You book the room: an association, a chapter, a development office, a company meeting. I bring one of three talks. Each is forty-five minutes, each comes from a floor and not from a slide library, and each ends the same way, with a number every person in the room can work out for their own business.
Talk 1 · For manufacturers and the bodies that serve them
Same Workers, Different System
In 1982 General Motors closed a plant with a name for being its worst. Two years later it reopened under Toyota’s management, and most of the people on the line were the same people. Within a year its quality had gone from the worst in the company to the best. Nothing about the workers had changed. This talk is about what did, and about a team leader on my own floor who had the whole diagnosis and had never been asked.
The room leaves withA way to tell a people problem from a system problem, and the three places to look for it in their own business.
From the essays: The NUMMI Proof ↗ and What a “Problem Employee” Taught Me.
Talk 2 · For owner groups, hospitality, retail and service
The $2,000 Nobody Spends
Every employee at the Ritz-Carlton may spend up to $2,000 on a guest without asking anyone. Almost none of them ever does. The number was never a budget. It is a signal about whose judgment the business trusts, and it changes what people notice and how fast they act. This talk asks what your version of that number is, and what it costs you not to have one.
The room leaves withOne decision they could hand to the people nearest the customer this month, and a way to put a price on withholding it.
Talk 3 · For conferences, and anyone buying automation or AI
The Most Sophisticated Robot Ever Built
As a venture advisor I sit through robotics pitches. So here is one. Eighty-six billion processing nodes, running on twenty watts. Two hands with seventeen thousand touch sensors each. It repairs itself and it never stops learning. Every business already owns it, and most use it to do the same three things all day. This talk is about what automation and AI do in a business that has never measured what its people know, and what they do in one that has.
The room leaves withThree questions to ask before the next automation or AI purchase, beginning with what the person who does the job today knows that the system will not.
From the essays: The Most Sophisticated Robot Ever Built, and others on AI in The Long Game.
Three ways to do it
A talk, a morning, or a free session.
A talk · 45 minutes
Room
Any size. A screen and a microphone
Shape
Thirty-five minutes, then questions
After
Everyone can take the free Bloom Online session
The Bloom Morning · four hours
Room
Twelve to thirty owners, at tables
Shape
Half teaching, half work on their own numbers
After
Each leaves with one move and a ninety-day number. See the morning →
Bloom Online · free for your members
Room
None. Three live hours on Zoom, Thursdays
Shape
The same working session, not recorded
After
You send the page; they save their own seat. See the dates →
Who you are booking. Thirty-six years on manufacturing floors in the United States, Germany and India: General Motors, Chrysler, and Chief Executive of Royal Enfield. Venture Advisor at Maniv. PhD in Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh. Three essays a week at The Long Game for All. Two books from Capability Capital Press in June 2027.
What I will not do. Sell from the podium. There is no pitch in any of these, no slide about services and no sign-up sheet. Expenses are travel and lodging at cost, with no markup.
Ask about a date
Tell me about the room.
Who will be in it, roughly how many, and when. I answer every one of these myself.