Dr. John Izzo

Dr. John Izzo consults and advises some of the most admired companies in the world, teaches at major universities, conducts leading edge research on workplace values and has spoken to more than one million people across the globe, from Brazil to Russia, from New York to London. He is a leading business strategy expert, a best-selling author, a community leader and an avid conservationist. He has served on the boards of several large conservation organizations, worked with over 100 companies to create more socially responsible workplaces, and was chair of the North American Environmental Caucus at the UN Conference on Development and Sustainability in Cairo.

Prior to establishing his own firm, Izzo was a senior organizational development consultant for Kaiser Permanente, and Vice President of The Einstein Consulting Group, an international customer service consultancy.

Izzo has devoted his life and career to helping leaders create workplaces that bring out the best in people, plus discover more purpose and fulfillment in life and work. For over 20 years, he has pioneered employee engagement, helping organizations create great corporate cultures and leading brands through transformations that create both customer and employee loyalty.

His client organizations range from high tech to high touch, from hotels to hospitals, from government agencies to entrepreneurial start-ups. He focuses on coaching leaders and organizations to achieve sustainable success through integrating purposeful leadership with business development practices.

Top executives say that Izzo brings the unique combination of practical ideas and high-level "big picture" thinking to their organizations. He challenges audiences to greater vision and leaves them with practical strategies to create the organization of the future.

Izzo's latest book is called Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything

John Izzo Blog Entries:

The Lessons of BP

• 5. 100/0: 100% Responsibility/Zero Excuses: How Stepping Up Can Change Your Company & The World

  Taking responsibility means stepping up and seeing yourself as the agent of change, whether it is changing your company, improving customer engagement or changing the world.

  This hard hitting keynote shows how "stepping up" and seeing it as "my job" creates positive change while improving our satisfaction at work and in life. Dr. Izzo shows how a simple concept called "100/0" transforms a company and a business when each of us decides to put aside our excuses and take initiative to create change.

  Izzo shares a simple formula: "change begins in this room, it begins with me, and it begins now." His message on taking initiative helps teams and leaders act like owners.

  Filled with inspiring examples of how people have stepped up and made things better, your audience will leave knowing that the more each of us takes personal responsibility the better the workplace, the better our life and the better the world.

  Izzo will share the following examples from companies he has worked with:

  -How a small group of employees got together and transformed service and morale at a large hospital

  -How a leader took a dying business unit within a large telco and got employees to step up creating a "cash cow" for her company

  -How a new VP helped drivers take responsibility for the profitability of their individual routes taking his division from best to worst

  -How a small group of people stepped up and transformed one of the worst slums in the world into a thriving community.

  From global warming to improving customer service and profits, this keynote will show how making the choice to step up changes everything.

• 1. It's My Job: How Stepping Up Creates Change

  Taking responsibility means stepping up and seeing yourself as the agent of change - whether it is changing your company, improving customer engagement or changing the world.

  This hard hitting keynote shows how "stepping up" and seeing it as "my job" creates positive change while improving our satisfaction at work and in life.

  Dr. Izzo shows how a simple concept called "100/0" (100% responsiblity, 0 excuses) transforms a company and a business when each of us decides to put aside our excuses. His message on taking initiative helps teams and leaders act like owners. Izzo shares a simple formula: "change begins in this room, it begins with me, and it begins now." Filled with inspiring examples of how people have stepped up and made things better, your audience will leave knowing that the more each of us takes personal responsibility the better the workplace, the better our life and the better the world.

  From Global Warming to improving customer service, this keynote will show how making the choice to step up changes everything.

• 8. The Green Advantage: Making Your Business a Sustainable Leader

  Surveys show that an increasing number of consumers and employees rank the environment and sustainability near the top of their list. What’s more, companies that take the “green challenge” can save costs while gaining a real advantage in the marketplace. But how does a company go “green” and become a sustainability leader?

  Dr. Izzo brings twenty-five years of experience helping companies to help your organization understand the advantages of sustainability while implementing practical steps to become a sustainability leader in your industry.

• 7. A Sustainable Future: The Challenge of Our Generation

  Sustainability has become one of the emerging global issues of our time. From melting Arctic Ice to disappearing forests, there are signs everywhere that we must meet this challenge.

  Dr. Izzo shows how sustainability is not one challenge among many but THE challenge of our generation akin to the war the last generation fought to free the world from tyranny. Many talks on sustainability leave attendees discouraged but this program will leave your people inspired, challenged and stepping up to make a difference.

