GRACE under Pressure John Baldoni

Joe Hart began his career as a practicing attorney. After taking a Dale Carnegie Course, Joe reassessed his career path and future, ultimately leaving the practice of law, going to work for a top real estate company, and then founding an innovative e-learning company called InfoAlly. After selling that business five years later, Joe became the president of Asset Health, a US-based health and wellness company—all before becoming the President and CEO of Dale Carnegie in 2015. In 2019, the CEO Forum Group named Joe as one of twelve transformative leaders, giving him the Transformative CEO Leadership Award in the category of the People. He is the host of a top global podcast, “Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast”, and he speaks around the world on topics such as leadership, resilience, and innovation, among other things. Joe and his wife, Katie, have six children, two dogs, and one cat. He is an active marathoner, having run many races, including Boston, New York, Chicago, Berlin, Detroit, and Toronto. https://www.dalecarnegie.com/en/joe-hart

Michael J. Gelb is the world’s leading authority on the application of genius thinking to personal and organizational development. A pioneering practitioner and thought leader in the fields of creative thinking, executive coaching and conscious leadership, he is the author of 17 books including How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Innovate Like Edison,  The Art of Connection, The Healing Organization (with Raj Sisodia) and Mastering the Art of Public Speaking. Michael’s books have been translated into 25 languages and have sold more than one million copies. In 1999 Michael received the “Brain-of-the-Year” award from the Brain Foundation, other winners include Stephen Hawking, Garry Kasparov and Bill Gates. In 2003 Michael received a Batten Fellowship in Innovation from The University of Virginia and co-directed the acclaimed Leading Innovation Seminar at the Darden Graduate School of Business for more than 10 years. In 2020 he was invited to become a Senior Fellow of the Center for Humanistic Management at Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business. In 2021 Michael was invited to become a member of the MG100 Coaches group.  Michael is also a master teacher of the Alexander Technique, aikido and qigong and a professional juggler who performed with the Rolling Stones. Information about Michael, plus links to Michael’s books, including his classic tome, “How to Think Like Leonardo” are at MichaelGelb.com)

Michael Bungay Stanier helps people know they’re awesome and they’re doing great. He’s best known for his book The Coaching Habit which is the best selling book on coaching this century and is considered a classic His most recent book is How to Work with (Almost) Anyone and it shows how to build the Best Possible Relationship with the key people at work. He founded Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that has trained hundreds of thousands of managers to be more coach-like in organizations from Microsoft to Gucci. He left Australia about 30 years ago to be a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University ... where his only significant achievement was falling in love with a Canadian ... and which is why he now lives in Toronto, having spent time in London and Boston. Balancing out these moments of success, he was banned from his high school graduation for “the balloon incident” ... was sued by one of his Law School professors for defamation ... and his first published piece of writing was a Harlequin Romance-esque story involving a misdelivered letter ... and called The Male Delivery. www.mbs.works

Sally Jenkins has been a Washington Post columnist and feature writer for 25 years. She was twice the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was named the winner of the Associated Press Red Smith Award for Outstanding Contributions to Sports journalism. She has been named a columnist of the year four times each by the Associated Press and is the author of 12 books of non-fiction, four of them New York Times bestsellers. Jenkins also spent seven years as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated magazine, and other work has appeared in Smithsonian, Tennis Magazine, Golf Digest, and ESPN Magazine. In 2005 she was the first woman to be inducted in the National Sportwriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University in 1982 and resides in New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sally-jenkins/

Fritz Seyferth and his team at FS/A have been helping organizations access their untapped potential, paving the way for achieving consistent, sustainable Peak Performance. By combining a systems engineering mindset with a deep understanding of human motivation, Fritz shares how a meaningful life is enhanced when we partner with like-minded people who make the shift from me to team.  Fritz learned early in life to be flexible and open to change, and to understand there are many ways to succeed: He lived in seven cities in five states before starting kindergarten in Covina, CA, and then moved to Swarthmore, PA, before settling in Darien, CT, where he finished high school. Understanding how things work—and taking them apart and putting them back together to work even better—has always been a fascination for Fritz, whether it is a bicycle, plant layout, or organization. He was fortunate to compete at the highest levels in college, as a professional athlete, and in business. His more than forty-year study of leadership and exceptional teams has provided an intimate understanding of the principles and disciplines found in the most successful leaders and organizations. https://team-fsa.com/

