Abstract: Over recent decades, many executives’ thinking has led to the adoption of “best practices” yet many are actually “bad practices” that harm people, productivity, and destroy organizations, slowly or quickly.   People work hard and put in their best efforts.  How’s that working for us?  (23 out of every 24 companies fail in the U.S. and more than 60% of the companies that were on the first Fortune 500 list in 1954 do not even exist today!) How can leaders discern between either harmful fads or wise management principles based in sound theory?  How can leaders not be blind-sided?  How can they see the 60% or 70% waste and complexity that exists in their organizations that they have become accustomed to? Fear runs rampant in organizations and societies.  What new thinking, knowledge and courage will it take for leaders to find their courage and create a better future?

For leaders, there is no substitute for knowledge.  But how do leaders know what they do not know?  What do leaders need to know--to ensure an organization, community, or society will be healthy and sustainable for the long term?  Survival is optional.  Will you be a survivor, or are you declining?   “Are you achieving the results that you want?”  Creating the future and pursuing new opportunities that will make a difference in people's lives, industries, and societies demand more than tinkering around the edges.  It requires adaptive leadership and a sound philosophy of management.   But first, we must stop the implementing management fads that allow our organizations to self-destruct.   External competitors are often not the issue. Internal competition has a more devastating impact. In a dynamic learning session, Marcia engages participants to think like never before, to adopt new thinking and actions for a significantly better future.

Biography: Marcia Daszko is a Catalyst for Strategic Change, Transformation and Innovation.  For more than 20 years, she has passionately been guiding strategic innovation and transformation in corporations like Apple, Blue Shield, Cisco, Corporate Motors, Dow Chemical, HP, Intel, Intuit, NetApp, Pepsi, PBS, Varian, mid-sized to start-ups; school districts, government agencies and non-profits.   In whatever sector she works in, Marcia facilitates new thinking and learning that ignites new beliefs and actions on the part of leadership—everywhere in the organization.

She moves easily from guiding executive leadership development to merger and acquisition integration to managing large scale change to building a culture of trust that accelerates growth, profitability, change and innovation.  Marcia‘s magic is that in each situation she finds a way to release the client’s own power to fulfill their highest potential and purpose.  She guides leaders in their strategic thinking, planning and implementation.  She helps leaders challenge their current thinking, align their actions with their passions, and generate a culture of learning that will culminate in new  systems, structures, processes, and relationships for getting the work done and the results achieved—like never before.  Guiding transformative, adaptive change is Marcia’s passion (plus travel and golf.)

Marcia is a keynote speaker at conferences and facilitates and teaches at executive retreats.  A protégé of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, she founded two Deming User Groups, is a co-founding Board Member for the non-profit In2:InThinking Network, and assisted at 20 of the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s renowned 4-day seminars.  She has been nominated for the international Deming Medal. She has taught Graduate management classes at UC-Berkeley, Fordham Univiversity and San Jose State University. She is the author of the book, Survival Is Optional, to be published in 2017 and contributed a chapter on leadership in the book: Organizational Project Management, published in June, 2010.

Contact: Marcia can be reached by e-mail at md@mdaszko.com for additional information about this Weekend Conference session.

Website: www.mdaszko.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marciadaszko

Twitter: @MarciaDaszko