"Here's what nobody's fessing up about organizational change:

The old playbook is broken. You know this to be true. You've watched smart people with good intentions create expensive disasters. Organizational change isn't just faster and messier and more relentless than it used to be. It's fundamentally different.

Yet most of us are still navigating with yesterday's map. If you're leading change and feeling the pressure, what you're missing isn't more advice. There's already an avalanche of trademarked methodologies, bestselling frameworks, and TED talks out there. Some terrible, much mediocre, most designed for a world that no longer exists.

What's missing is the operating system update. In this session, you'll discover:

This isn't theory. It's practical wisdom from thirty years in the trenches."

• Why you need to master two completely different spheres of change — and why Easy Change tactics actually make Hard Change worse
• The four foundational truths about change that everyone tries to sidestep because they're inconvenient, uncomfortable, and absolutely essential

"This interactive and research-informed session will explore the essential role of love and human connection in building trauma-informed leaders and organizations. Drawing from the neuroscience of attachment, connection, and belonging, we will examine how love—understood as empathy, compassion, and genuine regard for others—shapes safe and thriving communities, systems, and workplaces. Participants will gain insight into how environments of mattering and inclusion regulate the nervous system, reduce stress, and foster resilience. Together, we will discuss practical strategies leaders and organizations can adopt to embed compassionate practices into policies, culture, and daily interactions. Through dialogue, reflection, and applied exercises, participants will learn how love is not a “soft” add-on but a foundational force for equity, well-being, and sustainable organizational success.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Explain the neuroscience of love and connection and its impact on the human brain, stress response, and resilience.
2. Differentiate between trauma-aware, trauma-sensitive, and trauma-informed practices and how love serves as a guiding principle across all three.
3. Identify the role of mattering and belonging in shaping healthy organizational cultures that support both individual and collective well-being.
4. Recognize the leadership behaviors and organizational policies that either cultivate or erode safe, compassionate environments.
5. Apply practical strategies and tools to create cultures of care that balance accountability, equity, and compassion.
6. Reflect on their own leadership practices and identify ways to integrate love, empathy, and connection as core leadership competencies."

"Why is change so difficult, even when we are genuinely committed to it? How can we do a better job closing the gap between what we intend and our actual behaviors? For example, we might intend to live a healthier lifestyle but skip exercise, overeat or make less healthy dietary choices. Similarly, we may genuinely want a better work-life balance and yet we continue working overtime. By using an immunity to change approach, developed by Kegan and Lahey, we can see the hidden mental and emotional barriers, often formed long ago, that help us to understand why we behave counter to our goals. Once we become aware of these self-protective patterns, we can examine, evaluate and reformulate these barriers considering our current experiences.

Have you ever set a goal but struggled to follow through? What do you think might be holding you back? Through participating in an interactive process and applying this methodology to yourself, you’ll identify your personal barrier to change. The session concludes with practical methods, such as examining underlying assumptions and creating supportive environments, to help address these obstacles. Understanding and addressing these barriers contributes to lasting behavior changes over time, leading to greater fulfillment."

"To say that the rise of AI and technological innovation is impacting the coaching industry is an understatement. We are all experiencing the wave of disruption brought to the world with the emergence of ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and a number of AI coaching tools like Aimy, Valence, Sherlock etc. Coaching thought leaders have developed and distributed chatbots that incorporate their years in study and application of coaching: The Marshall Bot (Marshall Goldsmith) and the Marty Bot (Marty Seligman) are two of the best known. Our clients are using ChatGPT and other tech tools as coaches whether we approve or not. This tsunami of AI floods into all aspects of our lives – and our coaching practices, for good or ill.

There are many obvious questions worth grappling with. Here are just a few:

• Will AI replace human coaching?
• Is the emergence of AI in the coaching field a positive or negative for coaches?
• Do we embrace AI in service of our clients as an enhancement to human coaching?
• Do we, instead, reject the intrusion of LLM’s (large language models) into our domain, as they may be “experts” at advice-giving but don’t replace the nuance and depth of human-to-human interaction?

