Anders Sorman-Nilsson

Anders Sorman-Nilsson - Future Thinking

Change doesn't care whether you like it or not - it doesn't need your permission.

We upgrade, exchange and replace our software because we know that old technology, rusty circuitry and limited bandwidth won't suffice in the future. Yet why are we so reluctant to apply the same upgrades to our thinking? The current rapid pace of change in every industry, means that we need to be constantly upgrading our personal, organisational and leadership software.

The only way to make these upgrades is to understand how oncoming trends are likely to affect your organization, so you can act swiftly when the next tidal wave of information hits your shores. How would your company be different if your staff were inspired about change, rather than paralysed by it? Or if your leaders could raise performance to meet the oncoming generations, do more with less, and innovate their way into the future? Or better still, if you knew which trends were impacting your industry today and how to position your thinking favourably for the future?

Anders Sorman-Nilsson is a reformed lawyer, and the founder and creative director of the Sydney and Stockholm based research company - Thinque. His unique global perspectives have been helping leaders, teams, and business owners in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australia make sense of and harness disruptive trends in innovations, generations and communications. His misfit insights have recently been manifested in his book Thinque Funky: Upgrade Your Thinking and amplified by endorsements via AFR Boss Magazine, Wired (UK), and Monocle.

Advising clients like Apple, MTV, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, SAP, McCann Erickson, CPA Australia, UTS Business School and Macquarie Bank on next practice, Anders future thinking provides GPS directions for businesses, teams and leaders seeking to navigate a constantly shifting business landscape, and successfully enter a new decade of thinking.

Keynote Topics

Future Thinking: your organisation's success GPS

The world has changed and it's a little out of whack. Organisations and leaders are struggling to find their bearings, and many feel overwhelmed by the changes they are facing. Globally, tidal waves of new ideas and thought currents are smashing old school thinking to smithereens. You and your leaders need a thinking strategy that is as flexible as a GPS, and that enables you to stay on trend, to adapt with the times, and successfully navigate a constantly shifting business landscape.

Check-In

*Are your leaders tuned into, driving and manifesting the latest thinking from across the globe?
*Is your organisation on trend, or is it likely to be smashed by disruptive innovation?
*Are your teams able to cope with the changes they are tasked with, or are they still coming to grips with the last change roll-out?
*Is your sales force still knocking on doors, making cold calls, and refusing to leverage their efforts in an age of sales innovation?

Outcomes

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how to:

1. spot disruptive trends, feel the underlying currents of change, and position their ideas successfully
2. create future scenarios and future-proof your company based on their observations and thinking
3. successfully ride disruptive innovation, generation and communication trends

Thinque Funky: Upgrade Your Thinking

Stale thinking produces stale results. It used to be that we had to learn one new skill every year, then it was every month, then every week, when is it going to be every hour? Change has entered hyper-mode and it asks more of our mental bandwidth. To not be redundant, to stay relevant and to have a chance at being successful you need to constantly upgrade the way you think to ensure that you are compatible with the latest thinking trends.

Check In:

* Are your leaders fostering innovation and creating trendy intersection of thought to inspire your staff to contribute their best ideas?
* Is your organisation's combined brain trust being utilised in a way where you see tangible Returns on Thinking?
* Are your teams structured to tap into the diversity in thinking or are they prone to group-think?
* Is your sales force engaged and inspired to serve your customers and build stronger client loyalty?

Outcomes:

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how to:

1. think outside the box, and solve problems innovatively, rather than by precedent
2. appreciate different thinking styles and to contribute their own unique ideas
3. get up and tackle challenges in a way that is future-compatible and sustainable
Topic

Thought Leaders: the brands of the future

Ideas are the new currency. Branding and marketing is no longer just about capturing attention. It's about spreading idea viruses and about your organisation being seen as the 'go-to-expert. Your leadership brain trust's and thought leaders' ideas and intellectual property is what will give life to your logo today and in the future. The question is whether you're nurturing, harnessing and helping your thought leaders be brand advocates and live their brilliance inside and outside your organisation.

Check-In:

* do your leaders think, act and lead as thought leaders or thought repeaters?
* is your organisation successfully shifting into the premium knowledge economy, or is it stuck in a commodity-mindset?
* do your teams have a secret love affair with the power of ideas, or are they scared by their competitors' innovation?
* is your sales force struggling to develop profound connection or getting through the door with prospects and clients?

Outcome:

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how to:

1. think and brand themselves as thought leaders
2. harness the power of their own ideas, to capture them, and to communicate them in a way that profoundly connects with your market place
3. position themselves as thought leaders in a way that is intimately aligned with your organisation's success

Innovation Intersections: tapping diversity in thinking

Innovation happens at the intersection of thought. Your team members all have unique gifts and talents - one of them is the authentic ways they think, communicate and solve problems. Is this what they bring to your work? For too long, we have been asked to conform and turn up as organisational drones which creates group-think and 'same old / same old' products and services. To harness the thinking capital in your organisation you need to create innovation intersections that encourage your people to turn up and contribute their unique intelligence at work.

Check In:

* do your leaders reflect the diversity of thinking in your organisation, or do they at least encourage heterogeneous thought?
* is your organisation known as an innovation champion or is it known as a reactive laggard?
* are your teams vibrating with enthusiasm, passion and a love for ideas and bringing the organisation into the new decade of thinking?
* is your sales force aware of and capable of adapting their sales pitches depending on what style of thinker they're communicating with?

