Eric Termuende

Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author on Leadership, Uncertainty, and Change

Request Eric

Eric Termuende

Request Eric

Eric Termuende is a keynote speaker, bestselling author, and researcher focused on one of the defining leadership challenges of our time: how to navigate uncertainty and change when the world refuses to stand still.

For over a decade, Eric has studied leadership, trust, culture, team performance, technology, and the changing nature of work. His work explores why traditional approaches to planning and leadership can break down when conditions change quickly, and what allows people, leaders, and teams to continue moving when the path ahead is unclear.

Eric challenges the idea that the best leaders are the best predictors. Instead, his research shows the importance of creating direction without pretending to have certainty, building the trust required for honest information to travel, reducing the friction that slows teams down, and making small, deliberate One-Degree Shifts that turn action into information and progress.

Eric has brought his research and ideas to hundreds of stages around the world, working with leaders and teams at organizations including Amazon, Toyota, IBM, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, Nationwide, Zoom, and Nokia. His ideas have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and Inc., and his first book, Rethink Work, became a bestselling resource for leaders navigating the changing world of work.

On stage, Eric combines a researcher’s curiosity with a storyteller’s instinct and a speaker’s sense of the room. Known for his energy, humour, and highly customized approach, he makes serious ideas feel immediately relevant and practical. Audiences leave with more than inspiration. They leave with a clearer way to lead, adapt, and move forward when the future is uncertain.

BUILT FOR UNCERTAINTY: Leading Teams in a World That Has Never Moved Faster

When the future stops being predictable, most leaders reach for the playbook they know: set the target, build the plan, and push the team toward it. But in a world changing faster than any plan can keep pace with, goals stop matching reality, teams grow tired of constant change, and leaders are left trying to create confidence in a future nobody can clearly see.

In this engaging, insight-filled, actionable presentation, workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende delivers a customized and research-backed operating system for building teams that can move through uncertainty and change. Drawing from his forthcoming book, “The Certainty Crisis”, Eric shows leaders how to set a direction when the destination is unclear, build the trust required for honest information to travel, and remove the friction that quietly prevents teams from adapting.

Attendees will receive a practical guide to building teams that are more adaptable, aligned, and ready for whatever comes next. They will learn from the experiences of industry leaders, icons, and trailblazers from around the world about how to create clarity without pretending to have certainty, uncover what is slowing their teams down, and use One-Degree Shifts to turn small experiments into momentum and progress.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Practical strategies to create clarity and direction through uncertainty
➡ Research-backed insights on building trust and adaptability during change
➡ Methods for identifying and reducing friction within teams
➡ An understanding of how to harness the power of One-Degree Shifts
➡ Actionable steps to turn small experiments into a team-wide habit of progress
THE CERTAINTY CRISIS: How to Thrive in a World That Refuses to Stand Still

We were taught to wait for certainty before we move: gather more data, run one more analysis, be sure. But in a world changing faster than any plan can keep up, waiting isn’t caution anymore. It’s the most expensive move we never make. The clarity we’re waiting for isn’t coming. It sits on the other side of a move we haven’t made yet.

Drawing on his forthcoming book, leadership expert Eric Termuende dismantles the myth that the best leaders are the best predictors. After years of studying what separates people who thrive in uncertainty from those who keep moving, he reveals a counterintuitive truth: action leads to clarity, not the other way around. What the best navigators hold isn’t certainty about the destination. It’s directional certainty: a bearing that survives the surprises that destroy plans.

Eric walks audiences through the three moves at the heart of “The Certainty Crisis”: setting a direction worth rallying around when the destination is unknowable, becoming the next version of yourself instead of staying loyal to the one that got you here, and making the small, deliberate one-degree shifts that turn being wrong into cheap learning, so clarity compounds while everyone else is still gathering information.

Attendees leave with a navigation system for the moments that matter most: the ones where the answer isn’t obvious, and waiting is no longer an option.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Why waiting for certainty has quietly become a liability, and what to trade it for

➡ The difference between directional certainty and destination certainty

➡ A practical method for identifying and closing the Identity Gap

➡ An understanding of how to harness the power of One-Degree Shifts

➡ Three questions to determine whether to hold the bearing, shift a degree, or change course
BLUEPRINT TO THE FUTURE: Leading in a New World of Work

Whether it is next week’s weather or the yet-to-be-created technology that is sure to evolve how we work, the future is truly impossible to predict. And while the trends, charts, and forecasting are interesting, we must shift from trying to anticipate what the future looks like to building resilient systems and teams that can help us navigate whatever the future may bring.

