Jeffrey Pfeffer

Power and influence are widely misunderstood, yet they sit at the heart of leadership and career success. Based on Pfeffer's bestselling book and one of Stanford's most popular courses, this keynote reveals how influence actually works inside organizations, moving past theory to the real dynamics of networks, credibility, and organizational politics. Rather than treating power as something to avoid, Pfeffer reframes it as an essential leadership skill that, used ethically, lets leaders get important things done. Audiences leave with concrete ways to build support, overcome resistance, and act with authority.

Based on decades of research and his book Leadership BS, this keynote takes aim at the myths that dominate the leadership industry and asks why enormous spending on leadership development has produced such weak results. Pfeffer confronts what truly undermines trust, engagement, and effectiveness inside organizations, and replaces feel-good slogans with evidence-based practice. The result is a clearer, more realistic picture of what leadership actually requires, and how organizations can finally build development programs that work.

This keynote exposes the hidden costs of how work is designed and managed today. Drawing on extensive research, Pfeffer shows how common management practices contribute directly to stress, chronic illness, rising healthcare costs, and declining performance. He reframes employee well-being not as a wellness perk but as a core business issue, and outlines what organizations can do to make work more humane while strengthening productivity, retention, and long-term results.

Organizations are full of data, insights, and best practices, yet execution consistently falls short. Based on the bestselling book The Knowing-Doing Gap, this keynote explains why smart companies so often fail to act on what they already know. Pfeffer identifies the cultural, structural, and behavioral barriers that trap organizations in endless analysis and talk, and offers practical ways to build a culture of action, accountability, and disciplined execution.

This keynote makes an evidence-backed case that how a company manages its people is one of the strongest drivers of lasting competitive advantage. Drawing on global research across industries, Pfeffer shows that sustained success rarely comes from being first, biggest, or most technologically advanced. Instead, he highlights the management systems, leadership behaviors, and cultural choices that consistently link people practices to higher profitability, productivity, and retention, and shows how leaders can build organizations where ordinary people deliver extraordinary results.

Too many management decisions are driven by habit, ideology, or imitation rather than facts. This keynote presents evidence-based management as a competitive advantage hiding in plain sight. Based on the book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense, Pfeffer shows leaders how to challenge assumptions, weigh real evidence, and avoid the costly management myths that everyone repeats. Decision-makers leave with a more disciplined way to judge what actually works, and an approach that is hard for competitors to copy.