Lynda Gratton

Human Resources Thought Leader

Lynda Gratton

Human Resources Thought Leader

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Biography

Lynda is a Professor of Management Practice at London Business School where she directs ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies’ – considered the world’s leading program on human resources. Lynda is the founder of Hot Spots Movement and since 2008 she has led the Future of Work Research Consortium which has brought together executives from more than 100 companies.

Over the last 20 years Lynda has written extensively about the interface between people and organizations. Her eight books cover the link between business and HR strategy (Living Strategy), the new ways of working (The Democratic Enterprise), the rise of complex collaboration (Hot Spots and Glow) and the impact of a changing world on employment and work (The Shift).

In 2012 The Shift received the business book of the year award in Japan and has been translated into more than 15 languages. In 2015 The Key won the CMI Management Book of the Year. This book looks at the impact of the changing world on corporate practices and processes and on leadership. In 2016, Lynda Gratton and co-author Professor Andrew Scott, published The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, which, translated into many languages, continues to generate significant interest across the world, also in Japan, where it quickly became a bestseller. It was shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year award.

Lynda’s work has been acknowledged globally – she has won the Tata prize in India; in the US she has been named as the annual Fellow of NAHR and won the CCL prize; whilst in Australia she has won the HR prize. Lynda is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and has chaired the WEF Council of Leadership. She has served as a judge on the FT Business Book of the Year panel, chairs the Drucker Prize panel and is on the governing body of London Business School. In 2017, Lynda became an Advisor for @GoogleOrg’s initiative to help people prepare for the changing nature of work and was also, as the only foreigner, invited by Prime Minister Abe of Japan to join a new advisory council “Council for designing the 100-year-life society.”

Speaker Videos

Building an Energizing Workplace

TEDx: How to Be Ready for Your Future, Now

Speech Topics

The Future of Work

What will our working lives look like 20 years from now? What should we be preparing for? How will we be working, where will we be working and who will we be working with? Work is universal. But, how, why, where, and when we work has never been so open to individual interpretation. The certainties of the past have been replaced by ambiguity, questions, and the steady hum of technology. Now, in a groundbreaking research project covering 21 global companies and more than 200 executives, Lynda Gratton is making sense of the future of work. In this presentation she provides a preview of the real world of 21st-century work.

Explore the changes we are all facing and learn about the skills and behaviors we need to remain competitive:

Transparent and authentic leadership
High-performing virtual teams
Valuable cross-business networks and relationships
Valuable relationships with partners, consumers, and entrepreneurs
Flexible working

How to Become a Better Leader

It’s impossible to ignore the fact that those who lead corporations find themselves under increasing pressure. Many are plagued by the short-termism of the financial markets, which pushes them to prioritize efficiency, speed and profit in order to deliver shareholder value. At the same time, trust in corporations is on the decline, and ever more vocal citizens are forming themselves into worldwide communities of interest that are using the power of the crowd to influence corporate policy. And yet, while these pressures may be sweeping away some of the leadership capabilities we hold dear they are also clearing the way for new ideas about what leadership can and should be. In her presentation, Lynda Gratton explains what it takes to glow and how it can create success and innovation in the workplace for you and your coworkers.

Corporate Resilience

Today's corporations are faced with the implications of climate change, of inequality, and of the gap between their needs and the available pool of talent. These challenges are on a greater and more global scale than ever before, and emerging at an ever faster trajectory. Previously stable companies find themselves on shaky ground – and the negative consequences of the problems that surround them are proving difficult to reverse. How can corporations navigate these waters and continue to succeed in such a challenging environment.

The Hundred Year Life

We are at the dawn of the 100-year life. This creates enormous opportunities, but also significant challenges and risks. Drawing on psychological and economic research to introduce the concepts of tangible and intangible assets at the level of the individual, exploring how a three-stage career will evolve and what it means to work for up to 80 years. From the corporate perspective, we will consider what this means for selection and development, for mentoring and coaching, and how corporations are beginning to prepare for what will without doubt be the most significant change in human capital ever faced.

Collaboration

Management teams see strong collaborative capabilities as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have - but the conventional design of organizations is not geared towards fostering a collaborative way of working. The latest advances in research on collaboration have a lot to teach us about becoming more collaborative, including the role generosity has to play, how best to recognize and reward collaboration, and opening up the debate on diverse teams.