Hal Gregersen

The higher leaders rise, the more organizational forces shield them from uncomfortable truths, wrapping them in a "good news cocoon" that Gregersen calls the Leader's Dilemma. When markets can shift overnight, that insulation is dangerous. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than 200 standout questioners, including Walt Bettinger, Jeff Bezos, Orit Gadiesh, Abigail Johnson, and General Stanley McChrystal, he reveals five daily disciplines these leaders use to find what they don't know they don't know. Attendees practice questioning tools live and leave ready to apply them to their own challenges.

Are innovators born or made? Gregersen, together with the late Clayton Christensen and Jeff Dyer, set out to answer that question in their bestselling book. Drawing on conversations with more than 100 game-changing founders and CEOs and research on over 15,000 creative leaders worldwide, he unpacks the five discovery skills behind breakthrough ideas: questioning, observing, networking, experimenting, and associating. Short, high-energy exercises help attendees start building these skills on the spot, so they return to work thinking and acting differently.

Innovative leaders can transform an organization, but if they don't enable others to innovate too, the company's creative capacity rises and falls with them alone. Gregersen examines how leaders such as Ed Catmull of Disney·Pixar, Jeff Bezos, Rose Marcario of Patagonia, and Marc Benioff of Salesforce act as relentless problem solvers who spread the source of ideas across the organization and build creative problem-solving capacity from the bottom up. He makes the case that this culture of innovation is the most important legacy a leader can leave.

New technologies are accelerating digital transformation, forcing people to rethink their roles, take on new responsibilities, and manage the emotions that come with it. Based on research with more than 50 leaders of digital transitions, Gregersen offers a structured process and practical toolkit for recognizing these transitions and moving through them well. He focuses on the human side of change: helping people adopt new identities, build new capabilities, and channel emotional energy productively along the way.

When the familiar ways of working stop serving us, individuals and leaders must let go of old habits and find a path through unknown territory. Drawing on two decades of transition curve research behind Questions Are the Answer, The Innovator's DNA, and It Starts with One, Gregersen shows how catalytic inquiry moves people forward. Leaders learn to identify what comes next under extreme uncertainty, manage the emotional arc of unexpected change (from tolerating not knowing to resisting a rush into action), and use questions to climb new transition curves successfully.

Having interviewed more than 200 top leaders, Gregersen is a skilled moderator who draws deeper participation from panelists and audiences alike. He can anchor an entire event: an opening keynote that frames every session through the lens of questioning, ongoing facilitation that has attendees practicing those skills as they learn and network, and a closing session that captures how the techniques served them. Participants spend the whole conference sharpening their questioning and leave ready to use it at work immediately.

Hal Gregersen is an American leadership and innovation expert, a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, a digital fellow in the Human-First AI group at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and the former executive director of the MIT Leadership Center. He co-founded The Innovator's DNA research firm and is an Innosight Fellow. The author of 10 books in 17 languages, including Questions Are the Answer and The Innovator's DNA (with Clayton Christensen and Jeff Dyer), he has been ranked among the Thinkers50 top 50 management thinkers five times and won its 2017 Leadership Award. He previously taught at INSEAD, London Business School, Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Brigham Young University, and Aalto University.

The Question Burst is a structured-inquiry method created by Hal Gregersen. Instead of brainstorming answers, a group spends about four minutes generating as many questions as possible about a challenge, without explaining or debating them, then examines which questions reframe the problem in useful new ways. The method helps teams surface hidden assumptions, get unstuck quickly, and build psychological safety. Gregersen's Question Burst Catalyst extends the approach to generative AI: working inside Gemini and ChatGPT, it helps people use AI as a partner for deeper inquiry while keeping human agency and creativity first.

Hal Gregersen speaks on the power of questions in innovation (Questions Are the Answer), escaping the CEO bubble through catalytic questioning, the five discovery skills of The Innovator's DNA, building a lastingly creative organization, leading people through digitally driven transitions, and navigating uncertainty with transition curve leadership. He also serves as a full-event moderator who builds a question-centered culture across an entire conference, and offers half-, one-, and two-day interactive workshops. To book Hal Gregersen as a speaker, contact Aurum Speakers Bureau.

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Yes, Hal Gregersen is available for virtual keynotes and webinars. To book Hal Gregersen for a virtual event, please complete the contact form or send us an email to inquire about the special fees for virtual engagements.