In this engaging, insight-filled, and actionable presentation, workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende delivers a customized and research-backed blueprint that has helped thousands of category-leading teams build trust, remove friction, and prepare for a future that is changing constantly, unpredictably, and faster than ever before.

Attendees will receive a practical guide to building teams that are more productive, engaged, creative, and innovative. They will learn from the experiences of industry leaders, icons, and trailblazers from around the world about the importance of building trust, removing friction, and creating a culture of experimentation.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Practical strategies to boost trust, resilience, and camaraderie

➡ Research-backed insights on building team agility and excitement toward impending change

➡ An understanding of how to harness the power of One-Degree Shifts

➡ Methods for finding and reducing friction within teams

➡ Actionable steps to cultivate a culture of experimentation, risk-free
UNWAVERING: Building Incredible Teams for the Future of Work

Uncertainty is inevitable in the new world of work. In the face of ongoing change, will we see our people running for the exits, or will they be there to support and help each other? Change is happening faster than ever before, and building unwavering teams that are resilient, ultra-collaborative, and even excited about that change has never been more important. But how do we build unwavering teams? Trust, empathy, and ongoing experimentation.

Workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende has spent nearly a decade decoding exactly what creates unwavering teams: those that are resilient, rooted in belonging, and have a deep sense of safety and inclusivity. These are the types of teams that thrive through change because they know that while change may be difficult, the only thing worse is standing still. Eric has created a playbook for cultivating unwavering teams, and in this session, attendees will both learn it and be able to take it home with them.

By discovering how to enhance collaboration, developing excitement for all of the possibilities experimentation yields, and deciphering the root of trust across a team, attendees will come away from this session understanding how to become the incredible leader who inspires their teams to perform at their best and stand strong through anything the future may hold.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Deep knowledge about the root of collaboration and how to enhance it across the team

➡ Research-backed insights around trust, psychological safety, and belonging at work

➡ How to enhance excitement about change and involve the whole team in the process

➡ The most important question to ask to get engagement and buy-in

➡ Why the future is something to be excited about, not scared of
SNOWFLAKES AND FINGERPRINTS: How to Attract Top Talent in the Future of Work

Regardless of where we look, talent shortages are impacting nearly every industry, and competition is fierce. With an entire generation on the precipice of retirement and not enough workers ready to replace them, the situation is only going to get fiercer. More than ever before, we need to do whatever we can to attract and retain top talent. But what is that?

After a decade of research on the world’s greatest places to work, workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende has the answer.

Like snowflakes and fingerprints, it all comes down to uniqueness. The days of job listings demanding an extensive list of skills and attributes from potential employees are gone. Instead, we need to talk about the larger workplace experience and the difference our organizations are making in the world. To attract the right talent in today’s environment, we must plant our metaphorical flag in the ground and emphasize what makes us, as employers, different from the rest.

In this fun and takeaway-filled presentation, attendees will not only learn how to create their own compelling stories to attract the right talent to their organization, but they will also leave with a talent attraction framework they can continue to refine as the world of work keeps evolving.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Actionable ways to create and share a unique, sticky, and impactful employee value proposition

➡ Key strategies for leveraging your best recruiters: your existing team

➡ An understanding of why creating a best place to work might not mean what you think it does, and what licorice, cilantro, and pineapple pizza have to do with it

➡ Knowledge of where culture lives and how to adapt your story based on the team or location you are hiring for

BUILT FOR UNCERTAINTY: Leading Teams in a World That Has Never Moved Faster

When the future stops being predictable, most leaders reach for the playbook they know: set the target, build the plan, and push the team toward it. But in a world changing faster than any plan can keep pace with, goals stop matching reality, teams grow tired of constant change, and leaders are left trying to create confidence in a future nobody can clearly see.

