Dennis Brouwer
CEO, Leadership Enthusiast and Award-winning Navy Tactician. Professional Innovator and Proven Turnaround Leader
Dennis Brouwer is a proven turnaround leader, with hands-on experience taking a global business from laughingstock to leader. He’s a decorated Navy veteran – an award-winning anti-submarine warrior and accomplished naval flight officer with over 150 carrier landings and 1,000 hours in the cockpit. He’s led successful global product development organizations and written a book (The Return on Leadership) on leading in our age of unrelenting change. He’s a self-taught Jeep mechanic, a brewer of fine beers, and, with his wife Rebecca, the owner of a small farm and log cabin that you have to see to believe. Put it all together, and he’s got a unique perspective on you, your business, and what makes it tick. His specialty? Helping you to identify and resolve the built-in resistance to change that’s holding you and your organization back.
Caging the Caveman – Building a Growth Mindset Beyond Fight or Flight
The science is settled – we, as humans, are descended from thousands of generations of cagey ancestors who tamed fire, invented agriculture and built the world we know today.
But there’s a problem. Our ancestors lived and died in a world that rarely changed, and where any change that did occur was assumed to be dangerous, and perhaps lethal. But in the modern, post-industrial world, change is everywhere – it’s accelerating – and it’s (generally) improving our lives.
The results? Our tech-savvy selves are in constant conflict with deeply embedded habits of thought that lead us to subconsciously resist change. Add in the occasional over-the-top, adrenaline-fueled reaction that we experience as ”Fight or Flight”, and you’ve got the full “Caveman vs. Growth Mindset” battle that we face in our work, schools, communities, and families. How bad is it? A recent poll by the Mental Health Foundation determined that, within the past year, nearly three-quarters of people have felt so stressed they’ve been overwhelmed or unable to cope.
There’s got to be a better way. In this thought-provoking keynote, Dennis Brouwer, an award-winning Navy tactician, turnaround leader, and professional innovator, uses a compelling blend of stories, research and personal experience to move beyond the fears and biases that kept our ancestors alive.
The Takeaways:
- Understand the neuroscience that limits our creativity and energizes our immunity to change.
- Learn to detect and counter our automatic, change-resistant habits of thought.
- Practice seven specific techniques used by highly effective leaders to build growth mindsets and powerhouse teams, even in entrenched organizations.
- Return to the workplace with a roadmap of clear, proven action items and a strategy to put them to work.
Battling Burnout – Bringing Your Team (And Yourself) Back from the Brink
It’s official – burnout is now a thing…a syndrome, actually. As of May 2019, the World Health Congress has updated its official manual, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), to include burnout as an occupational syndrome.
Burnout is “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”, the kind of stress that directly impacts our co-workers, our families, and us as individuals. Burnout undermines team productivity, fosters negativity and cynicism, and per the ICD, exacerbates our well-documented problems with employee engagement and anxiety. We’ve reached the point where relentless demands on our time and attention are finally driving us to disengage for our own health and sanity. Data published by The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence point to a growing problem, with “one in five employees reporting both high engagement and high burnout”, leading these hyper-productive team-members to also report the highest turnover intentions. Our top 20% are hyper-engaged, pushed to their limits, and they are looking for a way out.
What can we do about it? In this insightful keynote, Dennis Brouwer, a professional innovator who has built and led high-performing teams in sales, marketing, product management, and naval aviation, sheds light on this critical challenge. He weaves cutting edge research with his personal experience to illuminate a path forward for hard-pressed teams and individuals.
The Takeaways:
- Understand what drives burnout, and how it affects teams, individuals and organizations.
- Learn to identify burnout in your co-workers, team members and yourself.
- Practice seven specific techniques used by highly effective leaders to counter burnout and to build resilient, dynamic teams and organizations.
- Return to the workplace with a roadmap of clear, proven action items and a strategy to put them to work.
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“Dennis Brouwer was the ideal speaker…awe-inspiring and educational. I use these principles to help me every day.”
“Everyone found Dennis to be interesting and engaging. His message and delivery style hit a home run our audience!”
“In an inspiring and engaging manner, Dennis masterfully puts teeth to the “soft skills” of leadership and deftly defines their value. With a colorful, story-telling flair, he brings these concept to life and makes them relatable.”
“My adrenalin is still amped up from those stories and those images….wooh!
“The most important things I look for in an executive are leadership, judgment, ego-maturity and self-awareness. Dennis brings those factors to life and makes clear what’s possible with the combination of Creative leadership, a winning business model and a dynamic, resilient culture.”
“An important new concept in the leadership world…amazing stories and some clear thinking about what it takes to lead today…a winner. Brouwer’s been in the leadership hot seat, made the difficult decisions, and learned from his mistakes.”
“A fresh perspective on Leadership that brings home all the concepts of Vision, Execution, and Engagement. As an HR Leader in the competitive world of FinTech, this is now my “go-to” approach when it comes to company strategy and its leadership, as we continue to reinvent ourselves and attract and retain the best talent.”
“Clear, concise, and articulate… Brouwer offers an energetic, lively and rational narrative sculpted to realign your way of thinking while providing rich examples from his own life as reinforcement.”
“Brouwer identifies the three behaviors most commonly associated with leaders of successful organizations, highlights the combination of executive characteristics common to successful leaders, and provides an actionable plan to improve their leadership – and it works. I was lucky enough to be part of the submarine stalking story that is central to his book, and it’s all true.”
