Dominic Thurbon
Dominic Thurbon has cracked the code for making change happen, with the ultimate formula to drive innovation, future-proof your workforce and design brands that really matter.
We need to stop ‘managing’ change and start driving it. In a world of increasingly rapid and profound disruption, our ability to understand the forces of change that are reshaping our markets, and build strategies to respond to them, is critical to our ongoing and sustainable success.
Dom Thurbon is a partner at EY with over 13 years’ experience helping global organisations make sense of and navigate change. He is an internationally engaged thought leader in the fields of innovation, behaviour change, education and community investment, and his work has spanned Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Europe with clients such as Apple, Commonwealth Bank, IBM, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson.
Dom was founder and Chief Creative Officer at Karrikins Group, a behaviour change agency he grew from the ground-up to over 100 full-time staff delivering programs in over 15 countries. A business leader ‘in the trenches’, Dom has lived first-hand the practical, day-to-day challenges of growing a business in a rapidly changing market, and creating a purpose-driven company that makes a real impact on the world. He is also a founder of Educator Impact, a technology company driving improved teacher performance through 360o data-driven feedback.
Dom has been architect of multi-award winning behaviour change programs that reach nearly 1 million people per year, and researched and authored best-sellers and white papers on subjects as diverse as purpose-driven leadership, strategy, innovation, competitive advantage and behaviour change.
Dominic is a fantastic, dynamic presenter who really demystified the whole ‘technology’ thing for us. His presentation was engaging, entertaining and – best of all – really valuable to us in the way we work.
Glaxo SmithKilne
Dominic presentations for our senior client audience were right on brief and really inspired people about the potential to unleash collaboration and innovation. He speaks the language of business, understands business models and tailors his message to suit the audience. His dynamic and engaging style affects real behavioural and attitudinal change and made him a hit with the audience.
IBM
Dom Thurbon made us think very differently and we were all buzzing with new ideas at the end of the session. I would highly recommend Dom to work with your team – you will certainly be engaged, challenged and very creative with your approach.”
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
My speaking topics...
In today’s market, companies that can’t innovate can’t survive. The market is changing so quickly that our ability to innovate now sits at the heart of remaining relevant and competitive in an ever-changing world. That’s probably why ‘innovation’ is one of the most discussed and debated topics at conferences, off-sites, workshops and strategy sessions around the country.
But most places can’t connect all the talk with real action, and in too many places innovation is simply as a buzzword. We need to develop a deeper and more practical understanding of what innovation is, in all its forms, and how we bring it to life. The truth is, innovation is a behaviour: you’re either doing it or you’re not. And learning the behaviours of innovation, and then finding ways to enable and promote them in your business, is the key to turning innovation from empty rhetoric to real-world change.
In this session we will:
- Unpack the forces of change that mean we need to challenge assumptions about how we make innovation a living thing in our business
- Examine the four types of innovation that can be used in your business to drive improved performance
- Look at the behaviours of innovation, and how we enable and promote them as leaders across the business
Watch me...
It has never been harder to stand out. In B2B, B2C, and even job markets, it's getting harder and harder to differentiate, compete and win. There are many reasons for this: digitisation has flooded the market with content and competition; commoditisation is driving prices and margins down, making it harder to sustainably compete; rising complexity is making it harder for companies to articulate clear, relevant value propositions; and customer loyalty is “so 20th century”.
In this changing world, it’s no longer enough to be ‘good’ or ‘great’, we have to matter. This requires a deep connection to purpose, an ability to understand what our customers really buy, and insight into the true value that we can bring (and that no one else can).
In this session we will:
- Bring a fresh perspective to the major disruptive forces that are redefining the way business is being done, and value is being created
- Use inspiring, real-world case studies to show how a diverse array of companies are responding effectively
- Give you the formula for effectively dealing with and thriving in times of disruption and change
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Companies don’t change, people do. We need to stop talking about ‘managing’ and ‘surviving’ change, and learn to talk about driving change. Take a look around your business and think about your greatest challenges. I’ll bet you they are behaviour change challenges. You might be trying to increase innovation, improve collaboration across teams or silos, sell to customers differently, drive better leadership or enhance your culture… these are all behaviour change challenges.
In a world where change is so constant and so profound, there are few skills more important to cultivate than learning to drive behaviour change in our teams. It’s the key to solving our greatest problems and boosting our performance.