In this engaging, insight-filled, actionable presentation, workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende delivers a customized and research-backed operating system for building teams that can move through uncertainty and change. Drawing from his forthcoming book, “The Certainty Crisis”, Eric shows leaders how to set a direction when the destination is unclear, build the trust required for honest information to travel, and remove the friction that quietly prevents teams from adapting.

Attendees will receive a practical guide to building teams that are more adaptable, aligned, and ready for whatever comes next. They will learn from the experiences of industry leaders, icons, and trailblazers from around the world about how to create clarity without pretending to have certainty, uncover what is slowing their teams down, and use One-Degree Shifts to turn small experiments into momentum and progress.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Practical strategies to create clarity and direction through uncertainty
➡ Research-backed insights on building trust and adaptability during change
➡ Methods for identifying and reducing friction within teams
➡ An understanding of how to harness the power of One-Degree Shifts
➡ Actionable steps to turn small experiments into a team-wide habit of progress

THE CERTAINTY CRISIS: How to Thrive in a World That Refuses to Stand Still

We were taught to wait for certainty before we move: gather more data, run one more analysis, be sure. But in a world changing faster than any plan can keep up, waiting isn’t caution anymore. It’s the most expensive move we never make. The clarity we’re waiting for isn’t coming. It sits on the other side of a move we haven’t made yet.

Drawing on his forthcoming book, leadership expert Eric Termuende dismantles the myth that the best leaders are the best predictors. After years of studying what separates people who thrive in uncertainty from those who keep moving, he reveals a counterintuitive truth: action leads to clarity, not the other way around. What the best navigators hold isn’t certainty about the destination. It’s directional certainty: a bearing that survives the surprises that destroy plans.

Eric walks audiences through the three moves at the heart of “The Certainty Crisis”: setting a direction worth rallying around when the destination is unknowable, becoming the next version of yourself instead of staying loyal to the one that got you here, and making the small, deliberate one-degree shifts that turn being wrong into cheap learning, so clarity compounds while everyone else is still gathering information.

Attendees leave with a navigation system for the moments that matter most: the ones where the answer isn’t obvious, and waiting is no longer an option.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Why waiting for certainty has quietly become a liability, and what to trade it for

➡ The difference between directional certainty and destination certainty

➡ A practical method for identifying and closing the Identity Gap

➡ An understanding of how to harness the power of One-Degree Shifts

➡ Three questions to determine whether to hold the bearing, shift a degree, or change course

BLUEPRINT TO THE FUTURE: Leading in a New World of Work

Whether it is next week’s weather or the yet-to-be-created technology that is sure to evolve how we work, the future is truly impossible to predict. And while the trends, charts, and forecasting are interesting, we must shift from trying to anticipate what the future looks like to building resilient systems and teams that can help us navigate whatever the future may bring.

In this engaging, insight-filled, and actionable presentation, workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende delivers a customized and research-backed blueprint that has helped thousands of category-leading teams build trust, remove friction, and prepare for a future that is changing constantly, unpredictably, and faster than ever before.

Attendees will receive a practical guide to building teams that are more productive, engaged, creative, and innovative. They will learn from the experiences of industry leaders, icons, and trailblazers from around the world about the importance of building trust, removing friction, and creating a culture of experimentation.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Practical strategies to boost trust, resilience, and camaraderie

➡ Research-backed insights on building team agility and excitement toward impending change

➡ An understanding of how to harness the power of One-Degree Shifts

➡ Methods for finding and reducing friction within teams

➡ Actionable steps to cultivate a culture of experimentation, risk-free

UNWAVERING: Building Incredible Teams for the Future of Work

Uncertainty is inevitable in the new world of work. In the face of ongoing change, will we see our people running for the exits, or will they be there to support and help each other? Change is happening faster than ever before, and building unwavering teams that are resilient, ultra-collaborative, and even excited about that change has never been more important. But how do we build unwavering teams? Trust, empathy, and ongoing experimentation.

Workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende has spent nearly a decade decoding exactly what creates unwavering teams: those that are resilient, rooted in belonging, and have a deep sense of safety and inclusivity. These are the types of teams that thrive through change because they know that while change may be difficult, the only thing worse is standing still. Eric has created a playbook for cultivating unwavering teams, and in this session, attendees will both learn it and be able to take it home with them.

