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Matthew E. May

Matthew E. May is an internationally recognized thought leader on strategy, innovation, and lean. Founder and CEO of StratInnoSys and creator of The Idea Score,™ he specializes in helping executives craft innovative strategies and build the capabilities to implement them.

Matthew has written five books on innovative thinking. His work has appeared in The New York Times, INC Magazine, Strategy+Business, The Rotman Magazine, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review.

In his talks, Matthew blends his frontline experience with research from his books in order to deliver useful concepts with immediate application, and aims to achieve four things in every address:

1. inspire new thinking;

2. share a unique perspective;

3. tell compelling stories; and

4. deliver practical takeaways.

Matthew holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA from Johns Hopkins University, but counts winning the New Yorker cartoon caption contest as one of his most creative achievements.

Categories: Creative Thinking and Innovation, Leadership, TED Talk

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Videos

Topics

MIND OF THE INNOVATOR

How Game-Changers “Think Different”
The pressure to stand out and stay relevant in a fiercely competitive marketplace demands innovative thinking to jump the curve and move to the next level. That pressure falls squarely on the shoulders of the individual, because companies don’t innovate, people do. The tension between business objectives and creative thinking isn’t easily resolved…unless you can tame the traps of traditional thinking. In this compelling keynote, Matthew takes the audience inside the minds of the world’s most creative executives and entrepreneurs to reveal how they crush the status quo, write their own rules, change the game, and move the world.

COMPETING FOR THE FUTURE

The Art of Playing to Win
Leaders at every level face the same daunting challenge: how to win consistently in a massively disruptive business environment. Enter the need for a forward-looking strategy that enables a player to create a sustainable advantage and superior value relative to the competition. In this talk, Matthew show leaders how to begin with a future-back winning aspiration, then answer two deceptively simple questions: Where will you play? and How will you win? Blending compelling examples with stories from years of front-line experience facilitating strategy sessions, this keynote delivers a master class on competing for the future.

ELEGANT SOLUTIONS

Success Through Simplicity
In this thought-provoking exploration of why certain events, products, and people capture our attention and imaginations, Matthew reveals the key to innovative breakthrough in fields ranging from physics and marketing to design and popular culture, and sheds light on the power of simplicity and subtraction in business, work and life, while offering surprising evidence that the best ideas have something missing…on purpose.

ELEGANT LEADERSHIP

Secrets to Achieving the Maximum Effect With Minimum Means
Amidst an arguably expanding world economy, one fact stands clear: business leaders are facing a scarcity of resources. Materials cost increases and other financial burdens combined with an ever-shrinking pool of top talent leaves leaders facing a critical capability challenge. Enter the concept of elegance: achieving the maximum effect with minimum means. In this compelling keynote, Matthew reveals how the best leaders spur creativity and innovation among their ranks by imposing intelligent constraints.

INNOVATION THE TOYOTA WAY

Creating a Culture of Constant Innovation
Based on his bestselling book The Elegant Solution, and success in applying the collective wisdom gleaned from nearly a decade of working with Toyota, Matthew offers a vital prescription for organizations seeking new inroads to companywide innovation.

WINNING THE BRAIN GAME

Fixing the 7 Fatal Flaws of Thinking
In this provocative and highly interactive keynote based his book by the same name, Matthew engages audiences in the same simple thought challenge given to over 100,000 people during a 10-year period. Calling on modern neuroscience, psychology, and insight from the world’s most innovative thinkers, he offers a super-curated, field-tested set of “fixes,” proven through hundreds of creative sessions to raise our thinking game.

Books

WINNING THE BRAIN GAME

WINNING THE BRAIN GAME

Mindful thinking is the new competitive edge

Science confirms the distinction between the biological brain and the conscious mind. Each day, a game of mind versus matter plays out on a field defined by the problems we must solve. Most are routine, and don’t demand a more mindful approach. It’s when we’re faced with more difficult challenges that our thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead us astray.

You can purchase this book here

The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything (Business Books)

The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything (Business Books)

Winner of a 2013 Small Business Book Award for Economics

The world is more overwhelming than ever before. Our work is deeper and more demanding than ever. Our businesses are more complicated and difficult to manage than ever. Our economy is more uncertain than ever. Our resources are scarcer than ever. There is endless choice and feature overkill in all but the best experiences. Everybody knows everything about us. The simple life is a thing of the past. Everywhere, there's too much of the wrong stuff and not enough of the right. The noise is deafening, the signal weak. Everything is too complicated and time-sucking.

You can purchase this book here

The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation

The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation

Toyota is becoming a double threat: the world's finest manufacturer and a truly great innovator . . . that formula, a combination of production prowess and technical innovation, is an unbeatable recipe for success - Fortune, February 2006 For the first time, an insider reveals the formula behind Toyota's unceasing quest to innovate and do more with less, a philosophy that has made it one of the ten most profitable companies in the world (and worth more than GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda combined). In a rare look into Toyota's ability to consistently achieve breakthroughs that outperform the competition, The Elegant Solution explains what Toyota associates have known all along: it's not about the cars. Rather, Toyota's astounding success is just the visible result of a hidden creative process that begins with a seven-digit number. One million. That's how many new ideas the Toyota organization implements every year. These ideas come from every level of the organization - from the factory floors to the corporate suites. And organizations all over the world want to learn how it's done. Now senior University of Toyota advisor Matthew May shows how any company can achieve an environment of everyday innovation and discover the kinds of elegant solutions that hold the power to change the game forever.

You can purchase this book here

The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change

The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change

Gold Medal Winner, Business Fable, 2012 Axiom Business Book Awards

A personal leadership fable on applying principles of Zen to work & life choices.

The Shibumi Strategy is a little book about a big breakthrough. It tells the story of a hardworking family man who finds himself in crisis when his company closes. Through his struggle, and guidance from unlikely sources, he learns subtle lessons in the form of “personal zen” principles, coming to understand that it is often the involuntary challenge, the setbacks, that harbor the power to transform. When approached as an opportunity — no easy task when simple survival is the first order of business—unforeseen trials can sometimes result in an altogether new lease on life.

You can purchase this book here

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing

What made the Sopranos finale one of the most-talked-about events in television history?

Why is sudoku so addictive and the iPhone so irresistible?

What do Jackson Pollock and Lance Armstrong have in common with theoretical physicists and Buddhist monks?

Elegance.

In this thought-provoking exploration of why certain events, products, and people capture our attention and imaginations, Matthew E. May examines the elusive element behind so many innovative breakthroughs in fields ranging from physics and marketing to design and popular culture. Combining unusual simplicity and surprising power, elegance is characterized by four key elements—seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a compelling, story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers surprising evidence that what’s “not there” often trumps what is.

In the bestselling tradition of The Tipping Point, Made to Stick, and The Black Swan, In Pursuit of Elegance will change the way you think about the world.

You can purchase this book here

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