THE RESEARCH
Behind the Work
Two decades in executive search + a decade of global data
Disengagement. Turnover. Wasted potential.
That's what it costs to run people on a definition of success that stopped motivating them years ago, and you're paying it right now.
For two decades as an executive recruiter, Laura's job was to phone the most successful people on the planet and recruit them away. They had every marker of success — that's exactly why she was calling. But despite all this success, which is why she was calling them, they weren't very happy, so they all called her back. Intrigued by the pattern, Laura spent the decade since selling her firm researching that gap, and finding how to close it, no matter where you sit on your own career journey.
Once you’ve understood it and lived it, you can’t unsee it.
And it changes how you lead.
YOU LIVED IT
Spot
GREATNESS
We've been trained to recognize performance after the fact. We should've learned to spot the patterns that predict future performance (in ourselves and others). As a result, we keep looking for what we've seen before, which leaves us only where we've been before.
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Strive
LIMITLESS
We're taught to strive, and to measure how we're doing by status, money, title — the boxes everyone agrees are worth ticking. But the boxes that predict who thrives give us consonance: the combination of calling, connection, contribution, and control that puts us in alignment with our purpose.
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Succeed
WONDERHELL
We are told success is a finish line, but it is only a tease of what we're capable of next. Instead of arrival, we find doubt, pressure, and the quiet question of what now.
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YOU LEAD IT
Stoke
GREATNESS
Once you know the nine success-predictive behaviors that experienced talent spotters know to seek, you can cultivate and amplify them — in yourself, and in others, so you know who to invest in, and how to help them thrive.
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Steward
LIMITLESS
You understand now that people don't stay for the old corporate scorecards of dependence and need. They stay for the same four boxes you went looking for yourself — the ones that give them alignment, belonging, and purpose.
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Sustain
WONDERHELL
As your team achieves more, they find themselves in uncharted territory. That's when the doubt, uncertainty, and impostor syndrome arrive. You've been there yourself. It's time to sustain their performance through it, instead of losing them to the stress and burnout from it.
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AS SEEN IN
THE KEYNOTES
This research doesn't stay on the page.
Every body of work is also a keynote — built for wherever your people are in the story, from spotting potential to stoking it. Customizable, available in-person and virtually.
ABOUT
Meet Laura Gassner Otting
Laura Gassner Otting is a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestselling author, researcher, and keynote speaker who helps individuals, leaders, and organizations become limitless. A former White House appointee who helped build AmeriCorps, she spent two decades leading executive searches before turning to the research behind engagement, ambition, and potential.
Her talk on TED.com has been viewed #3M+ times, and her work has been featured by Good Morning America, the TODAY show, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and more.
