Jim Harris

One of North America’s foremost authors and thinkers on change and leadership

Jim Harris is one of North America’s foremost authors and thinkers on change and leadership. With an uncanny ability to understand and capitalize on where markets and mindsets are going, Harris looks to the future and helps organizations all over the world successfully identify and respond faster to emerging trends.

Harris’ track record includes identifying the “blindsided” trend that continues to impact organizations today. Seemingly healthy companies can fail to recognize and respond quickly to market changes, resulting in being blindsided by competitors who overtake their market.

Before “going green” became part of our everyday lexicon, Harris forecast the shift in thinking and committed to leading a political movement focused on sustainability and ecological wisdom. Under his three year leadership, the Green Party of Canada significantly increased voter support, membership and budget. He is also one of only a handful of experts personally trained by Al Gore and renowned climate change scientists and educators to present the slideshow from An Inconvenient Truth.

Harris has represented the Covey Leadership Center as an instructor of Dr. Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He speaks internationally and conducts strategic planning sessions on leadership, CRM, future trends, innovation and strategic planning and has been ranked by Association Magazine as one of the nation's top ten speakers.

Topics:

Change
Change is the key factor in today's economy. With consumers demanding value, and technology making it possible to serve needs faster and more economically, no wonder everything is in a state of flux! Every sector of our society is affected — governments at all levels, health care, business, not-for-profit organizations, social programs, arts and culture. There are no exemptions — the change is sweeping and dramatic.
Communication
Effective communication has never been more important for businesses. In an empowered organization, everyone has a role to play in creating an exciting and compelling vision of the future. In most organizations, if there is loss of market share, what is the typical response? Downsize. Good communication allows companies to maximize their resources and work together to solve problems and create new opportunities.
Creating a Common Mission/Vision
Creating a shared mission/vision is a challenging, yet vitally necessary task for any organization. In this ever changing world of business, it is crucial that your company has a clear mission/vision statement that reflects the company as a whole and serves as a corporate blueprint. While the mission (Why are we in business?) will tend to remain constant, the vision or direction (Where are we going?) will be continually changing over time.
Customer Retention & Delight
The key to corporate growth is customer retention. The way to retain clients is to delight them! It costs five times as much to attract a new customer than it costs to keep an existing one. Technology has provided the consumer with limitless options. Companies must fiercely protect its customer base by proactively working to provide the best value possible to its clients. This no longer means simply monitoring your main competitors' service -- there is a good chance that you have not yet seen your next main competitor!
Information Technology
Radical advances in information technology (IT) are fundamentally changing the way companies do business. The scope and depth of the changes wrought by IT are profoundly revolutionary. IT has become the central nervous system of business. Organizations that fail to make the transition to the new IT paradigm will cease to exist.
Information technology on its own does not give an organization an advantage. Individuals and corporations need to continually ask, "What are the 'impossible' things that are holding us back from dramatic performance improvements, both personally and organizationally?
Leadership
Leaders today are paradigm pioneers who must understand the versatility of business and change with it. In the world of shifting paradigms, leadership has become more complex and more necessary. One of the greatest challenges of leadership has become problem-seeing, not problem-solving. Leaders have to become more adept at anticipating problems and perceiving opportunities to stay ahead of the competition and exceed customer expectations.
Paradigms/Paradigm Shifts
Paradigms are the way we see the world. Perhaps at no other time as it been so crucial for a company to be able to shift its paradigms and examine the possibilities! With our lives changing so quickly, every organization must be able to look outside the present way of doing things and contemplate different options.� Each technological change can dramatically alter our lives and each innovation brings a future vision into reality. Companies who are not challenging their paradigms will be left behind.
Strategic Planning
Strategic planning in the past assumed that the future would look essentially the same as now, with an estimated 10 per cent growth rate. However, the rate of change has become so rapid that strategic planning today must recognize that the future will look radically different than the present and the past. By demonstrating how strategic planning must be approached today, and by working with each client to flesh out individual challenges, Jim is able to lead his groups through the difficult and often daunting task of planning for the future.
The Learning Paradox
Jim's bases both keynote addresses and seminars on his book The Learning Paradox, which has sold more than 30 000 copies! Jim customizes each presentation, tailoring the lessons of The Learning Paradox to each client. The only way to prepare for the future is to learn how to learn. Become self-corrective and self-reflective. Increase your creativity and work better as a team member. We have moved from a knowledge-based to a learning-based economy. Learning, changing and accepting uncertainty creates security.

References:

"You were rated the most effective presenter among a group of over 25 speakers. Congratulations! Your sessions were insightful informative and inspirational." Canadian Institute of Actuaries

"The verdict is in...Jim Harris has been acclaimed as a resounding success by all of our respondents. In summary, Jim delivered for us, with gusto!!" Internal Audits, Bell Canada

"It is not often that we find a person that is knowledgeable in his subject area but is a dynamite speaker as well. Jim excelled in both categories. Municipal Finance Officers Assoc. of Ontario.

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Jim Harris

One of North America’s foremost authors and thinkers on change and leadership

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