The most important question may be this: what can we do as coaches to retain and reinforce the value of human-to-human interaction – both personally and professionally, in the midst of transformative change?

In this interactive panel session, we will dive deep into these questions with experts who bring the full range of perspectives, on research, practice, ethics, and more."

"In an era in which people feel increasingly distracted, rushed, and uncertain, we can spend a disproportionate amount of time focusing on the future. All this speed, anticipation, and planning can cause us to overlook critical moments of choice. This is especially problematic in an era of artificial intelligence, in which people are increasingly eager for authentic human connection. In this two-hour experiential session, Dr. David Drake and Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener will explore skills that are essential for “working in the moment” more effectively and with the potential for greater relatedness.

Together, we will explore three interpersonal processes that are the foundation for working with people —in management, medicine, education, or coaching. Drawing on David’s work with The Five Maturities, we will begin by examining the pace of conversations and how this relates to our capacity to BE with people. We will build on this foundation to help participants better understand attention and gain clarity on their own noticing habits. Finally, we will look at tools for deepening conversations. For each skill—pacing, noticing, and deepening-- Robert and David will guide participants in brief practices, dialogues, and reflections to support personal and collective growth.

The presenters, recognized by Thinkers50 as two of the world’s most influential executive coaches, will bring decades of experience to raise the bar on how we show up to our clients."

"One of the best ways to understand how coaching works is by observing it. In this session, three thought-leaders in the field of coaching demonstrate their unique approaches. After a brief set-up offering an overview of each approach and what to look for, Drs. David Drake, Lisa Lahey, and Robert Biswas-Diener will each coach the same client, taking turns to come on stage and start fresh with the client. This will give delegates an opportunity to observe stylistic differences, thematic similarities, and specific skills and assumptions about how to guide a client towards reaching their goals unique to each coach. More importantly, delegates can use these demonstrations as lenses through which to reflect on their own practice, skills, and habits.

David Drake: David is the founder of Narrative Coaching. This approach, informed by rites of passage and Jungian psychology, works experientially, somatically and developmentally with clients’ narrative material in real time in the ‘field’ to address what they need most right now.

Lisa Lahey: Lisa co-developed the Immunity-to-Change coaching method, based on constructive-developmental theory. This structured process helps clients to become aware of their unconscious mental and emotional barriers that, while protective, conflict with growth goals. Clients then learn how to evaluate and reformulate these barriers considering their current experiences.

Robert Biswas-Diener: Robert is a pioneer in positive psychology coaching. This approach, informed by scientific inquiry, prioritizes client wellbeing alongside success. Rather than “achieving goals, at any cost” Robert is interested in “achieving goals, but not at the cost of wellbeing. "

What if leaders and organizations could produce the same growth and prosperity they do now while improving rather than consuming human and planetary well-being? Rosmarin, Hull, and Moore will lay out the scientific case for human-centeredness in leadership. Rosmarin will describe the Institute of Coaching’s research project on defining and operationalizing human-centered leadership. Hull and Moore will describe how coaches can support human-centered leadership.

"In a world that is quickly being reshaped by artificial intelligence, the very nature of leadership is evolving. This keynote explores the profound shifts facing the global workforce and the critical role of coaches and leaders in this new era. Google’s Chief Learning Officer, Brian Glaser, will examine the practical theory, research, and application of learning, leadership, and coaching in an AI-driven environment. Drawing from the latest insights on the future of work and high-performing cultures, this session will provide a roadmap for leaders to:

• Understand the ""shape of jobs"" and the imperative of upskilling in a landscape of rapid change.
• Equip themselves and their teams to become ""future-ready leaders.""
• Engage and empower their workforce through the uncertainty and anxiety that AI can introduce.
• Reimagine the ""role of the manager"" as a partner in coaching and development, not just a director of tasks.

Join this session to learn how to lead and learn in the AI era, and discover how to cultivate truly human, high-impact leadership capabilities."