Frans Johansson is the bestselling author of The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts and Cultures. Translated into 18 languages, The Medici Effect was named one of the top 10 best business books of the year by Amazon.com.
In his book and his presentations, Johansson clearly demonstrates how the best ideas and innovation come from collaboration between people with diverse experiences, skills, expertise, perspectives, backgrounds, and cultures. Simply stated, Johansson is known for making the business case for diversity. IN programs packed with plenty of examples, he gives audiences what they need to know and need to do to break down silos and bring out the best that everyone has to give to any challenge or opportunity, regardless of rank or where they reside on the org chart—even if they are not on it.
Johansson has lived all his life at the intersection where ideas from different fields and cultures meet and collide. Raised in Sweden by his African-American-Cherokee mother and Swedish father, Johansson earned his B.S. in Environmental Science from Brown University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He founded both a Boston-based software company and a medical device company that operates out of Baltimore and Stockholm, Sweden. Johansson has published articles on healthcare, information technology, and the science of sport fishing. He has also been featured on CNN’s AC360, ABC’s Early Morning Show, and CNBC’s The Business of Innovation series along with Jack Welch and Muhammad Yunus.
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Speech Topics
The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World
Success, we’re told, is the outcome of careful planning, analysis, and strategy. But the truth is that success is far more random than we’d like to believe. In fact, in today’s complex, volatile, and random world, the five-year business plan is obsolete. Going through the motions can no longer guarantee strong performance. If planning is out the window, what do you have? According to Frans Johansson, you must look for “click moments”—rare opportunities, often serendipitous, to change course. In this talk, he will discuss how to spot click moments and increase their occurrence in your life, how to place lots of high-potential bets, and how to leverage the complex forces that follow into a winning strategy.
The Medici Effect: Groundbreaking Innovation at the Intersection of Disciplines and Cultures
What do goat’s milk, spiders, and fishing lines have in common? Fiber optics and concrete? Ant hills and architecture? Most of us would assume nothing. But from each of these seemingly random combinations have come radical innovations that have created whole new fields. In this talk, Frans Johansson takes us on a fascinating journey to The Intersection™—a place where ideas from different fields and cultures meet and collide, ultimately igniting an explosion of extraordinary, new innovations. Through the Medici principles of innovation, see how companies become global leaders; how products and services yield huge margins; and how the most unlikely of people have outdone the experts in their own fields.
Diversity Drives Innovation
The world is changing fast. People today are more global than ever and move often between many cultures and countries. Companies, cities, and nations must compete on a global basis. In this new order of rising economies and beleaguered first-world nations, diversity is more important than ever for innovation. Frans explains how today’s most innovative companies form culturally diverse talent pools and teams as a specific strategy to innovate. These companies have become #1 brand leaders, R&D centers—and very profitable. In this program, Frans clearly and persuasively shows what happens when companies make diversity their most powerful innovation tool.
