RSC-Powered Inclusive Leadership Conference Kicks Off in May

The future of business is here, sooner than anyone expected. Are you ready?

The events of the last year have created a new world, one where the rules of competition have changed. Winning today means accelerating at the speed of innovation. It means being ready for disruption before it transforms our lives and organizations. It means embracing change as an opportunity that happens for us — and not a threat that happens to us.

This conference is for leaders who want to be prepared for today while building both the mindset and the skill set to ride the wave of tomorrow. The inaugural, 3-part series, starting on May 19th, will feature three dynamic Harvard Business School professors and best-selling authors as they explore the intersection – and sometimes the collision – of technology, leadership, and change. All sessions will be live and interactive. Register now!

Day 1: Future Leadership (May 19th, 10am to Noon EST)

Frances Frei, Harvard Business School
Author of Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You

Traditional leadership narratives assume that the vision-having, strategy-making, troops-rallying leader is the most important person in the room.

Future leadership blows up that storyline. From rebuilding trust in institutions to unleashing potential at the scale of organizations, the practice of future leadership isn’t about you. Instead, it’s about how effective you are at empowering other people and unleashing their full potential.

That journey starts with trust. In this highly interactive class, Professor Frei will share an intuitive framework for building (and rebuilding) high levels of trust, while examining a leadership mindset that’s “not about you.” In addition, you will learn how future-ready organizations are building trust by investing in diversity and prioritizing inclusion as an urgent, achievable goal.

Spotlighted skills:

• Empowerment leadership
• Building and rebuilding trust
• Creating inclusive teams and cultures

 

Day 2: Competing in the Age of AI (May 20th, 10am to Noon EST)

Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School
Author of Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World

“AI is the ‘runtime’ that is going to shape all of what we do.”

This powerful statement from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, captures the emerging role of disruptive technologies such as AI in organizations today. While we still often treat “intelligent” tools as the domain of a specific function or sector, we’ve now entered an era in which they are changing everything we do in business – even fundamental ideas about how a company operates.

AI-powered systems are vastly more scalable than traditional operations, drive massive scope increase, enable companies to straddle industry boundaries, and create powerful opportunities for learning—to drive ever more accurate, complex, and sophisticated predictions.

From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, you will learn how future-ready organizations are using AI to redefine how they create, capture, share, and deliver value.

Spotlighted skills:

• Leadership of digital/AI-driven firms
• Navigating digital opportunities and risks
• Driving increasing returns on scale, scope, and learning

 

Day 3: Adopting A Digital Mindset (May 21st, 10am to 1pm EST)

Tsedal Neeley, Harvard Business School
Author of Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere

Thriving in the digital age requires a profound shift in mindset. We need new, “digital” approaches to make sense of this new world.

Professor Neeley will bring two decades of research on virtual and global work to a deep exploration of the fundamentals of developing – and disseminating — a digital mindset. And because how we think shapes how we act, an effective digital mindset must be coupled with concrete skills that give us the vocabulary, knowledge, and intuition to compete in a digital world.

Future-ready leaders have begun to embrace the opportunities of remote work, including nonexistent commute times, flexible scheduling, and increased productivity. Many organizations are planning to incorporate remote workspaces, along with other digital architecture, into their long-term vision. These opportunities come with inherent challenges for the human beings in these systems, however, including the blurring of work/life boundaries, the erosion of trust, and tech exhaustion. People can quickly feel isolated, out of sync, and out of touch.

In this session, you will learn how to set your team up for success in a digital ecosystem and continue your own journey towards future readiness.

Spotlighted skills:

• Fundamentals of a digital mindset
• Best practices in driving remote connection and productivity
• Using digital tools to enable high-performance teams (and avoid tech exhaustion)