Teresa Amabile

Creativity, Productivity, and the Psychology of Everyday Work Life

Services

Speaking

Teresa Amabile is an accomplished speaker in the field of business management, educating and inspiring audiences with lectures, workshops, and interactive discussions. She has worked with groups as small as 15 and as large as several thousand, in for-profit businesses, non-for-profit organizations, and a variety of associations.

Teresa speaking at the 99U conference, 2012

Here is a partial list of venues where Teresa has spoken:

  • PARC, a Xerox company, May 2011 (watch)
  • Google, August 2011 (watch)
  • Pixar, August 2011
  • TEDx Atlanta, September 2011 (watch)
  • Johnson & Johnson, October 2011
  • Intel, November 2011
  • American Management Association, March 2012 (watch)
  • The 99U Conference, May 2012 (watch)
  • Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), June 2012
  • Genentech, October 2012

Teresa gives talks and workshops on many topics under “The Progress Principle” umbrella. Occasionally, her coauthor, Steven Kramer, joins her in workshops. Here is a sample of topics, but Teresa enjoys customizing her sessions to the needs and interests of the audience: 

THE PROGRESS PRINCIPLE

What really makes people happy, motivated, productive, and creative at work? In Teresa Amabile's latest research, she's discovered the answer. It’s “The Progress Principle,” and it reveals the single most important thing that managers can do to engage their employees. Yet only 5% of managers understand the power of “The Progress Principle.” Analyzing nearly 12,000 daily diaries from over 200 knowledge workers, Amabile discovered eleven specific actions that managers can take to catalyze progress and nourish employees’ motivation. Through lectures, workshops, and interactive discussions on this topic, you will learn how to leverage “The Progress Principle” to achieve the dual goals of supporting employee well-being and igniting creative productivity.

How Leaders Make or Break the Work Environment for Innovation

According to common wisdom, innovation depends solely on the creative talents of the smartest people inside an organization. But common wisdom is wrong. Building on 35 years of research and work with some of the world’s most innovative companies, Teresa Amabile shows how talent and intelligence are only the raw materials that the best leaders shape into powerhouses of innovation. By contrast, the worst leaders unwittingly waste talent, driving away good ideas and good people. In talks and workshops on this topic, Amabile uses research and stories from diverse organizations to show how leaders at all levels can build the three components of individual creativity and the three components of organizational innovation. Through these insights, you will gain new leverage on the most important assets in contemporary businesses.