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About Heidi K. Gardner
How do some rare companies get their experts working across silos while most organizations leave that know-how trapped inside them? Heidi K. Gardner has spent two decades building the empirical answer. She has shown that firms that collaborate smarter, not simply more, consistently generate higher revenues and profits, faster innovation, stronger client relationships and better talent retention.
Heidi's Keynote Topics
As much as enlightened leaders know the way to optimize performance is by engaging their talent, the pressures of today’s workplaces often create a task-focused, productivity-driven relationship between organizations and their people. In her bestselling book Smart Collaboration, Dr. Heidi K. Gardner shows how companies can resolve this paradox: they get diverse people to work together across organizational silos – and with outside partners – to tackle higher-value issues and solutions, playing to their unique strengths and deriving greater meaning from their work. This more engaged workforce then generates higher revenues and profits, improved customer satisfaction and faster innovation. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience and data-backed analytics, Dr. Gardner’s work provides a framework for leaders to address the whole organization – boosting productivity and inclusion, while preventing over-commitment and burnout. Having lived and worked on four continents, Dr. Gardner is well-equipped to lead keynotes, workshops, or advisory meetings that address the cross-cultural nuances of designing solutions that optimize profits, people and purpose.
From market volatility to ESG to capitalizing on the metaverse, leaders now face more complex challenges and opportunities than ever. Tackling these multi-faceted issues requires problem solving from diverse minds across the company and its ecosystem – but most of the time, the expertise is trapped in silos rather than harnessed for success. Drawing on a decade of award-winning, data-backed research at Harvard and firsthand work with hundreds of global companies, Dr. Heidi Gardner shows leaders how to get people working across functions and geographies – and with outside partners – to drive innovation, delight customers and engage their top talent. Sharing insights from her Washington Post bestselling book Smart Collaboration, and its sequel Smarter Collaboration, the highly interactive keynotes, workshops and advisory meetings help organizations troubleshoot thorny collaboration challenges like misaligned incentives, collaboration overload and unintended consequences on diversity and inclusion. Participants walk away with clear, pragmatic ideas for capturing the business and talent advantages of smarter collaboration.
Instability and extreme pressure are inevitable parts of the business landscape. That’s when leaders especially need their people to join forces, apply their unique knowledge and skills and create innovative ways for overcoming the issue at hand – what Harvard’s Dr. Heidi Gardner calls Smarter Collaboration. But the irony is that the stress of factors like political uncertainty, market shocks or digital dislocation often forces people to retreat into defensive mindsets and behaviors. Dr. Gardner’s extensive research and experience with hundreds of organizations across the globe shows that during a crisis people typically defer to authorities, conform, and opt for safe solutions – the antithesis of smarter collaboration. But data-backed strategies do exist for embracing collaboration and its full range of benefits – including higher revenue and profit, deeper customer relationships, and a happier workforce – during the times it is most needed. Hear these game-changing ideas from Dr. Gardner, an award-winning speaker, bestselling author, and former McKinsey consultant. Offered in keynotes, workshops, or advisory meetings, her engagements help participants come up with approaches that are customized for their organization’s specific market, needs and challenges.
Books by Heidi K. Gardner
Overcoming Ageism (HBR Women at Work Series)
Harvard Business Review Press, 2024
Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work
Harvard Business Review Press, 2022
Virtual EI (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)
Harvard Business Review Press, 2022
Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos
Harvard Business Review Press, 2017Articles by Heidi K. Gardner
Why Offsites Work — and How to Get the Most Out of Them
October 2024Harvard Business ReviewDiscovering Where ChatGPT Can Create Value for Your Company
June 2023Harvard Business ReviewIs Your Hybrid Team Losing Steam?
May 2023CNBCHarvard Career Expert: The ‘Highly Desirable’ Skill Successful People Have—It Is ‘Surprisingly Rare’
March 2023Harvard Business Review3 Strategies to Bridge Generational Divides at Work (Featured in HBR's Women at Work Series, "Overcoming Ageism")
December 2022Training IndustryHow To Build Smarter Collaboration Capabilities
November 2022Fast Company4 Mistakes You’re Probably Making that Hurt Your Ability to Collaborate
November 2022Training MagazineCompensation As a Strong Shaper of a Collaborative Culture
October 2022Chief Executive8 Ways To Beat Back Pressure In Real Time
October 2022CEOWORLD MagazineWhy Smarter Collaboration Should be at the Top of Every Senior Leader’s Agenda
October 2022Harvard Business ReviewIs Your Board Inclusive — or Just Diverse?
September 2022CoThink Your Board is Diverse? Inclusivity Can Be Counterintuitive
September 2022Heidi in the Media
CMO Series Laterals & Mergers: Heidi Gardner and Ivan Matviak on How Law Firms Can Turn Relationships into Revenue
Consulting firms want junior staff back in the office. Here's why
Will Biglaw Silos Become A Thing Of The Past?
Career Tools: Smarter Collaboration
Dr. Heidi K. Gardner Shares Views on New Meta Return-to-Office Mandate
Mark Zuckerberg’s New Return-To-Office Mandate Is a Clear Problem, Says Harvard Expert
Dr. Heidi K. Gardner Discusses Corporate Board Diversity and Inclusion
Dr. Heidi K. Gardner Discusses Corporate Board Diversity and Inclusion in BBC Interview
Innovation as a Team Sport: The Importance of Collaboration in Legal Teams
Harvard Expert Shares Her No. 1 ‘Undesirable’ Trait CEOs See In Employees: It’s ‘A Huge Red Flag For Me’
Harvard Expert ‘Takes Issue’ With Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Layoffs: Cutting Jobs Over Email Is ‘Absolutely Horrific’
How to Drive and Accelerate Collaboration
How Heidi Works with Organizations
Each engagement is built around your goals and audience.
