Edward Sullivan

The Power of Unity in Uncertain Times: How to Come Together Like Never Before

Today, people are dealing with more uncertainty than at any time in their lives. Sure, Covid was hard, but today uncertainty exists on more fronts than ever before. What will happen with AI? Will regional conflicts spread? What’s happening in the market? Are we prepared for another pandemic? 

Generally, when people are faced with uncertainty, they either: a) go inward or b) come together. What can leaders do to ensure their teams Choose Unity and Connection in These Uncertain Times? 

That is precisely the question Edward Sullivan, best-selling author and elite executive coach, addresses in this provocative yet practical presentation. Edward has spent the last 15 years of his career helping leaders at the highest levels of corporate America unify their teams and navigate difficult transformations by building authentic relationships through emotionally honest conversations.

In this talk, Edward inspires us to redefine our leadership styles and come together to create more connected, compassionate, and creative workplaces. Edward’s insights disrupt the traditional assumptions about leadership, showing that world-class results don’t come from rigid performance management but from fostering authentic, human-centered relationships. 

Edward’s message resonates with audiences because it connects to the growing concern about isolation in both personal and professional realms, especially post-pandemic. By focusing on the power of connected conversations, he enables leaders to unlock the full potential of their teams, inspiring trust, collaboration, and innovation. This shift is especially crucial now as remote work, AI, and mounting uncertainty in the world conspire to pull us apart. 

In this session, you will learn: 

• How to unify your teams by integrating more emotionally authentic conversations into your daily interactions 
• How to lead with connection and compassion instead corrections and rigidity
• How fear can erode trust, slow down decision making, and pull your team apart
• How to create an environment where people feel safe to share their needs and fears 
• How to foster “flow at scale” and build workplaces where people not only do good work but also feel deeply connected and fulfilled

Flow at Scale: How to Make Work as Fun as Surfing and Snowboarding

In the post-covid era, with people spending 50% of their time working from home, today’s employees feel disconnected from their work and their teams. They miss the excitement of solving hard problems together, being laser focused on a tight deadline, and feeling a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. 

Using the metaphor of adventure sports, Edward engages his audience in a conversation about how they can achieve a “flow state at scale” across their entire business. Edward teaches leaders how to keep their teams feeling like the world’s best adventure athletes feel: challenged but not overwhelmed, focused but not blinded to the bigger picture, and satisfied but always ready for more. 

In this session, you will learn: 

• What surfing big waves and snowboarding deep powder have in common with working on a fun project together
• How to keep yourself and your teams at the exciting “learning edge” without getting overwhelmed
• How to celebrate small wins along the way, because “all marathons have mile markers.”
• How to use setbacks and failures as springboards for learning and building momentum

Finding Our Humanity in the Age of AI: How to Do More of What AI Can’t

With the advent of AI causing the world to change faster than it ever has before, many leaders today are feeling exhausted, frustrated, and confused just trying to keep up. Fear has entered the American workplace as people worry what all these changes will mean for them. 

But where others see a threat, Edward sees an opportunity. In this powerful and insightful talk peppered with illuminating stories from the most important technological revolutions of the last 150 years, Edward teaches his audience how the people who have made out the best during each period of transformation have done so by doing the one thing machines could never do: being compassionate, connected, creative, and IN THE ROOM. 

In this timely presentation, you will learn: 

• Practical frameworks to get better at the basics of human connection and compassion: things AI will never do
• How to leverage insights from previous technological revolutions to future proof your career and your business
• How to use in-person meetings more effectively to 10x your collaborations and creativity

From Critic to Coach: Growing Our Teams with Powerful Conversations

Every leader has experienced the bitter truth behind the old adage, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” Few things are more frustrating than feeling like team members aren’t learning or listening.  

As a coach to many of the world’s top business CEOs, Edward has heard this complaint more times than he can recall, and he always responds to clients with the same question: Are you correcting them or coaching them? Everything we know about how people developed suggests that transformative growth often lives on the other side of simple, but powerful, conversations, and NOT corrections. So why then, do so many of us resort to being critics rather than coaches? Very likely it’s because investing in coaching conversations takes time and most of us don’t even know where to start. 

In this lively hands-on workshop, Edward provides his audiences simple tools to begin developing their own coaching skills and provides a safe environment for them to practice with each other.

You will learn: 

• What coaching is and what it isn’t
• Why coaching gets better long-term results than being a critic
• The five best questions to ask when coaching someone through a problem
• When to “change hats” and offer a breadcrumb of advice to move things along
• What it feels like to engage in live coaching conversations with colleagues