Workforce Keynote Speaker

Why Work? 

Phil Putnam is a workforce behavior expert that helps associations and businesses drive exceptional performance by understanding what individuals and generations truly want from work.

Watch Phil Speak 
Phil is trusted by leaders at:
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Work has always been a
value exchange.

Organizations invest in people for what they can make possible in the business. People give their time, skills, and energy for what work can make possible in their lives.

Yet leaders are still routinely asked to motivate people with the company’s goals rather than understanding what matters most to the person doing the work. When both sides are clear about what they want from the exchange—and what they are prepared to give in return—everyone gets their ideal outcomes with a minimal amount of friction.

Watch Phil at WORK

SPEAKING TOPICS

topic 01

Why Work?

The conversation every employee and leader needs to have

Drive stronger performance and make better workforce decisions by  discovering what people want most from work.

Explore Phil’s Keynotes 
topic 02

From Collision to Chemistry

Collaborating across generations in today’s workforce

Understand why Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z respond to work differently and turn those differences into better collaboration and stronger results.

Explore Phil’s Keynotes 
topic 03

Leading Menopausal Professionals

What leaders need to know about menopause at work

Equip leaders to recognize menopause as a natural biological process—not a job performance issue—so valuable professionals get the support they need to keep doing exceptional work.

Explore Phil’s Keynotes

PHIL HELPS…

  • Association Leaders

    Craft strong value propositions to solve today’s membership crisis, deeply engage members, and run thriving non-dues revenue programs.

  • Association Members

    Give members practical ways to lead, hire, collaborate, and make better workforce decisions inside their own organizations.

  • Corporate Leaders & Employees

    Ensure that your work is a viable path to what you want most, decide what to do when it’s not, and better navigate a complex multi-generational workforce.

Phil

Meet

Phil Putnam is a workforce behavior strategist and executive leader  who spent 20+ years inside performance-driven organizations like Apple and Adobe.

As a leader faced with big goals and limited resources, Phil found the way to reach those goals by simply asking his team members: “Why do you work?” 

That question got to the heart of their true motivations and eventually became his Give to Get framework, the LIFE Motivation model, and his book, Desire-Based Leadership.

Today, Phil brings that same curiosity about why people do what they do to audiences—helping people stop guessing about how to motivate their people and instead start having better conversations about the true desires that motivate top performance.

Meet Phil

FEEDBACK FROM LEADERS

  • “Phil’s session quickly became one of our most-talked about parts of our recent CEO summit. He made the audience feel seen, shared insights that stuck, and brought a fresh lens to issues we all experience in today’s multigenerational workplaces. He was an absolute delight to work with. We'd bring him back in a heartbeat.”

    Holly Munter Koenig, Executive Director, Metro NY Society of Association Executives

  • “Phil’s insights are exactly what today’s leaders need to help them drive performance and business results by centering their management practice on what employees want, and not only on what the business needs.”

    Bruce Ableson, Sr. Director, Global Readiness, Adobe

  • “Phil has a particularly special ability to listen—really listen—then tailor his approach based on what his clients really need. What sets him apart is his ability to draw connections, see the bigger picture, and use data and his observations to make real impacts with people and organizations.”

    Cara Kantrowitz, VP Analytics & Insights, Nielsen

  • “Phil is the ultimate role model for his Give to Get message. He has tremendous empathy and compassion that, when combined with his expertise, delivers content that hits your goals. His keynotes and workshops have a clear niche that teach leaders how to maximize their teams’ effectiveness.”

    Dr. Haley Perlus, Psychologist & high-performance expert

  • “Phil did an outstanding job tailoring the training to our business and delivering an impactful session for the variety of roles in the room. It went so well that we hired him again 2 weeks later to speak at our EMEA Kick Off.”

    Katie Gallo, Director, Revenue Enablement, Syndigo

Desire-Based
Leadership

A Manager’s Unexpected Key to Driving Top Performance

The book that helps leaders understand their people’s first-place motivations so they can get first-place results.

Explore the Book

Make work worth it.

If work is going to take up most of our waking hours, let’s make sure it pays off.

Bring Phil to your next event and give audiences a practical way to understand what people want from work, and what becomes possible when that exchange goes both ways.

Contact Phil