Pro Speaker

Adam Grant

Organizational Psychologist, The Wharton School of Business; Bestselling Author; Host: WorkLife, a TED Original Podcast

About

Gender: Male
Nationality: United States
Languages: English
Travels from: United States

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Biography Highlights

Top Organizational Psychologist
Bestselling Author
Renowned Speaker and Consultant

Biography

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author who explores the science of motivation, generosity, rethinking, and potential.

Adam Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for 7 straight years. As an organizational psychologist, he is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, rethink assumptions, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as the world’s #2 most influential management thinker and one of Fortune’s 40 under 40.

He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 6 books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 languages: Hidden PotentialThink AgainGive and TakeOriginalsOption B, and Power Moves. His books have been named among the year’s best by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across all platforms.

Adam hosts the TED podcasts Re:Thinking and WorkLife, which have been downloaded over 70 million times. His TED talks on languishing, original thinkers, and givers and takers have over 35 million views. He has received a standing ovation at TED and was voted the audience’s favorite speaker at The Nantucket Project. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NBA, Bridgewater, and the Gates Foundation. He writes on work and psychology for the New York Times, has served on the Defense Innovation Board at the Pentagon, has been honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has appeared on Billions. He has more than 8 million followers on social media and features new insights in his free monthly newsletter, GRANTED.

Adam was profiled in the New York Times Magazine cover story, Is giving the secret to getting ahead? He was tenured at Wharton while still in his twenties, and has received the Excellence in Teaching Award for every class that he has taught. He is the founder and host of the Authors@Wharton speaker series, and co-director of Wharton People Analytics. He curates the Next Big Idea Club along with Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, and Dan Pink, handpicking two new books each quarter for subscribers and donating 100% of profits to provide books for children in under-resourced communities.

Adam earned his Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan, completing it in less than 3 years, and his B.A. from Harvard University, magna cum laude with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa honors. He has received awards for distinguished scholarly achievement from the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, and the National Science Foundation, and been recognized as one of the world’s most-cited, most prolific, and most influential researchers in business and economics. His pioneering research has increased performance and reduced burnout among engineers, teachers, and salespeople, and motivated safety behaviors among doctors, nurses, and lifeguards. Before graduate school, Adam worked at Let’s Go Publications, where he set multiple company records for advertising sales and was selected as the manager of the year. He is a former magician and Junior Olympic springboard diver.

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Topics

Many visions, strategies, and best practices were created in a world that no longer exists. The faster our environment changes, the more critical it becomes to rethink our assumptions. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant finds that the very skills that make us good at thinking and learning can make us worse at rethinking and unlearning. Building on his #1 New York Times bestselling book, Think Again—called “brilliant” by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman—Adam examines how we can update our own opinions, open other people’s minds, and build a learning organization in which people know what they don’t know and are eager to improve on the status quo. His eye-opening evidence and entertaining delivery will leave you determined to never again say “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Available: In person, Virtually

When Adam Grant wrote his viral piece about languishing, it was the most-read New York Times article of the year—and the most-saved across all platforms. During this session, he fields questions about how the “blah” of languishing is different from burnout, what causes these two sets of emotional challenges, and how individuals, teams, and workplaces can move toward flourishing and build resilience. “Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity,” says Grant. “It’s a skill set that we work on throughout our lives.”

Available: In person, Virtually

We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent and intelligence. But the true measure of potential isn’t where you start—it’s how far you can travel. Building on his #1 New York Times bestseller, Hidden Potential, Adam Grant examines how to build the character skills, structures, and systems that accelerate learning and elevate excellence. We all have hidden potential, and this talk highlights how we can unleash it—in ourselves, in our teams, and in our organizations.

Available: In person, Virtually

To survive and thrive, organizations need original thinking. Yet many people stay silent instead of voicing their best ideas—and many leaders stifle dissent rather than encouraging it. In his #1 New York Times bestselling book Originals, Grant set out to explore how to unleash original thinking. “Originals are nonconformists—people who not only have new ideas, but take action to champion them,” says Grant. “They’re people who stand out and speak up. Originals drive creativity and change in the world.” In this talk, Grant reveals how to get better at recognizing and championing new ideas, and how to build cultures that welcome diverse perspectives and honest feedback.

Available: In person, Virtually

Culture is a key component of success, but many leaders struggle in managing the cultures of their teams and organizations. Based on decades of evidence, Adam Grant argues that the highest-performing organizations are the ones that embrace an ethos of knowledge sharing, helping, and mentoring. In his New York Times bestselling book, Give and Take, Grant examines how interpersonal interactions can fuel success, depending on whether you’re a “giver” (generous), a “taker” (me-first), or a “matcher” (trades favors evenly, quid pro quo). “Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them,” he writes. “Giver success creates value, instead of just claiming it.” In this presentation, Grant outlines the key strategies for building a culture of productive generosity. He highlights the importance of screening out takers, rewarding givers, and creating norms of help-seeking as well as help-giving.

Available: In person, Virtually
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TESTIMONIALS

Books

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Listed as a Times Self-Help Book of the Year Discover the critical art of rethinking: how questioning your opinions can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, the most crucial skill may be the ability to rethink and unlearn. Recent global and political changes have forced many of us to re-evaluate our opinions and decisions. Yet we often still favour the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt, and prefer opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. Intelligence is no cure, and can even be a curse. The brighter we are, the blinder we can become to our own limitations.

Power Moves: Lessons from Davos

Adam Grant, the New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B, went to the World Economic Forum in Davos to find out what the world’s most visionary and influential leaders had to say about power—and its transformative role in our society. What he learned there may surprise you. Grant delivers a heady mix of captivating interviews, compelling data, and his unmistakably incisive and actionable analysis, to give us a crash course in power that both inspires and instructs from the front lines. In interviews with two dozen CEOs, start-up founders, top scientists, and thought leaders—including top executives at Google, GM, Slack, and Goldman Sachs, the CEO of the Gates Foundation, and NASA’s former chief scientist—he shares hard-earned insights on how to succeed in this new era of hyper-linked power. He also explores how power is reshaping everything from the workforce, to the rise of women in the office, to the influence of scientists on policy.
Originals by Adam Grant

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all? Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.
Give and Take by Adam Grant

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

or generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But in today’s dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. In Give and Take, Adam Grant, an award-winning researcher and Wharton’s highest-rated professor, examines the surprising forces that shape why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom. Praised by social scientists, business theorists, and corporate leaders, Give and Take opens up an approach to work, interactions, and productivity that is nothing short of revolutionary.
Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door. Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess—it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked. Many writers have chronicled the habits of superstars who accomplish great things. This book reveals how anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.

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Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

Biographies, Biographies, Memoirs and Autobiographies, Memoirs and Autobiographies
Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy.