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Chester Elton          

#1 Bestselling Business Author, Organizational Culture, Employee Engagement & Teamwork Expert

Chester Elton is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Business Author, Organizational Culture, Employee Engagement and Leadership Expert.

One of today’s most influential voices in workplace trends, Elton has spent two decades helping clients engage their employees to execute on strategy, vision, and values. In his provocative, inspiring, and always entertaining talks, Elton provides real solutions to leaders looking to build culture, drive innovation, and enhance wellness. Elton’s work is supported by research with more than one million working adults, revealing the proven secrets behind high-performance cultures and teams.

He has been called the “Apostle of Appreciation” by Canada’s Globe and Mail, “creative and refreshing‚” by the New York Times, and a “must read for modern managers” by CNN. Elton is co-author of the multiple award-winning bestselling leadership books including All In, The Carrot Principle, Leading with Gratitude and Anxiety at Work. His books have been translated in more than 30 languages and have sold more than 1.6 million copies worldwide. Elton is often quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Fast Company and the New York Times. He has appeared on NBC’s Today, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, National Public Radio and CBS’s 60 Minutes.

In 2022, the Global Gurus research organization ranked him No. 3 among the world’s top leadership experts and No. 3 for organizational culture. He is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and is a Thinkers 50 Coaching Award winner. Elton is the co-founder of The Culture Works and a board member of Camp Corral, a non-profit for the children of wounded and fallen military heroes. He serves as a leadership consultant and coach to firms such as American Express, The World Bank, Zoox, Momofuku, and the New Jersey Devils of the NHL.

He is most proud to be the father of four exceptional children, three delightful grandchildren, and married to the amazing Heidi for 40 years.

Speech Topics


Carrots 2.0: How today’s managers use recognition to engage their people, retain talent, and accelerate performance With Chester Elton

The Dilemma: Most managers want to create cultures where their teams achieve above-and-beyond results, but for a culture to really take off teammates must encourage each other on a daily basis. The answer is in rooting for each other: having each other’s backs, appreciating strengths, and recognizing strategic behaviors.

The Research: Based his #1 bestselling book The Carrot Principle, which unveiled a 10-year, 200,000- person survey, Elton has become the preeminent authority on employee recognition. Now, he introduces us to Carrots 2.0—showing incontrovertible evidence that today’s employees respond best when they are recognized for things they are good at and for those actions where they had to stretch.

The Result: Elton introduces audiences to new generational and industry-specific data from his 2016 proprietary survey of 14,000 working adults—helping managers link recognition to what is most meaningful to their employees. He introduces practical concepts that help managers encourage excellence, including ideas such as appreciation vs. recognition, effort vs. achievement, and praise vs. rewards. Chester shows how great managers lead with carrots, not sticks and in doing so achieve higher: ?Productivity ?Engagement ?Retention ?Customer Satisfaction The Audience: Designed for managers, Chester Elton has presented “Carrots 2.0” to corporate audiences and associations worldwide. The session is typically customized to an organization’s specific recognition needs and can also include the organization’s available R&R tools.

All In - How Great Leaders Develop a Culture of Belief and Deliver Big Results

The Dilemma: While most leaders understand their most reliable competitive advantage comes from their people, few know how to get their teams “all in”—convincing employees to buy into the strategy they’ve put forward. If a culture is clear, positive, and strong, then people will believe what they do matters and that they can make a difference. If a culture is dysfunctional—chaotic, combative or indifferent—employees will spend more time thinking about why the people sitting next to them should be fired than getting fired up themselves.

The Research: Teaming up with research giant Towers Watson, #1 bestselling author Chester Elton presents the findings of an unprecedented 300,000-person study conducted in the worst of the recession for his book All In. Based on this breakthrough research and his extensive consulting experience with a who’s-who of successful organizations, he presents a simple roadmap that all managers can follow to create a high-achieving culture in their own teams where employees are engaged, enabled and energized.

The Result: Elton offers specific how-tos for each step, and tells fascinating stories of leaders in action that vividly depict just how these powerful methods can be implemented. Audiences will learn: ?the 3 research-based characteristics of the world’s most profitable, productive organizational and team cultures; ?the 7 steps today’s most successful leaders use to generate buy-in; ?how managers at any level can build a productive workgroup culture of their own where employees commit to the culture and give an extra pushof effort.

The Audience: Designed for senior leaders and managers (although sometimes tailored to include all employees), Chester Elton has presented “All In” to corporate audiences and association conferences worldwide. The session is typically customized to an organization’s specific culture challenges.

The Best TEAM Wins: The 5 Disciplines of Today’s Most Effective Team Leaders

The Dilemma. The vast majority of employees’ days are now spent working collaboratively, but still 96 percent of executives cite poor teamwork as the main source of workplace failures in their organizations. It might be the most-pressing question organizations must address: How can managers lead their teams to improved performance given the volatility and challenges we face today. The Research. Based on an 850,000-person study of the most profitable, innovative work teams, New York Times bestselling author Chester Elton introduces his audiences to the new science of teamwork—helping leaders deal with the increased speed of change in business, global and remote employees, the rise of the Millennials, the need to work more cross-functionally across departments, and more.

The Result. Elton’s research has discovered a set of leadership disciplines that make the biggest difference in building today’s best teams. He helps leaders: ?Manage to the One—Identify the drivers of each team member for maximum engagement ?Speed Productivity—Help new people and teams work faster & smarter ?Challenge Everything—Inspire greater innovation through healthy debate ?Focus on Customers—Build bridges across functions, cultures, and distance.

The Audience. Designed for senior leaders and managers (although often tailored to include all employees), Chester Elton has presented The Best Team Wins to corporate audiences and association conferences worldwide. ?Extremely engaging and motivating talk! Most importantly, you tailored the content perfectly to ensure it was relevant to our fast-paced and forever-changing needs.

Employee Engagement: The Deep Dive (Done with Adrian Gostick)

  • The Dilemma: 90% of senior leaders believe employee engagement is a key driver of business performance, but only 24% think their employees are engaged enough to move their businesses forward.
  • The Research: New York Times bestselling authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton are founding partners of The Conference Board’s Engagement Institute, and have unprecedented access to meta-data on engagement that includes hundreds of thousands of employees in some the world’s highest performing organizations.
  • The Result: : In a fresh, humorous and thought-provoking keynote, Gostick & Elton can show exactly how real leaders move the needle on employee engagement. The authors drill deep with case studies and practical examples of known drivers of engagement such as open & honest communication, people development and recognition.
  • The Audience: Designed for managers and senior leaders, the authors have presented “Employee Engagement: The Deep Dive” to many corporate audiences as a follow-up to their All In presentation on Culture. The session is typically customized to an organization’s specific engagement needs.

All In - How Great Leaders Develop a Culture of Belief and Deliver Big Results

In this interactive and engaging session based on The New York Times best-selling business book All In—which includes research from more than 300,000 people in high-performance organizations—Chester Elton will teach leaders how to Engage, Enable and Energize their workforces. The formula of E+E+E outlines how high-performance organizations deliver extraordinary results by creating a vibrant, productive culture where people believe that what they do matters and that they can make a difference.

In this presentation, Chester will relate fascinating stories of leaders in action that vividly depict just how these powerful methods can be implemented. Audiences will learn:

-The 3 characteristics of the world’s most profitable, productive organizational and team cultures. -The 7 steps today’s most successful managers use to generate buy-in. -How managers at any level can build a productive workgroup culture of their own where employees commit to the culture and give that extra push of effort.

What Motivates Me: Put Your Passions to Work

After surveying more than 850,000 people, New York Times best-selling authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton have found the key difference between employees who are most energized and productive at work is whether or not their work aligns with what motivates them.

In the What Motivates Me keynote, the New York Times best-selling authors of The Carrot Principle and All In offer an extensively tested method for leaders to identify their employees’ unique blend of core motivators and then help them align just a little more of their work with what drives them—creating huge boons in productivity and engagement.

In a fresh and wildly thought-provoking keynote presentation, audiences will learn:

-A step-by-step method to help identify employees’ particular blend of core motivators.

-A process to figure out the disconnect that may exist between employees’ passions and their current work situation.

-60 simple but powerful job-sculpting strategies to help people “accomplish more” and “avoid blind spots.”

More than half of workers surveyed say they are unhappy in their jobs. The ideas the authors present have been vetted with their consulting clients from American Express to Procter & Gamble to AT&T, and are shown to increase levels of employee motivation, engagement, and productivity. This is a vital message for leadership teams, employee groups, or association audiences.

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How One Great Team Can Transform an Entire Organization

In The Orange Revolution, which is recognized worldwide as the premiere book on how breakthrough teams and teamwork revolutionize a company, a community, and the world, Elton highlights the key traits found inside the world's most stellar teams. He illustrates the steps these teams took to conquer barriers, exceed expectations, and overcome mediocrity through brilliant collaboration. Based on the acclaimed bestseller, this presentation reveals the synergy that exists among teams in the world's most respected and innovative organizations - and how to tap into that power within any group of individuals. Drawing on startling research and case studies from leading teams at Zappos, Pepsi Bottling Company, The Blue Angels, Texas Roadhouse, Apple, and numerous others, Elton will show how true teamwork produces results that change the world and can immediately increase productivity, engagement, loyalty, innovation, and the bottom-line.

A Culture of Recognition

A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Carrot Principle has become the preeminent source on employee engagement and recognition. In this presentation based on the runaway bestseller, Elton reveals the groundbreaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, showing definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. This breakthrough study of 200,000 people over ten years found dramatically greater business results when managers offered constructive praise and meaningful rewards in ways that powerfully motivated employees to excel. Drawing on case studies from leading companies including Disney, KPMG, and the Pepsi Bottling Company, Elton shows how the transformative power of purpose-based recognition produces astonishing increases in operating results. He shows how great managers lead with carrots, not sticks, and in doing so achieve higher productivity, engagement, retention, and customer satisfaction.

