The first in our quarterly series of international speaker events in 2024 will be a virtual event with HBR’s Wendy Smith, co-author of Both/And Thinking – Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. It takes place at 7.30pm on Thursday, 14th March 2024. 

Wendy will discuss how to use “both/and thinking” to make more creative, flexible, and impactful decisions in a world of competing demands – a guide to life, work, and leadership.

How can we each express our individuality and be a team player? How do we balance work and life? How can we take care of ourselves while supporting others? How can we manage the core business while innovating for the future? For many of us, these competing and interwoven demands are a source of conflict. Since our brains love to make either-or choices, we choose one option over the other. There is a better way.

Wendy K. Smith is the Dana J. Johnson professor of management and faculty director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware. She earned her PhD in organizational behaviour at Harvard Business School, where she began her intensive research on strategic paradoxes—how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory, yet interdependent demands. Working with executives globally, she has been a noted keynote speaker and teacher for audiences around the world.

Her research, published among the top journals in the field, has received numerous awards including the Web of Science Highly Cited Research Award (2019, 2020 and 2021) for being among the 1 percent most-cited researchers in her field.

This event is free to members, who may bring a guest. Note you must log in when booking to avail of free entry.