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Cheryl Cran        

Future of Work & Change Leadership Expert; Author of "The Art of Change Leadership"

Cheryl Cran is the founder of NextMapping™/NextMapping.com, creator of the NextNow podcast and the CEO of parent company Synthesis at Work Inc.

Named #1 Future of Work influencer by Onalytica, and in the top ten future of work experts by GoCatalant.

Cran is the author of 10 books including her newest, “Super.Crucial.Human” and her bestsellers, “NextMapping – Anticipate, Navigate and Create The Future of Work” and “The Art of Change Leadership – Driving Transformation In a Fast Paced-World.”

Cran’s thought leadership on the future of all things including work, society and life has been featured in publications such as Fast Company, Huff Post, Forbes, Metro New York, Entrepreneur Magazine, Reader’s Digest, CBS Online, NBC Online, and more. For over two decades Cran has built a reputation for delivering extraordinary value for clients that include Amazon, Upwork, AT&T,, Gartner, Scottish Water, ExecOnline and more.

Clients rate her keynotes on hybrid workplace, the human future, the future of leadership and leading hybrid teams as being inspirational, research based and highly relevant to the fast changing now and future workplace.

Cran brings unique multiple perspectives to her clients, gained by years of successfully working with a multitude of organizations.

Her multi-industry experience and successful track record provides unparalleled value to her clients.

Cran helps leaders and teams to increase perspectives to expand opportunities, to identify patterns of success, and to learn and grow at the speed of change.

NextMapping™ was developed as our proprietary business solution brand that encompasses all of Cran’s work and research on the future of all things including work and the ‘future ready skills’ needed by leaders and teams to navigate change in the workplace.

Cran is not a futurist that just shares trends, she is a pragmatic optimist who is a future of work (all things) expert helping her clients to ‘create the future now’ by ‘leading the changes needed’ to get there.

It’s time to not just hear about the future but to create change and use models and tools developed including our proprietary NextMapping™ process to get there!

The common theme in all of Cran’s life’s work is to change the world through business.

Cran is passionate about helping leaders and teams develop the crucial human skills needed to lead a human focused future where we leverage technology to automate the mundane so that we can elevate the humane.

Speech Topics


The Future of Hybrid Teams

Hybrid teams are here to stay, research shows that virtual work and WFA (work from anywhere) is going to increase. Leaders and teams have been navigating this new reality throughout the pandemic. The future requires leaders and teams to be able to successfully navigate the nuances of a hybrid workplace reality.

There is a continued shortage of workers and we are firmly in a workers market. This means that it's a new world of work. Leaders are leading in unprecedented times and all workers are asking themselves big questions about what it means to work, and how they want to work in the future.

In this keynote attendees will learn:

  • Future of ‘all things’ research that reveals the social trends impacting the future of work
  • Insights into the trends that are shaping what the now and future workplace
  • How to leverage patterns in human behavior to increase team synergy in a hybrid workplace
  • Key strategies on how to communicate and collaborate in a virtual team environment
  • New ways to engage teams in a hybrid culture
  • The ‘future ready’ skills that ALL workers need to develop to increase agility and adaptability
  • How to use the ‘adaptability scale’ to see where you are and how you can ’ self-coach’ to greater flexibility
  • Actionable takeaways that can be applied right away in your everyday work and life

The Future of Leadership: What are the attributes, what are the mindsets and what are the secrets to being a change leader driving towards the future of work

Never before have workplaces had so much ambiguity, uncertainty and constant change. Workers are challenged with doing more with less, learning at the speed of disruption and working with diverse situations. There is a massive opportunity for leaders to create the future for themselves and their teams.

With the increase of digital transformation there is a calling for leaders to be connected, empathetic and inspiring for their teams.

In this virtual keynote you will learn:

  • The most recent and up to date research on the future workplace and what it means for leaders today Statistics and sentiment analysis on worker attitudes and what workers want today and in the future from their leaders
  • Leadership models on the ‘me to we’ mindset and mapping the future of the leadership journey
  • Tips and strategies on how to leverage leadership mastery to increase the attraction and retention of top talent
  • Inspiring ideas that can be put into immediate action to increase employee motivation and engagement
  • Practical daily actions to help leaders feel energized and to help their teams to be inspired and excited to create the future of work Cheryl Cran future of work expert and founder of NextMapping shares inspiring, uplifting and practical ideas for leaders to be future ready now!

Leading Virtual Teams In A Fast Changing Workplace

In 2020 Companies rapidly pivot and adjust to the major disruption of the Pandemic.

Leaders have had to quickly shift their teams to work virtually and this quick shift has created challenges that include keeping teams engaged and productive.

In this virtual keynote you will learn:

  • The new hybrid future of work reality and what it means for business
  • How leaders can increase team culture in a virtual team/ in office team reality
  • How to increase team motivation with half the teams working remotely
  • A change leadership model to help leaders coach their teams to greater productivity
  • How to leverage video/collaboration tools to increase team collaboration

Navigating What’s Next in a Post Covid-19 Reality

What WAS predicted by futurists was a remote work reality, an automated reality and a new way of leading in the future of work.

The best way to predict the future is to focus on the now and look at patterns to look at ‘what’s next’. There is no going back to ’normal’ there is only preparing for and creating the future.

In this virtual keynote you will learn:

  • A look into the future and ’next normal’ of work including hybrid work set ups
  • Case studies of companies who are shifting to ‘virtual’ workplace as their new normal
  • A model on how leaders and teams can change and adapt quickly to ongoing disruption and change
  • The top 5 skills needed by leaders and teams to increase agility and adaptability
  • How to leverage technology to maximize team communication and performance
  • How to use the PREDICT model to navigate what’s next for your business and industry

Leading Change In a Post Covid-19 Future - How To Deal With People Challenges in a Work From Home Reality

In the past workplace culture was handled based on in-person conversations, performance was measured on metrics as well as on team interactions.

Now and into the future workplace culture is about remote and how to engage with remote workers and how to succeed in remote teams.

In the past few months, our surveys have found that leaders are struggling with how to lead, engage and manage performance of their WFH workers.

In this virtual keynote you will learn:

  • Research on how work has completely shifted the mentalities of workers due to remote and WFH reality
  • How the remote work reality has shifted perspectives on performance measurement
  • Why certain workers have adapted well to virtual work and others are struggling to juggle multiple challenges (mental health/childcare/working in a non-office environment)
  • How training has changed from in-office mentoring towards a structured learning plan
  • The emotional reality of the pandemic disruption and how to deal with changes in people leaving (honoring longtime workers who are leaving)
  • How to clearly articulate performance expectations throughout changing financial reality (budget/downsizing)

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