How the Best Managers Create a Culture of Belief & Drive Big Results

In his New York Times bestsellers The Carrot Principle and The Orange Revolution, Elton reveals groundbreaking new findings: today's high-performance organizations have a distinctive kind of culture that leads to astonishing results. Based on breakthrough research and extensive consulting experience with the "who's who" of successful companies, Elton presents a simple seven-step roadmap that all managers can follow to create a high-achieving culture within their own teams. With the most current data available on corporate culture, Elton offers specific how-tos for each of the seven steps. He will relate fascinating stories of leaders in action that vividly depict just how these powerful methods can be implemented.

The Orange Revolution: How One Great Team Can Change an Organization

New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling authors Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick have once again transformed the corporate playing field with The Orange Revolution, recognized worldwide as the premiere book on how breakthrough teams and teamwork revolutionize a company, a community, and the world.

The Orange Revolution Keynote highlights the key traits found inside the world’s most stellar teams. Chester illustrates the steps these teams took to conquer barriers, exceed expectations, and overcome mediocrity through brilliant collaboration. This presentation reveals the synergy that exists among teams in the world’s most respected and innovative organizations— and how to tap into that power within any group of individuals.

Drawing on startling research and case studies from leading teams at Zappos, Pepsi Bottling Company, The Blue Angels, Texas Roadhouse, Apple, and numerous others, the Orange Revolution Keynote shows how true teamwork produces results that change the world and can immediately increase:

  • Productivity
  • Engagement
  • Loyalty
  • Innovation
  • Bottom-line Results

This must-see presentation introduces the simple steps to inspiring an Orange Revolution in your organization— through easy, prescriptive, outcome-based applications that can be implemented today.

All In: Creating a Culture of Buy-In and Belief

How the best managers create a CULTURE of belief and drive real results

The authors of the New York Times bestsellers The Carrot Principle and The Orange Revolution present groundbreaking new findings — today’s high-performance organizations have a distinctive kind of culture that leads to astonishing results.

Teaming up with research giant Towers Watson, authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton present an unprecedented 300,000-person study conducted in the worst of the recession. Based on this breakthrough research and their extensive consulting experience with a who’s-who of successful companies, they present a simple seven-step roadmap that all managers can follow to create a high-achieving culture in their own teams.

With the most current data available on culture, the authors offer specific how-tos for each step, and tell fascinating stories of leaders in action that vividly depict just how these powerful methods can be implemented. Audiences will learn:

The 3 research-based characteristics of the world’s most profitable, productive organizational and team cultures

The 7 steps today’s most successful managers use to generate buy-in

How managers at any level can build a productive workgroup culture of their own where employees commit to the culture and give that extra push of effort

The Invisible Employee: Unleashing Hidden Potential

There is a crisis in business todaythe potential of your employees and new hires is being trapped, squashed or just overlooked. Only one keynote speaker is unraveling the truthripping through Fortune 500 companies with a bag full of keys to unlock the power of your people. Based on the New York Times best-selling book, The Invisible Employee, Chester Elton can unlock the hidden potential of your workforce. Elton enlightens, inspires and energizes audiences. He shares why many employees today feel over-looked, ignored and completely unappreciated. And he exposes why employees respond to those feelings with negative reactionsdoing just enough to get by, grumbling about work and passing toxic attitudes on to other team members. After all, why bother shining when no one notices your achievements? The Invisible Employee keynote leverages hard-won wisdom, with Eltons renowned blazing energy, humor and real life examples. Across the globe and into the most recognized companies, Chester Elton is helping managers combat one of the most common negative forces in businesssmart employees hiding from their potential and never doing more than is asked. Elton shows managers how to:

  • Engage or re-ignite an employees passion for work

  • Stimulate a new-hires onboarding experience

  • Recognize employees to accelerate performance

  • Minimize attrition and increase retention

  • Build a culture based on trust and appreciation

  • Setting clear goals and seeing the right behaviors

The Invisible Employee Keynote is inspiring managers worldwide to create organizations jam-packed with productive employees who feel noticed, valued and appreciated.

The Carrot Principle: Engaging Employees through Recognition

A New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best seller, The Carrot Principle has become the preeminent source on employee engagement and recognition. Based on his runaway best seller, The Carrot Principle workshop or keynote reveals the ground breaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, showing definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is that they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. This breakthrough study of 200,000 people over ten years found dramatically greater business results when managers offered constructive praise and meaningful rewards in ways that powerfully motivated employees to excel. Drawing on case studies from leading companies including Disney, KPMG and The Pepsi Bottling Group, the best-selling author shows how the transformative power of purpose-based recognition produces astonishing increases in operating results. Elton shows how great managers lead with carrots, not sticks and in doing so achieve higher: - Productivity

  • Engagement

  • Retention

  • Customer Satisfaction

This exceptional presentation introduces the simple steps to becoming a Carrot Principle manager and to building a recognition culture in your organization; it offers a wealth of specific examples, drawn from real-life cases, of ways to do recognition right. Following these simple steps will make you a high-performance leader and take your team to a new level of achievement.

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News


Top 30 Leadership Gurus
NY Times best selling author, Chester Elton « CBS Detroit
Called the “apostle of appreciation,” by the Globe and Mail, Canada's largest newspaper, and “creative and refreshing” by the New York Times, Chester Elton is ...

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