- The Keynote Curators - Top Speaker Agency in North America
Here’s the uncomfortable truth about why smart, talented teams still miss deadlines, blow budgets, and promise “we’ll fix it next quarter”: it’s not a people problem. It’s a system problem. Most teams routinely leave the hardest 8–10% of critical observations unsaid, and that silence costs everything—from event execution to sponsor satisfaction to your sanity during show week.
I’ve watched this pattern play out hundreds of times in the events industry. A production team knows the timeline is unrealistic but stays quiet. A meeting planner sees a vendor red flag but doesn’t want to “create conflict.” An AV crew notices a safety issue but assumes someone else will mention it. Then showtime arrives, and suddenly everyone’s scrambling to contain a crisis that was entirely preventable.
This isn’t about hiring better people or working harder. It’s about creating the conditions where your team can surface the truth early enough to actually do something about it. In this post, I’ll show you exactly how high-performing teams build systems for smart risk-taking, courageous conversations, and the kind of psychological safety that doesn’t sacrifice accountability. You’ll walk away with three practical moves you can implement this week, real research that explains why “nice” teams and “tough” teams both underperform, and a curated list of keynote speakers who can help you scale these practices across your organization.
Let me share a story that perfectly illustrates the problem. A global auto-parts manufacturer kept experiencing what they called “big event” catastrophes every two years—major projects derailing and burning tens of millions of dollars. They had brilliant engineers, experienced project managers, and substantial resources. The talent wasn’t the issue.
The real culprit? What they eventually termed “CEO disease”: the phenomenon where information becomes progressively less candid as it travels up the organizational hierarchy. Engineers on the ground knew about problems early, but the team culture didn’t support raising hard truths without fear of being labeled negative, alarmist, or “not a team player.” By the time issues reached decision-makers, they’d been sanitized, softened, and stripped of urgency.
The breakthrough came when leadership deliberately rebuilt norms to ensure tough truths surfaced early. They created explicit systems for candor—not occasional courage, but repeatable, accountable processes for naming risks before they became crises. Those multi-million-dollar blowups? They dropped dramatically.
This pattern shows up constantly in event planning. We’ve all been in the pre-event meeting where everyone nods along to an aggressive setup schedule, even though half the room knows it’s impossible. Or the sponsor debrief where we gloss over delivery gaps because “the relationship is good.” That withheld 8–10% doesn’t disappear—it just shows up later as emergency calls, budget overruns, and stressed-out teams working miracles to salvage what could have been handled proactively.
The question isn’t whether your team has talent. The question is whether your system allows that talent to speak truth to power when it matters most.
Team keynote speaker JP Pawliw-Fry published a piece in Harvard Business Review that should be required reading for every event professional: “The Secret to Building a High-Performing Team.” Trust me when I say it’s worth the eight-minute investment.
JP’s research, drawing on large-scale surveys of teams across industries, reveals something counterintuitive: high performers don’t avoid risk. Instead, they create the specific conditions for smart risk—the kind that drives innovation rather than chaos. This isn’t about being fearless or reckless. It’s about building an environment where people can take calculated chances because they have both psychological safety and genuine accountability.
JP frames this as a two-axis model: connection (do I feel heard and valued?) on one axis, and courage (do I have the backing to raise the hard thing on time?) on the other. Teams can land in four quadrants, but only one consistently outperforms: high connection AND high courage. Teams strong on both dimensions out-execute “nice” teams (high connection, low courage) and “tough” teams (low connection, high courage) alike.
Here’s the kicker that revolutionizes how we think about team dynamics: JP’s data around the “Last 8%”—that piece of a hard conversation we habitually hold back—explains why intelligent, well-meaning people still miss preventable issues. We convince ourselves we’ve communicated sufficiently when we’ve shared 90% of our concern. But that withheld 8% usually contains the most critical insight: the showstopper risk, the unrealistic assumption, the vendor who’s actually struggling.
Great teams aren’t nicer or tougher—they’re braver AND more connected. When people feel psychologically safe AND genuinely accountable, they say the thing that saves the project. That’s your competitive edge in show control, sponsor delivery, and the Monday follow-through that determines whether attendees actually implement what they learned.
