USA
Speaker Dr. John Kao is a fully equipt speaker providing businesses with insightful ideas surrounding creativity, crisis-solution, and comprehensive business development.
Request fees and availability5 out of 5 stars
This was one of the most productive workshops I've attended. I walked away with a framework for introducing a systematic approach to innovation in my organization.
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About John
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Dr. Kao has spent much of his career developing compelling learning experiences for innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders. His eclectic approach is unique and blends disciplines as diverse as case study narratives, psychology, process facilitation, technology-enabled collaboration, and stagecraft. As a Harvard Business School professor from 1982-96, he created acclaimed MBA and executive education courses on innovation and entrepreneurship. He has also held academic appointments at Stanford, the MIT Media Lab, and the US Naval Postgraduate School.
John is the author of the bestselling Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity, which describes what leaders can learn from jazz, as well as Innovation Nation, which documents America’s growing innovation challenge. He is also the author of several e-books, including Clearing the Mind for Creativity, The Future is Yours to Invent, We Are All Producers Now, and China, the Next Innovation Nation. He was a producer of the films Sex, Lies and Videotape, and Mr. Baseball.
Dr. Kao’s education includes BA and MD degrees from Yale, a residency at the McLean division of Massachusetts General Hospital, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. His work has received coverage in such media as The New York Times, The Economist, CNN, and The Colbert Report. He also served as Contributing Editor to The Daily Beast.
Dr. John Kao’s presentations and workshops will help you and your organization realize fresh horizons of opportunity and position you toward your desired future.
See keynotes with John KaoToday’s leadership playbook is woefully out of date. The skills and traits that enabled past success often create dysfunction today. John’s breakthrough framework presents six forms of intelligence that leaders must deploy in a blended, integrated manner. These include finely honed situational awareness, innovation sophistication and digital literacy, emotional and social intelligence, a moral compass, and the ability to galvanize needed transformation. Taken together, they comprise the deep “how” of leadership.
This truly is the age of improvisation; today’s organizations must have the creativity and agility to generate value on the fly. Like experienced jazz bands, they must learn to go far beyond the notes on the sheet music. To explore these themes, John wrote the best seller Jamming, which describes the lessons leaders can learn from jazz. As Yamaha’s first “artist in innovation,” John can memorably demonstrate the deep principles of innovation practice with the optional use of a grand piano.
The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) refers to nine streams of hyper-rapid technology advance that confront leaders and organizations with disruption, uncertainty and complexity. This landscape is evolving beyond the ability of leaders – private and public sector – to make wise decisions. John has made a career of equipping them and the organizations they lead with the capacities to deal with the challenges of the “real” real world.
Given the complex challenges facing civil society, innovation remains an absolute requirement. Yet there are profound gaps between the desire for innovation and the ability to practice it effectively. Innovation must be reimagined for today’s realities. The requirements for innovation success today have expanded from the kind of analytics and control mechanisms typical of the industrial era. Today we are in a fourth era of innovation, whose north star involves the linking of purpose to business model.
All of our desired outcomes and results lie in a future that is literally unknowable. Yet in a time of turbulence, the need to perceive emerging trends and sense weak signals, to anticipate singularities is stronger than ever. This presentation brings coherence to a motley collection of future making practices and equips practitioners with the necessary skills to peer into the future and to take relevant action.
If Orson Welles and Peter Drucker were somehow to mate, the resulting progeny might be Mr. Kao.
Our Tiffany Merchandising Conference was terrific and your opening presentation contributed enormously to its success. The group is still talking and thinking about the experience! Many of the conference participants also expressed interest in having you participate in a real problem solving situation, which we can do in a workshop environment.
Thank you for helping ASTD make our International Conference and Exposition in Denver such a success. We had over 9,000 people in attendance
His presentation was great. He was on point, tied his insights into our own objectives (from listening to the morning internal presentation) and stayed after to continue discussions. His passion and knowledge of innovation were evident.
John Kao is An innovation legend.
On behalf of the Tech Pioneer, Social Entrepreneur, and Global Shaper Communities, I'd like to thank you for your fun and energetic facilitation of today's Dynamic Trio workspace. We were also very impressed with your skillful moderation and ability to engage the audience in an insightful dialogue.
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