Annoucements

Leadership Guru and Author to Speak in Frederick

January 13, 2011

One of the world’s top business gurus will be speaking in Frederick as part of the next Frederick Keynotes, a Business Speaker Series program of the City of Frederick Department of Economic Development. Award-winning author and leadership speaker Steve Denning will speak on Thursday, February 10th from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at the Cultural Arts Center in downtown Frederick. The focus of his presentation will be “Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century” based on his newly published book,” The Leaders Guide to Radical Management: Re-Inventing the Workplace in the 21st Century.”

In a Harvard publication, Denning was ranked as one of the world’s Top Two Hundred Business Gurus by Davenport & Prusak in 2003. He is the author of the award-winning books, The Secret Language of Leadership and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling. From 1996 to 2000, Denning was the Program Director of Knowledge Management at the World Bank, where he spearheaded the organizational knowledge sharing program. Teleos selected him as one of the world’s ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders in November 2000.

Denning now works with organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia on leadership, innovation, business narrative and most recently, radical management, His clients have included many organizations, large and small, around the world, including GE, IBM, Microsoft, McKinsey, Shell, Netflix, Bristol Myers Squibb, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Syngenta, Danfoss, McDonalds, Unilever, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Laboratories, MWH, Ernst & Young, CRM Learning, Xerox, Oracle, Maritz, Target, Burns & McDonnell, Mitre Corporation, Innovation Council, Deluxe, Fetzer Foundation, Diageo (UK), UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, Nestle (Switzerland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark), International Energy Agency (Austria), Symbiosis (Austria), PMI (France), Ambrosetti (Italy), ARK group (UK, Asia, Australia), Air New Zealand, World Bank, UN, UNDP, US Army, USAID, CIA, NSA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NetHope, The Brookings Institution, American Institute of Architects, California Workforce Association, CIA, NSA, NIMA, FAA, NY State Government, Oregon State Government, Australian government ministries, New Zealand ministries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway).

Denning’s previous book, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2007. It was also selected by the book distributor, 800-CEO-READ, as the best book on leadership in 2007. It is a comprehensive guide to transformational leadership, particularly how to develop and use narrative intelligence to inspire enduring enthusiasm in any audience for your cause.

His book, The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling is a comprehensive guide to the various ways in which leaders can use of storytelling to achieve a variety of organizational purposes, including spark action, communicate who they are, transmit the brand, transfer values, share knowledge, inspire collaboration, tame the grapevine and lead people into the future. Another book, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations describes how storytelling can serve as a powerful tool for organizational change and knowledge management.

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

Denning was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at Sydney University and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University in the U.K. Denning joined the World Bank where he worked for several decades in many capacities and held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994 and Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996. In addition, Denning was a Senior Scholar at the Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland from 2006-2009. In the Fall of 2009, he became a Visiting Fellow at All Souls Colleges, Oxford University, UK and was a member of the Quality Council V of the Conference Board from 1993 to 1996.

Frederick Keynotes is a Business Speaker Series program of the City of Frederick Department of Economic Development in partnership with 270inc Magazine and, for this event, the Frederick Arts Council. Admission is $10, which benefits the “City of Frederick Economic Development Fund”, a component fund of the Community Foundation of Frederick County. For more information, or to register for the event, call 301-600-6360. Denning’s latest book, which will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation, retails for $29.95. The event will be held in the theater of the Cultural Arts Center, located at 15 W. Patrick Street in downtown Frederick.