  This program helps individuals find the truth amidst all the noise about the challenges that we face and leaves everyone knowing how we can meet the challenge ahead. Using beautiful images, startling facts and inspiring examples of how we are already stepping up to meet the challenge of our generation, this program works for every level of the organization or for clients.

• 6. Business & the Green Challenge: How Business Will Save The Planet

  If you are tired of “green talks” that beat up on business, this talk is for you. Business is often blamed for damaging the environment but in this program Dr. John Izzo shows that business is and must lead the way to meet the challenge of sustainability. He shows how individuals cannot do enough alone and why government is important but unable to meet the challenge. Through inspiring examples, startling facts, personal stories and practical ideas, your audience will leave seeing the important role businesses and corporate leaders will play in meeting the sustainability challenge.

• 3. Becoming an Admired Brand: Being Good is Good for Business

  The value of being an admired brand can add as much as 30% to your profitability. Over the last decade the percentage of a company’s value that is related to “goodwill” has quadrupled which means that increasingly we are only as good as our “good name.” Social responsibility, trust, and being “green” have made the largest gains in terms of who we buy from and who we want to work for in the last decade. Being an admired brand matters not only outside your company, but inside, where studies that show that the single best predictor of employee commitment is how proud they are to work for your company.

  This hard hitting keynote shows what makes a brand admired by customers and employees; your attendees will leave with 5 keys to creating an admired brand that will be a magnet for talent and customers. Your attendees will also learn the three things that can derail your brand and how to avoid them.

  With inspiring real life examples of how companies create great brand image, Dr. Izzo will show how everyone from the CEO to the front line associate can help create an admired brand that customers trust. 

• 2. Engage Your People, Grow Your Business: The Secrets of Highly Engaged Teams

  Studies show that organizations with high levels of employee engagement are significantly more profitable, have much higher customer loyalty, higher productivity, and better reputations with customers than those with moderate engagement. But what are the secrets to highly engaged teams and highly engaged companies?

  Dr. John Izzo has spent a lifetime researching what separates truly passionate, high engagement teams and leaders from the rest of the pack. In this keynote you will discover the four keys to creating a high engagement team and see why some leaders consistently get high levels of commitment from people.

  Filled with inspiring examples and practical ideas that can be implemented immediately, you will see an impact on engagement beginning the day after your leaders hear this talk. Based on his work with many of the best workplaces in the world, Izzo will show your leaders how the implementation of simple disciplines and routines will create highly engaged teams. Your people will also leave seeing how they personally impact engagement while taking responsibility to engage team members.

  Based on his groundbreaking work in his best-selling books Awakening Corporate Soul and Values Shift, Izzo will include how to win and engage the emerging workforce.The capacity to change is critical for both personal and organizational success.

  Organizations spend millions of dollars trying to get people to change and on learning activities aimed at helping people develop new habits. Yet many efforts to get people to change fail and training often fails to produce real behavioral change.

  In this talk, Dr. Izzo will explore emerging research on the brain that shows why it is so hard for us to change habits and the five keys to sustainable change in behavior. You will learn why our brains are hard-wired to change rather than resist change once we understand how habits are actually formed and changed. You will see why so many traditional change efforts fail and learn how to use this new science of the brain to lead others to change and also how to change yourself.

  Dr. Izzo will show how this new science of the brain influences everything from performance management to training, from large scale change efforts to how we make changes in our own life and work. This keynote will change how you lead change forever and lead to lasting changes in your own life and work.

• 4. The Five Secrets of Engaging Leaders/Salespeople

  We all know people who seem to deeply connect with others. We want to work with these people, follow these people and do our best for these people. But what is the “magic” of being a person that others want to engage with? Why do some people connect with others and make others want to connect with them? What is the secret "presence" that some leaders and salespeople seem to have that others envy?

  Based on twenty years of research on what creates positive relationships at work, Dr. Izzo shows the five biggest "detractors," the things that ensure others will NOT want to engage with you and how to stop doing them. Izzo explores five secrets to being an engaging leader and shows your audience proven methods for increasing your connection with others immediately.

  Worker motivation and retention now rank evenly with customer service as the key to holding market edge. Never has it been so important to see the workplace through employees' eyes, and cater to their beliefs and needs. This represents nothing short of a sea of change from values of even ten years ago.

