Terry Williams

Terry is a speaker, author and trainer with inspire-rational tools to fast-track your personal and professional effectiveness / leadership development with practical business tools, delivered engagingly and interactively - face-to-face or online.

There is a real concern amongst leaders that their people are unfit for change, stuck or settling for average. Picture your people leaving your event energised, having actively participated in discovering in themselves new skills & confidence they can apply straight away.

Terry Williams has a rare combination of 25 years' serious experience as a leadership trainer and authoring of five books with 20 years' of his far less serious experience as a professional stand-up comedian. In
between zipping around the Asia-Pacific region delivering keynote presentations about change, leadership and motivation, he facilitates workshops on those same topics, helping leaders and teams help
themselves, to get better at getting better.

And, in between that, he's performing comedy on cruise ships.

While his original trade is training, he's had plenty of real-world leadership experience as a leader in the insurance, sales, telecommunications, gaming and government sectors. He is also a columnist for 'Employment Today' magazine and is one of only a few Certified Speaking Professionals (CSPs) from New Zealand. His books, including 'The Brain-Based Boss' and 'Getting Better Buy-In' take psychological research and break it down, to make it interesting and useful for people wanting to improve their performance and engage the people they work with, offering practical tools that frontline leaders can actually use to make a difference. Since 2001, he's done 2 dangerous things a year and that experience is the basis for his book and presentation of that name.

Using both his serious and comedy skills, he's supported Alzheimer's Auckland and the Rotary Enrichment Programme, a project that supports reading rehabilitation in lower decile schools.  Terry has appeared on TV's 'Good Morning', 'Sunrise', and 'The Project'. As a stand-up, he has performed in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and the US, as well as several of his own solo shows in the NZ International Comedy Festival.

He spent two years deep on the bench of a National League basketball team in the late 80s that was second-to-bottom at the time. He has two kids who have left home (a couple of times).

Presentations:

- Change and resilience

- Employee Engagement

- Workplace Culture

- Personal Effectiveness

- Motivational

- Teams

- Humour 

Terry's two most popular keynotes are:

2 Dangerous Things A Year: Get Unstuck From Your Comfort Zone Because Average Sucks.

Why should we change? Why don't we change? How can we change? Work out your 'Change Muscles' now so you're ready when you need them later. Should you be worried that you or your team are not prepared for change? Change is inevitable and the rate of change is accelerating. You will learn why most people are unprepared for change. You will learn tools to get past those obstacles, build momentum & muscle through when it's tough. Engaging & entertaining, this distinctive session starts with my own story of doing 2 dangerous things a year, including becoming a stand-up comedian. It flows interactively into a series of practical takeaway tools for anyone to better handle change at work & in life. You'll realise which of the 4 stages of 'change evolution' you're at. Are you stuck in a state of 'change sloth' or 'change strain'? How can I help you move towards being 'change-fit'?

Getting Better Buy-In – Proven Tools To Build A Workplace Culture That Attracts & Retains Talent.

Have you ever tried to scope the sheer scale of the cost of your staff churn, disengaged employees and turnover? Never mind the recruitment costs, what about all the indirect effects on productivity and morale as people depart, arrive, learn, remake mistakes & institutional knowledge walks out the door with their stapler. It’s a spiral. You do not want a reputation as a poor employer as you know that’ll drive away talented people and, soon after, drive away customers. You want to be running  a workplace of choice. If ever a vacancy occurs, it’ll be for the right reasons and talent will beat a path to your door and that’ll magnetically attract more talent. That’s the kind of spiral you do want. But how? You’d like to know what drives these engaged employees. You’d like to know the specific actions you can take to influence the choice of talent to choose you. Tools for managing change and influencing behaviour based on an extensive collection of workplace and psychology research - all told in an engaging style not an academic lecture.

Testimonials:

"Terry was recently the MC at our annual conference in Auckland. Both myself and the audience really enjoyed Terry’s professional high-energy during the day and his enthused humour during the conference dinner. But it’s what the audience didn’t see that sticks in my mind even more, the way he ensures the conference runs smoothly, the speakers are on and in time, and both myself and the audience has a good time. Terry is totally professional, and I totally recommend him." - Brett Jeffery, GM NZ Australasian Society of Association Executives

"Terry, you did another amazing job MCing our conference. I love your work! A great, big thank you from NZ Certified Builders". - Eve Cooper, Membership Services Manager, NZ Certified Builders

"Terry has a natural gift of humour, and the ability to bring together a room full of strangers, and make them feel like a cohesive unit.  He brings with him an ability to take charge of any situation and can take a muted crowd to being pumped and ready to go.  From an organiser's perspective he gives the reassurance that everything you need him to do is taken care of. Undeniably, Terry's sincerity, professionalism, talent and wonderful energy will inject success into every conference or event he hosts!" - Dayrel Williams, NZgenomics

"Terry has recently facilitated/MC'd a day-long conference of 100 leadership staff for me. The day was extremely successful due in large part to the way Terry carried out his role. He brought a unique blend of energy, humour, and focus utilising his skills as a public speaker and as a practicing comedian, and also his ability to think on his feet. This combination kept our team energised and engaged through the day and he capped it off with an excellent motivational talk that caused us all to reflect, in between the bouts of laughter. I can thoroughly recommend Terry for any event of this kind". – Murray Bain, CEO, TSB