JIM HARTER, Ph.D., is Chief Scientist, Workplace for Gallup. He has led more than 1,000 studies of workplace effectiveness, including the largest ongoing meta-analysis of human potential and business unit performance. The bestselling author of 12: The Elements of Great Managing, Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, Wellbeing at Work,and the No. 1 Wall Street Journal bestseller It’s the Manager, Harter has also published articles in many prominent business and academic journals. His newest book is Culture Shock, a look at the workplace of today in the wake of the pandemic and the move to remote and hybrid environments. www.gallup.org   https://www.gallup.com/workplace/469790/culture-shock.aspx

William D. Eggers is executive director of the Deloitte Center for Government Insights and a fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including The Solution Revolution and If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, both from Harvard Business Review Press. Donald F. Kettl is a professor emeritus, former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He was previously the Sid Richardson Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include, most recently, The Divided States of America and Can Governments Earn Our Trust?  Eggers and Kettl’s newest book is Bridge Builders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems.  https://www.amazon.com/Bridgebuilders-Government-Transcend-Boundaries-Problems/dp/1647825113/

Alan Mulally is one of the world’s most recognized CEOs for his contributions and industry leadership. Honors include being named No. 3 on Fortune’s “World’s Greatest Leaders” list, one of the 30 “World’s Best CEOs” by Barron’s magazine, “Industry Leader of the Year” by Automotive News magazine, one of “The World’s Most Influential People” by TIME magazine, “Chief Executive of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine, “Man of the Year” in the automotive sector by El Mundo and “Person of the Year” by Aviation Week magazine. Alan Mulally served as president and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company and was a member of the company’s Board of Directors from September 2006 to June 2014.. Prior to Ford, Mulally was named Boeing’s president of Commercial Airplanes in September 1998. The responsibility of chief executive officer for the business unit was added in March 2001. Alan has also been honored with the American Society for Quality’s Joseph M. Juran Medal for excellence in executive leadership for Quality, the Automotive Executive of the Year Award, the Edison Achievement Award and induction into the Kansas Business Hall of Fame. Mulally served on the President’s Export Council, which was formed in 2010 to advise U.S. President Barack Obama on export enhancement and ways to encourage companies to increase exports and enter new markets. He previously served as co-chairman of the Washington Competitiveness Council, and sat on the advisory boards of NASA, the University of Washington, the University of Kansas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of England’s Royal Academy of Engineering. For a selection of articles about Alan Mulally visit https://theengineunderthehood.substack.com/p/alan-mulallys-engine Alan Mulally Biography Work Is Love Made Visible: A Collection of Essays About the Power of Finding Your Purpose from the World’s Greatest Thought Leaders, Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith, Sarah McArthur, foreword Alan Mulally. “A Conversation with Alan Mulally about His “Working Together”© Strategic, Operational, and Stakeholder-Centered Management System,” Alan Mulally and Sarah McArthur, Leader to Leader, Volume 104. The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility: Thriving Organizations - Great Results, foreword and chapter by Alan Mulally about how leader humility enables and nurtures effective working together by great teams, Marilyn Gist, PhD. Lessons from Leaders, Marshall Goldsmith, Sam Shriver, Kathy McDermott. “To Serve Is to Live” “Engineer of the Year Alan Mulally” Lawrence D. Maloney, Design News, March 4, 1996. Twenty-First Century Jet: The Making and Marketing of the Boeing 777, Book and Video, Karl Sabbagh. American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, Bryce Hoffman. “American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company” Summary, Brady Pyle, Out of This World Leadership. Willow Creek-Working Together, Alan Mulally, September 8, 2016. “The Elevated Leader: Level Up Your Leadership Through Vertical Development,” an Gottfredson, Morgan James Publishing, October 2022. “Former CEO Alan Mulally Is Who CEOs Need to Be Today,” Article + Video, Dan Pontefract, Forbes, July 2022. Working Together: 12 Principles for Achieving Excellence in Managing Projects, Teams and Organizations, James Lewis. “How to Become a Game-Changing Leader,” Doug Ready, Alan Mulally, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2017, Vol. 59 No. 1, pp. 63-71. “Working Together” Leadership and Management System to Create Value for All the Stakeholders and the Greater Good, The Forum Club Interview with Alan Mulally, January 24, 2023