Outcome:

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how to:

1. create trendy intersections and environments inside your organisation that facilitate an innovation habitat
2. express their ideas in a way which maximises your chances of innovation success
3. develop an innovation mindset that they bring to work every day

Waves of change: three global trends that will be disrupting your slumber

Having your finger on the pulse of the market place has never been more important than in our turbo-charged environment. This is a 'Did You Know'- session that will expand thinking and shake your people up from ignorance, complacency and apathy about changes that are impacting your business today, tomorrow and within the foreseeable future.

Check In:

* are your leaders longing for the days when a Blackberry was just a fruit, when we used to express our emotions without adding an emoticon, or the re-assuring sound of the 56K modem as we slowly connected over the fax line?
* does what your organisation does really and truly matter tomorrow?
* are your teams equipped with the strategic foresight required to take your organisation forward?
* is your sales force confident that what they?re selling is something that will be relevant not just yesterday, but tomorrow and for the foreseeable future?

Outcome:

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how to:

1. get an insight into the trends behind innovation, generation and communication phenomena that are upending your industry
2. use digital trends to drive innovation in successful products and services
3. harness trends and use them in your scenario planning and strategy, rather than just viewing them as threats

Misfits: leading cross-generational teams

Your people are demanding to bring their whole selves to work. The question is whether you can handle them. It's so much easier when people behave and respond in predictable ways. It doesn?t demand as much cognitive bandwidth from leadership. However, a global shift is occurring where new generational trends are equipping, empowering and encouraging employees to bring their genuine selves - with both positive and negative connotations for you - to work. These misfits can be both your most brilliant team members and your most challenging team members, but lead them in a way that profoundly connects with them, and you have a profit and inspiration centre to count on.

Check In:

* are your leaders leading like they always have or is their style adapting with the times?
* how is your organisation handling the different generational mindsets and the misfit attitudes that some team members are displaying?
* are your teams generationally diverse and thriving, or generationally diverse and merely surviving?
* is your sales force clued into different communication and sales styles that will connect with misfit clients?

Outcome:

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how to:

1. identify, nurture and harness the inherent genius of misfits
2. lead and encourage collaboration between these unique individuals
3. ensure that personal creativity and misfit genius contributes and drives organisational strategy and business growth

Client Ovations: Everything you have done has been done with a great deal of preparation and great deal of recognition of what we wanted! It stopped us to think the way which is comfortable and go into another place which is for the betterment of the group

Head of Legal Risk Management, Macquarie Bank

I highly recommend Anders as a thought-provoking Gen Y-expert. Anders presented to our entire agency and was thoroughly entertaining, whilst providing good insights into managing generational change in business. His perspectives would be enlightening to all types of businesses who are looking to Gen-Y to provide their organisation with the creative edge they need for the future!

Managing Director, McCann Worldgroup

Anders is truly a funky thinker! His ideas espouse vibrancy, passion & fun. I find Ander's approach to diversity very novel and refreshing and very relevant to today's fast paced workplaces. I have used Anders to educate our older workforce on how to engage Gen Y and will be using him again to educate Gen Y on how to engage Gen X & Baby Boomers

HR Director, Optus

If you're looking for a unique thought provoking keynote, presentation or workshop, then Anders is your man. Anders overdelivered on his NLP workshop at the iMedia Brand Summit creating a fun, interactive session where people were able to learn new communication methods to enhance their personal and corporate lives.

Ad:tech/ DMG

Anders is like a B12 shot in the arm... you go in feeling lethargic, exhausted, lacking motivation. You leave feeling energised, enthused, alive. He enables you to get back out there and tackle your problems head-on with practical solutions you can implement today. Do yourself a favour.. get a shot.

Queensland Health

Anders is an extremely professional bloke. The training project we engaged him for was enlightening and equipped the players with a new way of going forward

Brad Fittler, Sydney Roosters Coach

Anders presented to a group of leading finance executives on behalf of the CFO Ambition forum. His topic was very well presented, with a mix of media and interaction that maintained and captured the whole audience. He is very knowledgeable, inspires thought and creates motivation to change our thinking. He is without doubt one of the most engaging speakers out there!

Research Manager, Ambition Recruitment

Anders is the GURU of Funk. His keynote rocks. I booked him to speak at our annual winter conference and he rocked the room. Sharp, funny, focussed and funky. Book him for your next event.

Matt Church CSP, CEO of Thought Leaders

I just wanted to say thanks again for your presentation at the Channel Camp event last week. I have had some really great feedback from delegates and I just wanted to say thank you for your part in making this event a success.

National Channel Manager, Apple

I highly recommend Anders as a thought-provoking Gen Y-expert. Anders presented to our entire agency and was thoroughly entertaining, whilst providing good insights into managing generational change in business. His perspectives would be enlightening to all types of businesses who are looking to Gen-Y to provide their organisation with the creative edge they need for the future!

Managing Director, McCann Worldgroup

I wanted to thank you for your keynote at ICAA conference 2011. The tailored style and nature of the presentation was perfectly pitched to the diverse audience of cinema operators and other film industry stakeholders. You gave an engaging, informed, and provocative take on the technological challenges facing an industry in the midst of significant change. The connections between embracing change and then adapting it to positive outcomes set the tone for the rest of the conference and allowed delegates to approach the complex issues presented in consequent presentations and seminars with greater understanding, enthusiasm and open thinking. I’ve received widespread positive feedback from delegates ranging from small rural cinema operators to the CEO of Screen Australia. Again, thank you and please accept my congratulations and appreciation on behalf of all delegates. Nadia, thank you for your help and support in having us work with Anders. We look forward to working with Ovations to continue to deliver outstanding keynotes next year.

Mark Sarfaty| Chief Executive Independent Cinemas Association of Australia

Young, funky, cool ideas

ANZ

Fantastic - interesting, engaging & relevant

Centro Properties Group