For those of us designing audience experiences, this research translates directly. Every event depends on dozens of handoffs, hundreds of small decisions, and the ability to spot and solve problems in real time. The team that can surface truth fast will always outperform the team that discovers problems too late to fix them elegantly.
After studying JP’s framework and implementing it across countless event teams, I’ve come to understand that elite performance rests on two non-negotiable pillars:
Connection: I am heard and valued. This goes beyond surface-level politeness or team-building exercises. Real connection means every person on your team genuinely believes their observations matter, their concerns will be taken seriously, and their contributions are essential to success. It’s the technical director knowing they can flag a staging concern without being dismissed. It’s the junior planner feeling confident enough to question a timeline that doesn’t add up. It’s the production crew trusting that when they raise a safety issue, leadership will act immediately rather than shoot the messenger.
Connection doesn’t mean consensus or constant agreement. It means mutual respect, active listening, and the confidence that hard conversations won’t damage relationships or careers. In event planning, where teams often assemble quickly for specific projects, building this kind of connection requires intentional effort. You can’t assume it exists just because people are professional and cordial.
Courage: I have the backing to raise the hard thing—on time. Courage without connection becomes brutal honesty that damages trust. But connection without courage creates what I call “pleasant dysfunction”—teams that are lovely to work with but consistently underdeliver because no one wants to be the person who names the problem.
Real courage means the emotional intelligence to deliver hard truths in ways people can actually hear, combined with organizational backing that rewards people for surfacing issues early rather than punishing them for being “negative.” It’s the account manager telling a client their vision exceeds their budget before contracts are signed. It’s the event producer stopping a rehearsal to fix something that’s almost right but not quite there. It’s the entire team understanding that flagging risks is how professionals operate, not evidence of pessimism or lack of commitment.
You need both pillars. Over-index on connection alone, and you get groupthink—teams that feel great but miss obvious problems because no one wants to disturb the harmony. Over-index on courage alone, and you get churn—constant conflict, hurt feelings, and talented people leaving because the environment feels unsafe despite everyone’s “radical candor.”
High-performing teams practice both dimensions on purpose, with specific rituals and norms that reinforce connection and courage daily. They don’t wait for annual offsites or hope it emerges organically. They build it systematically.
Theory is useless without application. Here are three practical techniques you can implement this week, each taking roughly five minutes, that will immediately improve your team’s ability to surface and solve problems:
The Last 8% Check-In (5 minutes): At your next team meeting—whether it’s a project kickoff, a mid-cycle review, or a pre-event briefing—pause and ask directly: “What’s the one thing we’re not saying out loud that could bite us?” Give people explicit permission to name the uncomfortable truth. Maybe it’s that the keynote speaker’s content doesn’t actually match the audience’s needs. Maybe it’s that you’re understaffed for the venue changeover. Maybe it’s that the sponsor expectations weren’t properly managed in the sales process.
Once someone names it, don’t let it float in the ether. Assign one owner. Set a deadline for a specific action or decision—ideally within 48 hours. Then actually follow up. This practice works because it normalizes surfacing problems, demonstrates that concerns lead to action rather than punishment, and prevents small issues from becoming catastrophic ones.
I’ve watched this single practice prevent everything from AV failures to speaker cancellations to budget overruns. The first time you try it, your team might be hesitant. By the third time, people start volunteering concerns proactively because they’ve seen that naming problems early actually makes everyone’s job easier.
Roles on a Rope (5 minutes): Before doors open on show day, gather your entire event team—production, AV, registration, speakers, venue staff, everyone—and have each person state out loud in one sentence: Here’s my role, here’s my primary risk, here’s my rescue plan if things go sideways. This takes five minutes for a typical team, but it eliminates hours of confusion and prevents dozens of “wait, whose responsibility is that?” moments.
The technical director might say: “I’m running show control. My biggest risk is audio issues during the keynote. If we have problems, I’m switching to the backup wireless system and I need Sarah on stage left to help troubleshoot.” The registration lead might say: “I’m managing check-in. My risk is the badge printer failing. My backup is pre-printed emergency badges in the blue bin behind my desk.”
