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.
You lived it
You lead it
Once you've understood it and lived it, you can't unsee it. And it changes how you lead.
Spot
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.
Read more →Stoke
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.
Read more →Strive
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.
Read more →Steward
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.
Read more →Succeed
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.
Read more →Sustain
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.
Read more →~10,000
survey responses across 113 countries
100+
in-depth executive interviews
3M+
of views on her TEDx talk
20 yrs
leading executive search
As seen in
Leadership ~ Belonging ~ Retention ~ Purpose ~ Engagement
Toward a More Engaged Workforce
Why people disengage and leave — and what actually makes them stay and thrive. Consonance (Calling, Connection, Contribution, Control) turns work into fulfilling purpose, and leadership into intentional strategy.
Explore the research →Motivation ~ Change ~ Resilience ~ Sales Kick Offs
The Weight of Ambition
Each new success hands your team members a new goal, but it doesn't come without enormous pressure. Turning the emotional cost of success — impostor syndrome, self-doubt, and burnout — into data shifts their narrative identity from "finish line" to "we're just getting get started!"
Explore the research →Talent ~ Hiring ~ Potential ~ Growth
Spotting Potential in Others
How leaders recognize the potential others miss — the grounded theory of intuition in hiring, and the nine success-predictive behaviors that determine who is poised to grow and where you should invest your time and resources.
Explore the research →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.
Book Laura → See the keynotes →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.
Meet Laura Contact