01 · WORKSHOPDriving Sustainable, Higher-Performing Collaboration Across Organizations
Partnering across organizations—whether clients, suppliers, alliances, or even competitors—can be incredibly powerful but is often fraught or inefficient. This workshop brings together top stakeholders from across parties to build stronger, more effective, sustainable collaboration that drives measurable improvement in outcomes. Harvard professor and bestselling author Dr. Heidi K. Gardner guides participants to deepen trust, build multi-threaded relationships and identify potential friction points before they erupt—all with the goal of co-creating solutions and performance that go beyond what any of the groups could achieve on their own. Fostering this kind of smarter collaboration between two parties or across a bigger ecosystem demands the sort of science-backed, tested approaches that are the hallmark of Dr. Gardner’s research, teaching and consulting work.
02 · WORKSHOPPromoting Inclusive Leadership Through Smarter Collaboration
Drawing from Chapter 10 of Dr. Heidi K. Garner’s book Smarter Collaboration, this workshop delves into the unintended consequences of well-intentioned decisions to expand diversity in one’s company. Through Dr. Gardner’s latest research findings and potentially your organization’s own data, you will uncover hidden patterns that suggest where biased decisions are having an adverse effect on your organization. No tradeoff is needed between hitting your numbers and making the right choices from a diversity and inclusion perspective: these two goals are actually mutually reinforcing. Take your newfound knowledge and turn it around to make sure you are capturing the benefits of inclusive leadership, helping you achieve your strategic outcomes—whether they are faster innovation, deeper customer relationships, or another critical area of focus.
03 · WORKSHOPSmarter Collaboration: Harnessing Inclusivity for Higher Team Performance
Engagement and collaboration aren’t “soft topics”—they are the best way to achieve higher performance. Backed up with data, analytics and case studies from her book, Smarter Collaboration, world-renowned Harvard professor Dr. Heidi K. Gardner helps leaders create a context where team members thrive and performance soars. It’s not enough to bring diverse minds together; the group must fully leverage each person’s unique perspectives, strengths and experience. How do you motivate people to contribute based on their strengths? How do you lean into conflict, capitalizing on it as healthy friction to generate innovation? Using the Smart Collaboration Accelerator—a research-based psychometric assessment—each workshop participant gets personalized feedback to better understands their strengths and how to use them. The resulting Leader Insight Report aggregates data across the group to highlight collective blind spots: all to improve interpersonal dynamics, heighten performance and make participants more inclusive leaders for the rest of the organization. This small-group workshop is aimed at corporate boards, executive teams and cross-functional committees focused on driving performance, engagement and inclusivity.
Everyone talks about collaboration but relatively few people actually know how to do effectively. Gardner and Matviak have written the go-to guide for doing collaboration right. Their use cases for smarter collaboration will resonate deeply with any business leader who’s seeking to rev up innovation, profitability and employee engagement.
Gunjan KediaVice Chairman, U.S. Bank
[Gardner’s research] shows, unequivocally, the business and people benefits of collaboration…Far from being an added cost that clients will not pay for, it is the firms and individuals who do not address collaboration who are at the greatest risk of failing to grow, or even going out of business altogether.
Journal of the Knowledge and Information Management Group (CILIP)
Market volatility. Sustainability demands. Hybrid working. Opportunities and hazards of fast-changing technology and regulations. Companies and nonprofits face more daunting challenges than ever. How can we collaborate in our organizations (and with outside partners) to solve problems, innovate, and succeed? With the publication of 'Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work,' co- authors Heidi K. Gardner and Ivan A. Matviak offer truly groundbreaking solutions. 'Smarter Collaboration' lays out a pragmatic action plan blending rich stories, new empirical research, and loads of practical advice to help companies thrive by collaborating more effectively. As Harvard Professor Heidi K. Gardner and senior executive Ivan A. Matviak show, firms that collaborate smarter consistently generate higher revenues and profits, boost innovation, strengthen client relationships, and attract and retain better talent. In this successor to Gardner's bestselling first book, 'Smarter Collaboration,' the co-authors expand their mandate, illustrating the fundamental dynamics of collaborating well across industries like financial services, health care, biotech/pharma, consumer products, automotive, and technology. Based on their research with thousands of executives from around the world, they share deep insights on how to implement smarter collaboration and avoid the potential pitfalls. They also help leaders troubleshoot thorny challenges like misaligned incentives, collaboration overload, and unintended consequences on diversity and inclusion. Complete with illustrative how-to’s and cases, 'Smarter Collaboration' concludes with inspiring examples of groups harnessing smarter collaboration to tackle society's biggest challenges such as saving the oceans, eradicating diseases, and tackling global warming. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, 'Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work' must be considered as an essential and 'real world practical' instructional guide and 'how to' manual for corporate leaders at all levels to improve the way they work, and as a result, increase the impact and success of their corporate or non-profit organizations." Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review
With the scale and complexity of challenges facing business and society today, knowing how to collaborate – how to really collaborate – is one of the most important skills of our time. Through pragmatic insight and engaging examples, Gardner and Matviak illuminate a path for leaders that begins with truly valuing the wisdom people bring, and results in innovations beyond what any one group could create alone.
Sandy SpeicherFormer CEO, IDEO
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