This technique works because ambiguity is the enemy of execution. When everyone knows not just their own role but everyone else’s role and backup plan, the entire team becomes more resilient. People can cover for each other, spot problems outside their immediate area, and coordinate seamlessly under pressure. I learned this from working with crisis management experts, and it’s become non-negotiable in my event planning process.
After-Action Micro-Debrief (5 minutes): Here’s where most event teams fail: they wait until after the entire conference wraps to conduct a formal debrief. By then, half the lessons are forgotten, key people have moved on to other projects, and there’s no opportunity to improve anything except “next time.”
Instead, implement five-minute micro-debriefs between sessions, after each day, or during natural breaks. Use three simple prompts: What worked? What wobbled? What’s the one change we’re making before the next session? Capture answers on a single slide or shared document. Make one person responsible for implementing the change immediately.
This is how you achieve peak performance DURING the event, not just in post-mortem reports that no one reads. Maybe you discover attendees can’t find the breakout rooms, so you immediately add clearer signage. Maybe the speaker Q&A is running too long, so you adjust the timing for the afternoon session. Maybe the coffee station is causing bottlenecks, so you open a second location.
These micro-adjustments compound into dramatically better experiences for attendees and dramatically less stress for your team. Plus, the practice of continuous improvement builds a culture where people expect to iterate and optimize rather than just survive until the end.
Let me be direct about something that too many leadership teams still treat as a checkbox exercise: cognitive diversity isn’t about optics or compliance. It’s about risk control and innovation fuel. When you intentionally build teams with diverse skills, perspectives, backgrounds, and thinking styles, you’re creating a system that’s harder to break and easier to improve.
You want the detail hawk who catches the contract clause everyone else glossed over. You want the rapid prototyper who can mock up three solutions in the time it takes to schedule a meeting about whether to have a meeting. You want the skeptic who asks “but what if?” and forces you to stress-test assumptions. You want the harmonizer who can read the room and navigate stakeholder politics. You want the technical expert who knows what’s actually possible versus what sounds good in theory.
The mistake most teams make is hiring for “culture fit,” which usually means “people who think like me and won’t create friction.” But friction is how you test ideas, expose blind spots, and arrive at better solutions. The goal isn’t to eliminate friction—it’s to channel it productively.
This means explicitly labeling people’s strengths, assigning clear lanes where those strengths can shine, and celebrating the tension that improves the product rather than viewing disagreement as dysfunction. When your production designer and your budget manager disagree about what’s feasible, that’s not a team failure—that’s your risk management system working exactly as designed.
I’ve planned some of my best events with teams where people had wildly different approaches, and I’ve planned some disasters with teams where everyone got along beautifully but no one questioned the flawed plan. Give me productive friction over pleasant groupthink every single time.
Most event professionals can’t articulate what high performance actually looks like beyond vague notions of “everyone working well together” or “delivering a successful event.” Let me give you specific, observable signals that your team is operating at the top of their game:
Clear promise: Every single person on your team, from the executive producer to the intern managing swag bags, can state the session’s or event’s core outcome in one sentence. Not the logistics, not the agenda—the actual impact you’re creating for attendees. If people can’t articulate this consistently, you don’t have alignment, no matter how many planning meetings you’ve held.
Tight handoffs: Pay attention to how often you hear phrases like “wait, who owns this?” or “I thought you were handling that” or “did anyone brief them on the change?” These aren’t inevitable parts of event planning—they’re symptoms of unclear accountabilities. High-performing teams have crisp handoffs where everyone knows exactly what they’re responsible for, what they’re receiving from others, and what they’re delivering to the next person in the chain.
Fast fixes: Problems don’t get escalated through three layers of management before action happens. Issues surface immediately, owners step up without being asked, and solutions get implemented without drama or panic. This only happens when people feel both psychologically safe enough to raise problems and accountable enough to own solutions.
