We’d like to welcome our newest exclusive speaker, Robert Sutton—an organizational change expert, Stanford professor, and New York Times bestselling author— to the BigSpeak roster.

At Stanford, Sutton works as a Professor of Management Science and Engineering. His research focuses on organizational change, leadership, innovation, and workplace dynamics. He’s published over 150 articles and chapters in peer-reviewed journals and management outlets, including the Harvard Business Review and the McKinsey Quarterly, as well as news outlets, such as The New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal.

He brings his expertise in leadership, innovation, and organizational change and design to his keynote speaking. He has presented for corporations like Google, Walmart, Adobe, Microsoft, LVMH, the Girl Scouts, InBev, the World Economic Forum at Davos, and Nielsen on managing growth and culture while inspiring innovation through effective leadership.

He has served as a trusted advisor for McKinsey and a Fellow at IDEO.  He is a senior scientist at Gallup, and has had long-term relationships with GM, SAP, Salesforce, Capital One, and Procter and Gamble.

Sutton is widely known for his  New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling book, The No Asshole Rule, in which he applies his organizational change and leadership research to the all-too-familiar dilemma of dealing with jerks in the office. 

His other books include New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Good Boss, Bad Boss, Wall Street Journal bestseller, Scaling Up Excellence, Weird Ideas That Work, The Knowing-Doing Gap (with Jeffrey Pfeffer), Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense (with Jeffrey Pfeffer), which The Globe and Mail selected as the best business book of 2006.

His latest book, The Asshole Survival Guide, is a continuation of his best-seller, The No Asshole Rule, and focuses on how to escape, endure and defeat people who treat you like dirt. He uses this book to “shift focus from building civilized workplaces to providing relief to anybody who feels plagued, bullied, and pushed around by assholes.”

His is currently working with Huggy Rao on The Friction Project, which focuses on the causes of and cures for destructive organizational friction— and when and why friction can be a good thing.

Sutton’s opinion on leadership, innovation, and organizational change has been regarded as one of expertise in everything from scholarly journals, to television and radio. He has been highly awarded for his scholarly opinions, writings, and teachings.

Why Bob Sutton?

Sutton has experience speaking in over 20 countries to more than 200 groups. His ideas and opinions have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Financial Times, Esquire, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Wired, TechCrunch, Vanity Fair, and Washington Post.

Moreover, his keynote addresses are entertaining and relatable, focusing on helping his audience manage change, lead effectively, embrace and implement innovation, and create a healthy office environment. He melds behavioral science with the corporate culture we’re all familiar with to give us a new understanding of our day-to-day work lives.

Bob Sutton Speaks on…

• Scaling up your company: how to spread, enhance, and amplify excellence– in everything from startups to big organizations
• Leadership: how to be competent, caring, and tough when necessary— and to be in tune with what it feels like to work for you, based on his best-seller Good Boss, Bad Boss.
• Organizational friction: causes, cures, and when to celebrate it
• Leading Innovation: how to build teams and organizations that routinely create and implement new ideas
• How to build civilized organizations– and survive and defeat demeaning and disrespectful colleagues and clients

Jessica Welch is the Content Marketing Associate at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau, holding a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Anthropology from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her business thought articles often appear on Business 2 Community, Born 2 Invest, and YF Entrepreneurs.