Chris Majer

Adhocracy: The New Design of Business

While businesses have made huge technological advancements in the last few decades, most employ the same management practices and organizational structures that have been in place since World War II. The economic downturn served as a spotlight on the flaws of this model—large, rigid, siloed organizations can’t adapt at the pace our new business environment requires. In this thought-provoking speech Chris outlines the factors that have caused corporate giants like Chrysler and General Motors to fail and puts forth a vision for how successful companies of the future will organize themselves to achieve new standards of productivity. They will organize themselves and deploy their teams in a dramatically different way, using a multi-disciplinary skunkworks approach that he terms “adhocracy.” Audience members will take away insights on how organizational structure either supports or defeats peak productivity and how new organizational practices for coordination can unlock organizational value.

The New Game of Business

It’s a whole new world out there. Overnight we have watched the rise and first fall of the dot.com world and the failure of some of the largest and most respected corporate giants. In front of our eyes a new economy is taking shape. Organizations of all sizes are undergoing radical change as markets shift, competitors emerge, and consumers have increasing access to information. Adaptability and agility are the new names for the game. In this presentation Chris examines what’s going on in the new game of business, what are the new rules, and what are the critical competencies that will separate winners from losers.

Building World Class Teams

Learning to build real teams is not something you are going to learn in a few days. It takes a unique set of skills that motivational speakers, sports coaches, and consultants don’t understand. In this speech Chris shares his experience as a first division rugby player and a consultant to teams ranging from professional athletes to the Army’s Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Marines, to corporate America. He shares his unique perspective on what it is that really makes a team, holds it together, and determines its degree of success.

Learning in a New World

It is clear new ways of learning are essential in today’s business world. All of our traditions for educating leaders and managers have been focused on the acquisition of knowledge and the application of concepts, but as knowledge becomes a universal commodity, it is increasingly evident that this is not what we need to cope and thrive in today’s world. Instead, we need new practices that allow us to cope with an increasingly global, constantly changing world, where communication is instant, and we are able to adapt and remain agile – ready for change. Authentic learning is the core competence that matters. In this presentation Chris offers a new interpretation of what it is to learn, proving why the vast majority of corporate development efforts don’t and can’t work. More importantly he outlines how to go about building the competencies that will see you well into the new century.

The Silent Killers of Productivity and Profit

The management practices most American companies use today are rooted in the manufacturing era that brought us the major management innovations of the last 50 years. Quality, Just-In-Time, Lean, and Six Sigma are prime examples. While indisputably valuable, the system was developed by industrial engineers and designed to be in a factory environment where the primary interactions are between machines or a man and a machine. We are no longer living in an industrial world. Today’s workforce is made up largely of coordination workers. These are people who are educated, mobile, creative, and ambitious. They generate value by their effective coordination with others to produce customer satisfaction. While the wastes of the industrial era were easy to see: scrappage, inventory, wasted raw materials, etc., waste outside of the factory is invisible, silent - but just as deadly. In this speech, Chris identifies the silent killers of productivity: degenerative moods, bureaucratic work practices and organizational structures, poor listening skills, lack of innovation, and what he terms modern indentured servitude. He then presents the antidotes. This is a big wake up call for corporate leaders as it requires a new commitment to transform themselves and their organizations to be competitive in the new world.

The Pep Talk

Every once in a while every organization needs a pep talk. We get bogged down in our day to day "stuff" and lose sight of the bigger picture of our lives and what it is we set out to do. HP2 founder Chris Majer has an extraordinary set of experiences that he tailors for individual companies that will leave groups newly inspired, refreshed, and revitalized. He teaches that it’s about managing commitments, not people or “tasks.” Beginning with his early work with athletes, audiences will hear about the trials of working with the Special Forces and Marines, the challenges of transforming AT&T, and wonders of working with companies that include Microsoft, Intel, Nike, Cargill, and Capital One.

"We went from a business that was afraid of marketplace changes to one that embraced those changes and attacked them and found opportunities to seek market success. And we achieved that through our work with HP2."

- | Scott Flanders, CEO, Freedom Communications