Monday moves: This one’s critical for those of us in the thought leadership and conference space. The ultimate measure of event success isn’t applause or satisfaction scores—it’s behavior change. Are attendees leaving with specific, actionable next steps they can implement starting Monday morning? If your team is designing with Monday in mind rather than just Friday afternoon, you’re operating at a different level.
When I work with truly high-performing event teams, I notice they spend less time in crisis mode and more time optimizing details. They catch issues in rehearsal rather than during the live program. They finish events tired but not destroyed. And most tellingly, people actually want to work together again on the next project.
Everything I’ve outlined so far works whether you’re managing a small internal meeting or a multi-thousand-person conference. But here’s the reality: transformation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Sometimes you need external catalysts—people who can frame these concepts in fresh ways, share compelling stories from other industries, and give your team permission to operate differently.
That’s where the right keynote speaker becomes invaluable. Not someone who delivers motivational fluff that feels good for an hour then evaporates, but practitioners who provide frameworks your team can implement immediately. Let me introduce you to speakers I trust to move audiences from inspiration to action on exactly these themes:
JP Pawliw-Fry specializes in emotional intelligence and the Last 8% framework we’ve explored throughout this post. JP delivers psychological safety with teeth—not the soft, everyone-gets-a-participation-trophy version, but real systems leaders can run tomorrow. His sessions combine rigorous research with immediately applicable tools for building both connection and courage. Use JP for leadership summits where you need to reset culture or establish new norms around candor and accountability. Event planners and meeting planners tell me his content delivers months of conversation-starters and behavior shifts.
Amy Herman brings visual intelligence and decision-making under pressure to life through her unique background training everyone from the FBI to Fortune 500 executives. Amy teaches teams to see what they’re missing, check their biases, and make faster, better calls when stakes are high. This translates directly to event environments where dozens of decisions happen simultaneously and there’s no time for committee meetings. Use Amy for cross-functional teams or risk and operations audiences who need practical perception drills they can practice immediately.
Merril Hoge delivers resilience and “Find a Way” grit from his NFL career and multiple comeback stories. Merril’s gift is converting mindset into habit—showing teams exactly how to build bounce-back playbooks so adversity becomes advantage. He’s particularly effective during change cycles or sales kickoffs where people need confidence that they can handle whatever comes next. Meeting professionals consistently tell me Merril’s stories stick with teams long after the event ends.
Robyn Benincasa brings world-class teamwork principles from adventure racing, where literal survival depends on trust and coordination. Robyn’s framework around “shared suffering leading to shared success” gives teams tangible ways to measure trust rather than just hoping it exists. She’s ideal for breaking down silos or integrating newly merged teams who need to build cohesion fast. Her business applications are immediately clear, and she provides tools teams can use starting their next project.
James Lawrence, known as The Iron Cowboy, speaks to endurance, consistency, and identity transformation. James completed 50 Ironman triathlons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days—a feat that required building capacity through micro-commitments that scale. Use James for transformation roadmaps where teams need to believe that impossible goals become achievable through systematic daily progress. Event planners appreciate how his message translates to any ambitious organizational goal.
Sarah Wells combines Olympic-level focus with everyday performance tools. Sarah teaches teams to build prime routines, pressure tools, and confidence reps—practical techniques that work whether you’re competing for gold medals or managing high-velocity project demands. She’s particularly effective for operations teams and any group that performs under constant scrutiny where there’s no room for error.
Jesse Itzler brings pure energy, audacity, and bold culture-building. Jesse’s superpower is changing the room’s temperature and creating action bias—getting people excited to move fast and try big things. Use Jesse for demand generation events or culture moments where you need to shift energy and mindset dramatically. His entrepreneurial stories and willingness to embrace discomfort give teams permission to be ambitious.
Jack Becker applies aviator discipline to business through his Brief-Execute-Debrief-Perfect cycle. Jack teaches teams to build checklists that catch errors before they become crises and to stay calm under pressure through rigorous preparation. He’s invaluable for show crews, safety and operations teams, or any environment where process discipline prevents disasters.
