Hottest Strategy and People Keynotes for 2024

Paul Gibbons, keynote speaker, human capital futurist

Here are eight of the hottest topics on my radar that clients are asking for in 2024. But first! Let's say goodbye to 2023 - here are the six topics I was most asked for.

2023 Hottest Keynote Topics

2024's hottest topics are slightly different. Say goodbye to the great resignation and quiet quitting - and if you know my work, you know that neither of these were really "a thing" (more like the media hyping up a nice-sounding phrase from a guru.)

While in 2022 and 2023, the conference circuit was filled with general discussion of AI & Robotics and their effect on workers and workplaces, in 2024 expect to hear more about Generative AI and its (very real) social consequences.

Generative AI and the Future of Work

AI-generated content has infiltrated our news feeds, our music, our books, the art world, and our relationships. The threats we face are less “Terminator” and “Hal” but rather whether the information we use to make decisions and govern ourselves could be corrupted. Workers are already striking to prevent AI from undermining their livelihood.

It is time for specifics and not generalities and pearl-clutching.

The genie won’t go back in the bottle, and businesses need to capitalize on new AI use-cases, while avoiding scale disruptions to business. 

Making Remote Work Really Work Means Getting Culture Right

Zoom fatigue? Great resignation? Quiet quitting? Proximity bias? Absent leadership? Those are just a few of the early 2020s remote work challenges.

Research on remote work shows that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t; sometimes productivity is higher, sometimes lower; sometimes talent is more engaged, sometimes less. 

Leaders need to pay attention to the research - too many leaders (I'm looking at you Musk) react in knee-jerk ways, without considering the science.

Once you've made a data-driven decision, it is time to get the culture right. An in-office culture in a remote working (or hybrid working) culture won't fly.

Beyond Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is still pitched as the zenith of leadership and is still endorsed by IBM, Walmart, and Exxon. However, when it was developed, gas was 40 cents a gallon, and the Dow was 800! Is this 50-year-old idea fit for 21st-century business? 

Nah, the idea is as dated as 1970s bell bottoms.

Today's leaders need to learn why what they were taught is no longer as effective, and which aspects of transformational leadership are salvageable. Then they need a plan to adapt their transformational leadership style to 21st-century workplace challenges: e.g. economic volatility, geopolitical uncertainty, remote work, constant innovation, Gen Z’s changing values, and digital transformation.

 The Human Side of Exponential Technologies

Generative AI, CRISPR/Cas9, additive manufacturing, quantum computing, the metaverse, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, geoengineering, brain-computer interfaces, and blockchain.  Which business leader can keep up with those? 

Technology is exponential, but humans respond linearly.  Can we adapt faster?  My stance has long been that we need a “Moore’s Law for Human Beings.”  What is our comparative advantage? (A sort of social "strengths finder.") How do we recreate our work and our collective purpose around those strengths?

Innovation, Creativity, and Unleashing Human Potential

Leaders can unconsciously kill innovation and creativity – “that is not how we do things…,” “get back in your lane…, “where are the proof points….” "we need consistency" Those knee-jerk reactions sound legitimate (and sometimes they are) but they create a culture hostile to innovation.

The challenge for today’s leaders is creating psychological safety, which nurtures creativity, and a culture of experimentation, which fosters innovation. Leaders need not just insights, but practical tools to start purposefully creating that culture immediately.

Change Needs to Change – Putting Behavioral Science to Work

Only 7 percent of heart attack survivors make the lasting behavioral changes needed to prevent another. Leaders know that this scary statistic applies to business change: we can educate, inspire, and train our people to little effect.

Books such as Nudge, Predictably Irrational, and Freakonomics altered our conceptions of human behavioral change forever. During my 15 minutes of fame (or was it seconds?) I pioneered the adoption of these groundbreaking behavioral science ideas for leading change. But mainstream consulting firms (the big-4) and change boutiques (especially) are way behind the curve.

It is time to catch up. Leaders learn practical ways to change follower behavior not taught in traditional change education.

Can Business Save the Planet?

Today’s political leaders debate whether businesses have become “too woke,” EVEN while most still fail the tests of inclusion, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility!  What both sides fail to see is that the game isn’t “zero-sum” – either you are a profitable business or a “good business.” That sort of narrow-minded thinking ought to have died in the 1980s, when talking about sustainability and inclusion would get sneers of derision.

There is a “win-win-win-win” that keeps shareholders happy, attracts better talent, de-risks the business, and just might help us save the planet.

 Mental Health and Neurodiversity

According to the World Economic Forum, depression and anxiety cost the global economy around $ 1 trillion annually in lost productivity. Some estimates suggest that there is a 20 million “untapped pool” of neurodiverse talent.

Traditionally, mental health has been “outsourced” to employee assistance programs. While a step forward, these are underused, and often used long after productivity and well-being have begun to suffer. Hiring and managing neurodiverse talent is critical – particularly for technology companies.

Leading companies, such as Google. Meta, and IBM have begun to address these two “frontier” workplace challenges. Find out what the research says and what they are doing.

 These business-critical topics can be adapted for short inspirational keynote speeches or one-day immersive seminars.

Note: I've just signed with a speaker agent, Talentology.US, that specializes in connecting actors, models, voice-over artists, musicians, and niche specialty entertainment acts with opportunities to showcase their talents. I failed the screen test for an actor, and my days as a male model candidate have faded.

Email me (paul@paulgibbons.net) or go through them to get a few other choices.