing us, but it’s not always because they’re bad or unethical, says venture capitalist John Doerr — often, it’s simply because they’re leading us toward the wrong objectives. In this practical talk, Doerr shows us how we can get back on track with “Objectives and Key Results,” or OKRs — a goal-setting system that’s been employed by the likes of Google, Intel and Bono to set and execute on audacious goals. Learn more about how setting the right goals can mean the difference between success and failure — and how we can use OKRs to hold our leaders and ourselves accountable.

 

Frances Frei | April 2018

Trust is the foundation for everything we do. But what do we do when it’s broken? In an eye-opening talk, Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei gives a crash course in trust: how to build it, maintain it and rebuild it — something she worked on during a recent stint at Uber. “If we can learn to trust one another more, we can have unprecedented human progress,” Frei says.

 

Marco Alverá | October 2017

What is it about unfairness? Whether it’s not being invited to a friend’s wedding or getting penalized for bad luck or an honest mistake, unfairness often makes us so upset that we can’t think straight. And it’s not just a personal issue — it’s also bad for business, says Marco Alverà. He explains how his company works to create a culture of fairness — and how tapping into our innate sense of what’s right and wrong makes for happier employees and better results.

 

Jon Bowers | July 2017

Sometimes trying your best isn’t enough; when the situation demands it, you need to be perfect. For Jon Bowers, who runs a training facility for professional delivery drivers, the stakes are high — 100 people in the US die every day in car accidents — and it’s perfection, or “a willingness to do what is difficult to achieve what is right,” that he looks to achieve. He explains why we should all be equally diligent about striving toward perfection in everything we do, even if it means failing along the way.

 

Jim Hemerling | May 2016

Who says change needs to be hard? Organizational change expert Jim Hemerling thinks adapting your business in today’s constantly-evolving world can be invigorating instead of exhausting. He outlines five imperatives, centered around putting people first, for turning company reorganization into an empowering, energizing task for all.