— Seminars & Workshops
Turn Uncertainty Into a Leadership Advantage
Flexible learning experiences for leadership teams, conferences, associations and organizations.
Most teams do not need another motivational speech. They need a better way to understand why good plans fail, why the same problems return and how to act when the future refuses to cooperate.
Derek Wilder's seminars and workshops translate the ideas in The Butterfly in the Boardroom into practical conversations, diagnostic tools and operating habits leaders can use immediately. Every engagement is designed around the audience, the business context and the decisions people need to make after the session ends.
— Programs
Core Program Topics
Topic
Leading at the Edge of Chaos
A practical introduction to why organizations perform best between rigid control and unstructured disorder. Participants learn to replace false certainty with clear mission, adaptive planning and disciplined navigation.
Topic
The Butterfly in Your Organization
How early choices, first conversations and small precedents create long-term cultural and operational consequences. Ideal for leadership teams entering growth, restructuring or transition.
Topic
The Organizational Zoom Test
A hands-on examination of whether stated values match the rules being repeated in hiring, meetings, incentives, client communication and accountability.
Topic
From Fixed Plans to a Business Flight Deck
A practical operating model built around rolling plans, early feedback, reversible decisions, modular structure and a portfolio of bounded experiments.
Topic
Changing the Gravitational Center
How to identify the strange attractor shaping organizational behavior and change the measurements, incentives and tolerated behaviors that keep pulling the company back.
Topic
Reading the Next Growth Curve
A strategic session for leaders facing a plateau, expansion or business-model transition. Participants learn to identify their current curve and design the next set of experiments.
— Leadership Reviews
What Leaders Are Saying
“Derek Wilder is like the leadership whisperer. If you are interested in recognizing patterns and identifying the invisible elements that affect culture so you can be proactive in shaping it, this is a feed I highly recommend!”
Sheryl Anjanette
The Future of Trust
“Derek is one of those people who makes you think a little harder about how you lead. His writing comes from actually running a company, getting things wrong, learning, adjusting, and doing the work for decades.”
Tanu Tiwari
Invisible Lessons
“Sound organizational leadership advice on how to create the conditions for success.”
Robert Mixon
All-In Adaptive Leadership Insights
— Formats
Flexible Formats
Programs can be adapted to a conference audience, an executive team or a working group that needs to leave with decisions and next steps.
Format
Keynote
A focused, high-energy introduction to the central ideas and their relevance to leadership, growth and organizational resilience.
Format
Executive Briefing
A conversational session for senior leaders, boards or ownership groups who want to explore the framework in the context of current business conditions.
Format
Half-Day Workshop
A practical working session combining teaching, discussion, diagnostic exercises and a prioritized action plan.
Format
Full-Day Workshop
A deeper engagement for leadership teams ready to examine planning, culture, feedback, decision design and organizational structure together.
Format
Leadership Series
A sequence of facilitated sessions that helps a team apply the framework over time instead of treating learning as a one-time event.
Format
Custom Seminar
A tailored program for associations, peer groups, educational institutions or company events.
— Outcomes
What Participants Can Expect
- A clear, memorable language for discussing uncertainty and complexity.
- Examples that connect theory to real leadership, operational and cultural decisions.
- Tools for identifying hidden risk and recurring organizational patterns.
- Practical ways to improve planning, feedback and decision reversibility.
- Structured discussion that surfaces differences between leadership intent and operating reality.
- A short list of actions the team can begin testing immediately.
— Book Reviews
What Readers Are Saying
“Wilder lays out a clear plan for creating an organizational culture of trust and transparency that builds teams and morale. I shared this book with our executives and found new energy and intentionality in moving forward.”
Lisa Pay
Amazon review · Kindle
“This book earns its place right alongside The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Good to Great, and How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
Brennan Brown
Amazon review · Kindle
“The author does an excellent job of bringing these concepts to life through engaging storytelling and personal experiences, making the material both relatable and easy to understand. Overall, a fantastic and insightful read!”
Anthony
Amazon review · Paperback, Verified Purchase
— How It Works
A Practical Engagement Process
- 01
Discovery
A short conversation to understand the audience, current challenges and desired outcomes.
- 02
Design
Selection and customization of the most relevant topics, examples and exercises.
- 03
Delivery
An interactive program focused on clarity, participation and application.
- 04
Next Steps
Optional follow-up resources, leadership discussion prompts or consulting support.
— Inquire
Designed for Real Operating Teams
Owners, executive teams, project-based businesses, construction leaders, professional-services firms, family businesses, associations and organizations navigating growth or transition. The framework works best with audiences willing to look honestly at how the organization behaves, not only how it describes itself.
Leadership Review
“Useful if you’re the one running things.”
— William J. Maggio, Leading in the Age of Algorithms