In this presentation we will:
- Detail the five human responses to change that you will have seen in your business every day, but may never have had a label for
- Examine a model for change based in the neuroscience of human behaviour that can empower us to more effectively change the way staff and customers think, act and buy in positive and constructive ways)
- Look at management and leadership strategies to help ourselves and our teams more effectively navigate and promote change
Watch me...
Never Waste a Crisis
Leading Through Uncertainty, Change and Disruption
COVID-19 is an example of an entirely predictable disaster. Serious, novel pathogens emerge regularly. None of this minimises or plays down the effects of the current pandemic but it does illustrate that this should be an occurrence that that precisely no one finds surprising. Not only was it bound to happen sometime, evolution tells us it is certain to happen again, too, So how do we lead our teams in times of change and massive disruption?
COVID-19 is an example of an entirely predictable disaster. Yes, its effects will likely be economically devastating (and in some cases personally devastating for those affected in the individual sense), but nonetheless it is still absolutely predictable. Serious, novel pathogens emerge regularly. In the last 20 years, we’ve seen things like H1N1, H5N1 and SARS all emerge, as well as outbreaks and epidemics of older viruses such as Zika and Ebola. None of this minimises or plays down the effects of the current pandemic (which many experts predict may well be worse than all of the above); but it does illustrate that this should be an occurrence that that precisely no one finds surprising. Not only was it bound to happen sometime, evolution tells us it is certain to happen again, too,
But there is no doubt – predictable or not – that many of us have found ourselves blindsided by just how far-reaching the effects of this pandemic have been. I, myself, have been dealing with my own form of crisis management – I have a team of over 50 people delivering programs in around 4,000 schools a year – including hundreds in the next few months. So you can imagine what operational planning has looked like in my office for the last few days!
Crucially, we cannot allow ourselves to be sucked into thinking purely reactively. We must resist the temptation to be pulled purely into the day-to-day of managing what is right in front of us, and find ways to keep ourselves thinking strategically and learning the lessons we can from this that will help us manage the highly predictable reality of crises, uncertainty and disruption that we will continue to face into the future.
So in this future-focused, provocative and instructive session, we will:
- Look at the curious reality of just how ‘predictable’ most surprises in the marketplace actually are, and look at what the current events should teach us about strategic, scenario and contingency planning
- Unpack the ‘physics’ of disruption; how it moves through markets, and how various sources (technological, demographic, geopolitical, consumer and – yes – even biological!) combine to create an ‘edge’ of disruption in every market
- Examine the four mindsets of the change-ready leader, and how we can arm ourselves with an approach that makes us more resilient to external shock
See me...
https://www.odemanagement.com/speakers/dominic-thurbon#sigProId4fceef1a29
eVideo Program
If you knew what you knew...... you'd be unstoppable!
This fascinating eVideo series teaches your leaders and teams to become an unstoppable force for innovation and change in any business, ensuring that innovation flourishes and talent is attracted to and rewarded by your business.
Matter
Companies and people that matter have successfully become the obvious choice in the hearts and minds of their customers, their employees, and their communities. They elevate themselves by consistently finding ways to solve the most pressing needs their markets face. The result? They create more value year after year and build a sustainable, differentiated organization.
In Matter, Dom Thurbon, Peter Sheahan and Julie Williamson show you how to identify the place where you can create the most value—your edge of disruption—at the intersection of old and new, where your existing profits, reach, and reputation enable you to create the markets of the future. This is the place where the most important problems are solved and where the fewest people can solve them. Your edge of disruption is where your opportunity to matter is found.
Purpose - Aligned Leadership
Purpose is the answer to the question: “Over and above making money, why does our organization exist?” The answer to this question should be informed by the unique contribution that your organization aspires to make. Sounding good is not enough. For a purpose to be of true value to a company it must, for example, be: But although this is a simple question, many companies and leaders struggle to answer it in a way that is truly valuable. One reason for this is that many leaders confuse definition with process. Although purpose answers “why?”, simply asking this question is typically not sufficient to generate a useful answer.
A good answer must be more than a nice sounding platitude, or an abstract goal. It should exist as a filter for all organizational decisions and practices; and should be embedded into the way that you and your employees do business every day. If not, you may have a marketing slogan that you call ‘your purpose,’ but it won’t contribute any value to your organization beyond some nice copy