Neil Dempster, CSP

Audiences everywhere love Neil's energy and humor, they love his anecdotes and stories, but what they value the most is that his message is can be immediately implemented. Whether he is speaking to senior executives about leadership, managers and supervisors about performance management, front-line employees about striving for greatness, or general audiences about living life to the fullest, he always provides inspiration...and insights that excite!

Neil Dempster is a student of the behavioral components of success – how to achieve peak performance in a changing world. As Vice-President of Clearview Performance Systems, a performance management and training organization, his keynote speeches have been the highlight of association meetings, conferences, and company functions around the world. Neil's energetic, humorous, and highly motivational delivery style consistently wows audiences and inspires them to explore all the possibilities of personal and professional growth.

Neil's educational background includes Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration, and he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Psychology. This unique educational blending has earned him the distinction of bringing "logic to soft skills." As a consultant and trainer to many of the Fortune 500 companies, his clients have come to trust and count on his uncanny ability to simplify the complex human behavioral aspects of life and work.

Neil has been an active community leader having served on the Arizona Governor's Council for Workforce Development and was Chairman of its Performance Measures Taskforce. He also served on the board of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and was Chairman of its Workforce Readiness Committee. Among his many achievements, Neil was recently awarded the Society for Human Resource Management's "Pinnacle Award" for his work in workforce development. His book "Managerial Alchemy – The Science and Magic of Achieving Exceptional Organizational Results," co-authored with Jessica Turvey, M.A., will be released in the spring of 2004.

Management

A major accountability for all managers, leaders, mentors, and coaches should be obvious . . . to develop employees into self-managers! While we can't dispute the merits of this business imperative, the reality is that many of our current management practices run contrary to the basic laws of human behavior and end up working against the self-management concept!

Leadership

Today's work environment requires less management and more leadership! To achieve greater results, overcome the challenges inherent in constant change, and attain peak performance, we must understand how to inspire and engage employees through effective leadership . . . leadership built on consistency, trust, respect, and sincerity!

Sales

All salespeople must choose their pain! The pain of discipline - or the pain of regret! It is not easy to choose "discipline" because that requires consistent effort, intense focus, and perseverance. But it is not a fluke that all top performing salespeople have something in common - a system of discipline! This system is not intuitive; nor is it trained - it is learned - and the learning has to be at a behavioral level to ensure sustainable performance.

Change

We are often told that people naturally resist change. Not so! Organizations that have mastered the change process have discovered a simple truth - people never resist their own ideas! When change is initiated from inside-out instead of the traditional approach of outside-in, people take ownership . . . they commit to, and even become the advocate for, what they create! Inside-out change consistently delivers sustainable long-term improvements.

Personal Best

Why is it that some people with so much going for them do so little, while others with so little do so much? The answer to this quandary can be found in an interpretation of Aesop's fables - the tortoise did not actually win the race; the hare lost the race! History tells us that, in most cases, innovation came as a result of some adversity. It is only those that use adversity as a catalyst to unleash their brilliance that truly reach their personal best!

Quality

The annual report states it; our budgets reflect it; and the continual improvement process demands it . . . do more with less! Yet many organizations that face a need to increase productivity or service levels address this need by surrendering to the time-honored tradition of adding more people when the pressure is on. This is not (and never has been) the answer! It is time to embrace the new management accountability . . . increase efficiency, not head count!

Teams

Although there are several reasons why teams fail to perform, one of the most prevalent is the lack of individual accountability. This typically occurs when an organization focuses on developing team concepts without first establishing a foundation of individual commitment. In essence, before you can have self-directed teams, you must have self-directed individuals!

Continuous Learning

When you consider the competitive nature of business and the quality expectations of our customers (both internal and external), it is easy to see why we have such a need to continually increase employee performance. To address this issue, organizations have invested heavily in skill development, and have acquired sophisticated systems and technology. However, not as much has been done to address the behavioral component . . . getting employees to consistently use the skills, tools, and systems they have been provided.