  This keynote focuses on six major value shifts in terms of what people expect from work and are looking for in a company. It offers practical ideas on what companies and managers can do to win commitment and increase loyalty of employees companies, Dr. Izzo will help your people understand these shifting values and how they differ across generation and gender. Find out what successful companies are doing in response! (Based on His book, VALUES SHIFT: The New Work Ethic & What it Means for Business)
  
  Key points:

  ·Understand the six major value shifts
  ·Learn what this means for retention of employees
  ·Learn what leading-edge companies are doing to respond to these shifts
  ·Understand how these shifts differ across generations and gender
  ·Gain practical ideas on how organizations and leaders can respond to these shifts and win commitment from their people.
  

• You did an excellent job, Thank you for your inspiring and thought provoking program we are already planning next year and our attendees want you back!
  American Association of Occupational Health Nurses
• Thank you for your insight and wisdom John, your program was so inspiring and motivating. Our work with you is far from over.
  Duke Energy
• You left the audience with a challenge to consider some of the realities that we face in education today and encouraged us to make a commitment to address at least one or two in a positive way.
  JBC School Superintendents Association
• For the second time you have commanded the attention of our managers. You know your stuff Dr. Izzo, and it was a sincere pleasure to work with you again!
  IBM
• Workforce issues in healthcare are diverse, and hearing John Izzo's today was THE most timely information I could have received. He is ahead of the curve and hopefully healthcare will strive to catch up!
  Kaiser Permanente
• Dr. Izzo was motivating, please have him back! He gave me things I can do to change my workplace.
  Coca Cola
• I personally consider your speech to be one of the best I've heard in years.
  Topaz International, Ltd.
• We went from 38th out of 40 hotels in service to number 4! John Izzo was part of this service excellence change effort and we highly recommend him!
  Fairmont Hotels
• Real estate is a competitive and often soul-less business thank you for reminding me to live my values and honor my life's purpose, I can't tell you how timely your message was for me.
  REMAX
• You inspired us to appreciate each other and you gave us so much food for thought! Thank you!
  Verizon
• John, I wanted to let you know how much your presentation meant to our delegates. The word used to describe the overall conference was 'aligned' and that had a lot to do with how well you wrapped it up...The standing ovation was not a surprise but a resounding testament to 'we got it John' from each of our delegates.
  WSIB

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  December 2011

  Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything

  STEPPING UP: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything argues that almost every problem can be solved if each of us looks to ourselves to be the agent of change, rather than waiting for 'someone' to do it for us. John Izzo PhD explains that if we all step up and do our share - focus on our "five rows of responsibility" -- change can happen. In order to bring about change in your community, church, relationship or life, we cannot wait for somebody else to take action. STEPPING UP features stories of people doing just this.

  
  
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  December 2007

  The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

  What are the secrets to finding happiness? Why do some people live well and die happy? John Izzo asked thousands of people to identify the wisest person they knew. The Five Secrets shares what he learned from over 200 people aged 60-106 whom others said had found the meaning in life. From town barbers to Holocaust survivors, from aboriginal chiefs to CEO's, these people had over 18,000 years of life experience. This book will make you laugh, bring you to tears, and inspire you to discover what matters long before you die.

  
  
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  February 2004

  Second Innocence

  Many people have become more cynical and skeptical about business, government, the world, about whether one person can make a difference, and our ability to create a healthy society where our children and families are safe. In his new book, Second Innocence: Rediscovering Joy & Wonder, respected business advisor and former minister, Dr. John Izzo, suggests that only if we are willing to reclaim our innocence and idealism can we hope to create better communities, better families, better workplaces, and ultimately a better world.

  
  
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  April 2001

  Values-Shift: The New Work Ethic & What it Means for Business

  In this groundbreaking book, authors John B. Izzo and Pam Withers identify how our values about work have and continue to change and how this new work ethic is impacting companies as they try to attract and keep the talent they need. These values, according to Izzo, will require employers to focus on creating workplaces that respond to a shifting set of wants and desires. How we see work and what we want from it has shifted radically and smart companies are paying attention to these changes, says Izzo.

  
  
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  January 1999

  Awakening Corporate Soul

  This compelling book shows individuals how to renew their work-life and workplace with the wisdom of the spiritual traditions. The authors provide a blueprint for readers to find more meaning and fulfillment in their work while being an active participant in creating a better workplace for themselves and others. Filled with modern case studies, ancient teaching stories, exercises and personal examples, Awakening Corporate Soul is for anyone who wants a greater sense of meaning, spirit, creativity, and fulfillment at work and to their life.

  
  

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