By discovering how to enhance collaboration, developing excitement for all of the possibilities experimentation yields, and deciphering the root of trust across a team, attendees will come away from this session understanding how to become the incredible leader who inspires their teams to perform at their best and stand strong through anything the future may hold.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Deep knowledge about the root of collaboration and how to enhance it across the team

➡ Research-backed insights around trust, psychological safety, and belonging at work

➡ How to enhance excitement about change and involve the whole team in the process

➡ The most important question to ask to get engagement and buy-in

➡ Why the future is something to be excited about, not scared of

SNOWFLAKES AND FINGERPRINTS: How to Attract Top Talent in the Future of Work

Regardless of where we look, talent shortages are impacting nearly every industry, and competition is fierce. With an entire generation on the precipice of retirement and not enough workers ready to replace them, the situation is only going to get fiercer. More than ever before, we need to do whatever we can to attract and retain top talent. But what is that?

After a decade of research on the world’s greatest places to work, workplace culture and leadership expert Eric Termuende has the answer.

Like snowflakes and fingerprints, it all comes down to uniqueness. The days of job listings demanding an extensive list of skills and attributes from potential employees are gone. Instead, we need to talk about the larger workplace experience and the difference our organizations are making in the world. To attract the right talent in today’s environment, we must plant our metaphorical flag in the ground and emphasize what makes us, as employers, different from the rest.

In this fun and takeaway-filled presentation, attendees will not only learn how to create their own compelling stories to attract the right talent to their organization, but they will also leave with a talent attraction framework they can continue to refine as the world of work keeps evolving.

What audiences come away with:
➡ Actionable ways to create and share a unique, sticky, and impactful employee value proposition

➡ Key strategies for leveraging your best recruiters: your existing team

➡ An understanding of why creating a best place to work might not mean what you think it does, and what licorice, cilantro, and pineapple pizza have to do with it

➡ Knowledge of where culture lives and how to adapt your story based on the team or location you are hiring for

Testimonials

“Eric was rated 4.8 out of 5 stars, by far the best results we saw throughout our entire meeting. He was extremely engaging and delivered a clear, relevant message that our leaders immediately began incorporating into their own mindsets and with their teams. The messaging was easy to digest, drove real impact, and energized the room.”

Nicole Plunkett, SVP, Kellogg's
“Eric delivered the perfect message for our top 350+ leaders as we look to lead 10,000+ people through growth, change, and transformation. His keynote was customized, relevant, and actionable, and shared the tools and skills we need to confidently lead forward.”

Steve Menneto, President, Off Road, Polaris Inc.
“Eric delivered a high-energy, engaging, and informative keynote that left our people leaders inspired, informed, and committed to shifting one degree. Eric has a gift for deep listening, challenging the status quo, and confidently sharing his stories with humility and humour at a world-class standard.”

Laura Appleton, Senior Director, Arc'teryx
“Eric did an excellent job of helping our senior leaders connect the links between strategy and culture with One-Degree Shifts in our thinking about people and process. This slight change in our thinking was a great catalyst for the discussions that followed as we built out our strategies for the coming year.”

Dan Klassen, Vice President, Human Resources, Toyota Material Handling
“The videos, customization, and Eric's presence, knowledge, and energy made the presentation a huge success. I've supported many Executive Leadership Summits over the years, and it is not often that they say, 'This is the best Summit we've ever had.' There was a lot of that feedback, and it was much deserved.”

Susan Schoenberg, Nuclear Regulatory Commission
“It was a master class. As an Irish Newfoundlander, I know a master storyteller when I hear one. Eric's ability to weave together several concepts, take the listener on a journey, and teach is truly a gift that many try but few master.”

Robert Dornan, United Brotherhood of Carpenters
“Eric delivered an engaging, informative, insightful, and inspiring keynote. The positive feedback was overwhelming. Our senior leaders called it one of the best one-hour leadership sessions they had experienced. Eric delivered practical ideas and compelling examples that we can draw from to ensure we are the best leaders we can be.”

Angela Fyfe, EVP Enterprise Services, Apria Healthcare
“Eric spoke at two of our national leadership events and his message was a total hit. His engaging and entertaining keynotes were tailored, relevant, and gave our leaders the insights and tools they needed to build incredible teams and remain excited about the uncertain future we're all trying to navigate.”

Dino Naccarato, SVP, Loblaw