Kevin Griffin is an award-winning songwriter, producer, and performer whose songs have sold in excess of eighty million copies and been streamed over a billion times. He is best known as the singer and founding member of the platinum-selling rock band, Better Than Ezra. His new book is "THE GREATEST SONG: Spark Creativity, Ignite Your Career, and Transform Your Life." Kevin has written numerous #1’s and had songs performed by artists such as Taylor Swift, Train, Sugarland, Dierks Bentley, Christina Perri, Hunter Hayes, James Blunt, and many more. He is a co-founder and partner in Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival located in Franklin, Tennessee, and has served as a writer-in-residence at NYU’s Clive Davis School of Music. Griffin lectures internationally on creativity to groups and companies ranging from Live Nation, Google, Spotify and Disney to Nike, YPO/WPO and Salesforce.  He lives with his family in Franklin, Tennessee. https://www.kevingriffinmusic.com

Author, Catalyst, and Executive Coach Laura Gassner Otting inspires people to push past the doubt and indecision that keep great ideas in limbo by helping audiences think bigger and accept greater challenges that reach beyond their current, limited scope of belief. She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and perspective generated by decades of navigating change across the start-up, corporate, nonprofit, political, as well as philanthropic landscapes. Laura dares audiences to find their voice, and generate the confidence needed to tackle larger-than-life challenges by helping them to seek new ways of leading, managing, and mentoring others. Laura’s rebellious and entrepreneurial edge has been well-honed over a 25-year career that started when she dropped out of law school to join an unknown southern governor’s presidential campaign, and ended up as a Presidential Appointee in Bill Clinton’s White House, where she helped shape AmeriCorps.   She left a leadership role as the youngest Vice President at a nationally respected search firm when she realized that her boss’s definition of success didn’t align with hers and, instead, founded and ran one of the fastest growing search firms in the country, partnering with the full gamut of mission-driven executives, from start-up dreamers to scaling social entrepreneurs to global philanthropists. In 2015, Laura sold that firm to the team who helped her build it, both because she was hungry for the next chapter and because she held an audacious dream of electing our nation’s first female president. (Whomp whomp.) Since that time, Laura has appeared regularly on Good Morning America and the TODAY Show, and her writing has been seen in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, HR Magazine. Laura is the author of Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life (2019), which debuted at #2 on the Washington Post bestseller list (right behind Michelle Obama), has been translated into Arabic, Korean, Turkish, Portuguese, and German, and which Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts chose as one of her Favorite Books of 2019, as well as Mission-Driven: Moving from Profit to Purpose (2015). Her newest book is Wonderhell. Through her own commitment to give back, Laura has helped build a local Montessori school, co-founded a women’s philanthropic initiative, advised a start-up national women’s PAC, grew a citizen-leadership development program, and completed five charity-inspired marathons, projects emblematic of her passions and values. She’s turned on by the audacity of The Big Idea and that larger-than-life goal you just can’t seem to shake. She’s an instigator, a motivator, and a provocateur, and she’s never met a revolution she didn’t like, just ask her enduringly patient husband, two almost-grown sons, and troublesome puppy with whom she lives outside of Boston, MA. www.wonderhellbook.com