Steve Denning and Seth Kahan Teach a MasterClass: Getting Change Right Through High-Performance Teams

Washington, DC, April 21, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Steve Denning, a former director at the World Bank, is the author of award-winning books on leadership, innovation and business storytelling. His book, The Secret Language of Leadership, was selected by the Financial times as one of the best business books of 2007. His forthcoming book on high-performance teams will be published Fall 2010.

Seth Kahan was designated Visionary by the Center for Association Leadership. He has worked one-on-one helping senior leaders with large-scale change at World Bank, Peace Corps, Shell, NASA, and 20+ organizations in the public and private sectors. His book Getting Change Right: Creating Rapid, Widespread Change, will be published Spring 2010.

Seth Kahan and Steve Denning worked together as a team and won international recognition for the rapid transformation of the World Bank's successful Knowledge Management initiative. They have been inspiriing change in companies for 7 years.

Denning says, "The sad truth is that most change programs fail. In this MasterClass, you will learn why and what you can do to launch high-performance teams and change programs that really work."

The MasterClass teaches participants how to:
- Master the elements that create and sustain high-performance teams, i.e. project teams that are both exceptionally productive and deeply satisfying to the participants.
- Generate highly productive teams that hum with excitement and buzz with energy and enthusiasm.
- Engage people, garnering their enthusiastic participation to overcome the inevitable obstacles on the road to success.
- Create rapid, widespread engagement for new ideas.

Chip Heath, co-author of Made to Stick, said, "Steve Denning is the Warren Buffett of business communication. He sees things others don't and is able to explain them so the rest of us can understand.”

Susan Sarfati, former CEO, Center for Association Leadership, said, “Seth is a business revolutionary, stretching the limits of traditional thinking. His innovations have been successful in world-class organizations“

The agenda for the 2-day seminar is:
Day One
1. Identify and Energize Your Most Valuable Players
Identifying the champions, partners, and other valuable stakeholders
The meaning, potential and origins of high-performance teams
2. Map the Territory of Change
Identifying issues, pot-holes, misinformation, and new high-value ideas
Getting clear on the change goal
Teams vs individuals
Understanding high-performance teams
Delighting the client
Radical transparency
Relentless improvement towards the goal
Interactive communications and leadership storytellng
3. Communicate So that People Get It and Spread It
Articulating and sharing your main idea so that it is compelling and easy-to-share
Understanding your audience
Understanding your own role
Getting people’s attention
Inspiring people’s desire for change—the springboard story
Reinforcing with reasons

Day Two
4. Create Communities that Accelerate Evolution
Creating the container for high-performance
Igniting the fire of high-performance within the container
Enabling people to work together
Building social groups that take on your toughest challenges and create solutions for you
Collaborating with people who are not like you and Drawing on the power of cognitive diversity
5. Generate Dramatic Surges in Progress
Generating rapid movement forward on all fronts through strategic events
Sustaining the fire of high-performance
Keys to creating leaps in productivity
6. Staying in Balance and Ahead of the Curve
Course corrections
Dealing with setbacks and resisters
Replenishing the energy
Care and feeding of your brain while leading change

Further info and/or photos:
Seth Kahan
Principal, Performance Development Group, Inc.
301/229-2221
seth@visionaryleadership.com
www.VisionaryLeadership.com

Steve Denning
202/966-9392
steve@stevedenning.com
www.SteveDenning.com

Complete information at http://tiny.cc/SteveAndSeth

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