Anton Gunn

Your effectiveness as a leader is only as strong as your ability to influence.

The challenge today is most organizations do not give their leaders the tools needed to create lasting impact on their workforce.

Recent studies show incredibly high percentages of employees are disengaged at work and actively looking for new jobs. Additionally, current reports reveal that teams are unhappy, underperforming, and overlooked by their management or leadership.

Anton Gunn knows the negative impact of an ineffective leader. Nearly 30 years ago he was a disengaged team member and a marginal performer on a bad team. He was in a toxic culture full of unfairness that forced him to quit that organization. Since that time, he has risen to become a top C-level executive and a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, with over two decades of successful consumer and employee engagement experience.

Filled with impressive data, heartwarming stories, and real-world examples, Anton teaches how anyone can become a greater influencer and leader by embracing seven simple principles.

Your audience will leave knowing how to:

• Inspire those you lead and create a positive legacy in their lives
• Create quality communication within your organization
• Develop passion that leads to greater performance
• Engage your teams in the power of personal development
• Build a culture that is caring, helpful. and trusting

Motivated and prepared teams with the right tools can not only survive a crisis, but they can also thrive in a crisis.

Unfortunately, the best teams can quickly fall apart in turbulent times without a crisis leadership strategy.

Global pandemics, racial and social unrest, economic calamity, and other catastrophic events are just a few potential crises that can devastate an organization. An online poll of more than 2,000 executives and organizations found that a large percentage of respondents did not know what their biggest gap in crisis preparedness would be. Further, half of the respondents were unsure whether their teams would even be prepared to respond to a crisis.

Not having the tools to respond can cost an organization everything.

Loss of revenues, market share, brand positioning, plus a loss of talent and employee trust are the first things that can impact your organization in times of crisis.

Anton Gunn has experienced the massive impact of a crisis. More than 20 years ago, the crisis of terrorism that devastated the American economy after 9/11 almost cost him and his family everything. But since that time, he has led a remarkable turnaround to become one of the most influential minority executives in healthcare and a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama.

With more than two decades of successful leadership development experience, helping some of America’s top healthcare organizations, Anton has learned that any high-performing team can thrive through tough times by embracing a few key principles modeled by some of the greatest leaders.

Key points in this presentation include:

• Identify and understand disruptive environments
• Develop the right mindset during a crisis
• Build resilient teams that are prepared for adversity
• Respond to the impact of the crisis; do not react to the circumstances
• Become better prepared for the next challenge

Industry-leading organizations have two things in common: they have inclusive leaders, and they are intentional about corporate diversity.

In this era of both a global pandemic and increased social unrest, too many organizations and executives have collectively taken their eyes off these two things. Instead, they have reduced diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts, and allowed the silence and the conflict around these topics to spread like cancer throughout their business culture and workforce.

A pulse survey by the research firm The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) found that 27% of organizations have put all or most DEI initiatives on hold because of their response to the pandemic. And 12% say that DEI is less of a consideration when companies are making decisions about workforce changes such as reductions, promotions, special assignments, and compensation. Eliminating the intentionality on diversity and inclusion can result in low morale, low productivity, high turnover, discrimination claims, and toxic workplace culture. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), American employers lose nearly half of a billion dollars in discrimination claims annually.

Anton Gunn has seen the negative impact of a failed diversity strategy on business. In 2014, the crisis of race and injustice nearly consumed the culture of a $1 billion academic healthcare system in protests and discrimination claims. His expertise as a strategic advisor to the President and CEO and the executive team led to impactful initiatives that improved employee engagement, workplace culture, and community relations – fueling their growth strategy to nearly $3 billion in revenue and resulting in the organization making the Forbes list of America’s Top Employers for Diversity.

In this program, Anton reveals how anyone can build an industry-leading organization if they gain The Diversity Advantage.

By learning and embracing a few leadership traits modeled by some of the best organizations, you can build your company culture and boost your bottom line.

Your audience will leave knowing how to:

• Develop the right mindset around racial justice, diversity, and equity
• Build inclusive and resilient teams that are prepared to grow your company
• Model the behaviors of an inclusive leader
• Define new opportunities to drive leadership accountability on diversity and inclusion
• Build a culture that is responsive – not reactive – to external changes