Ross Bernstein studies championship cultures and translates what winning locker rooms do differently for business audiences. Ross delivers concrete practices from sports dynasties that can be applied immediately to corporate teams. He’s ideal for leadership offsites and recognition events where you’re celebrating past wins while establishing standards for future performance.
Marc Koehler specializes in turning managers into emergency leaders. Marc provides simple crisis plans and team drills that stick, so when unexpected situations arise, people know exactly what to do. Use Marc for resilience blocks or mission alignment sessions where preparedness and rapid response matter most.
Here’s my programming tip for maximizing impact: pair a keynote speaker with a hands-on clinic (30–60 minutes) and a debrief card. That’s the sequence that converts inspiration into lasting system change. The keynote creates emotional resonance and frames the concepts. The clinic lets people practice immediately while the speaker is still there to guide them. The debrief card gives them a tool to reference during future situations when they need to apply what they learned.
This three-part structure is how you get actual behavior change rather than just satisfied survey responses. Too many organizations invest in powerful speakers then wonder why nothing shifts afterward. The difference is implementation architecture.
I’m a firm believer in not making people reinvent wheels. Here are copy-paste templates I use constantly, and you should steal them without hesitation:
Weekly opener in team meetings: “One risk we need to say out loud is ___. Owner: ___. Update by ___.”
This single sentence structure forces clarity, accountability, and urgency. No meandering discussions about hypothetical concerns—name it, own it, resolve it.
Speaker brief one-liner: “Promise → Audience → Monday move.”
When you’re briefing a keynote speaker about your event, cut through all the background and give them this: the core promise you’re making to attendees, who those attendees are specifically, and what action you want them taking on Monday. This focuses content development on outcomes rather than generic inspiration.
Run-of-show safety line: “If you see something, say something: Here’s who, here’s how, here’s when.”
Don’t just tell your team to report problems—give them the specific escalation path. Who do they tell? What’s the communication method? What’s the response timeline? Remove every possible barrier to surfacing issues.
These templates work because they eliminate decision fatigue and provide clear containers for important conversations. You’re not hoping people will figure out how to communicate well—you’re giving them the exact structure.
Off-sites end. Keynote presentations finish. But operating systems for truth don’t expire if you build them properly. At The Keynote Curators, we practice what we program. We deliberately leave room for the Last 8%. We name hard things early, even when it’s uncomfortable. We solve challenges together rather than hoping someone else will handle them. And we constantly ask ourselves: are we optimizing for short-term harmony or long-term excellence?
This isn’t about being unnecessarily harsh or creating conflict for its own sake. It’s about respecting our clients, our team members, and our own professional development enough to have real conversations. I’ve learned that the kindest thing you can do for someone is tell them the truth when it still matters, delivered in a way they can actually hear and act on.
The events industry moves fast. Budgets tighten, expectations escalate, and the margin for error keeps shrinking. Teams that can surface and solve problems proactively will always outperform teams that discover issues too late. Connection and courage aren’t soft skills—they’re strategy.
If you’re experimenting with these practices in your organization, I genuinely want to learn from you. What’s one hard conversation your team handled well this quarter—and how did you make it safe to say out loud? What rituals or norms have you built that help truth surface faster? Where are you still struggling to break through to real candor?
These aren’t rhetorical questions. I learn as much from event professionals in the trenches as from any research study, and your innovations often become practices I share with others facing similar challenges.
You’ve made it through 2,500+ words about team performance, psychological safety, and courageous conversations. That means you care enough about this topic to invest serious time learning. Now comes the part that actually matters: application.
Here’s what I want you to do this week. Not eventually, not when things calm down, not after you finish the current project. This week.
Pick ONE of the three 15-minute practices—Last 8%, Roles on a Rope, or After-Action Micro-Debrief—and implement it before Friday. Just one. Test it with your team and notice what happens. Does conversation shift? Do issues surface faster? Does execution feel smoother?
Then, share what you learned. Not because I need the validation, but because our entire industry gets stronger when we share what works. The future of work depends on teams that can collaborate truthfully, adapt quickly, and deliver experiences that genuinely matter to audiences.
And if you’re planning an event where these themes could transform your audience’s approach to teamwork, leadership, or employee engagement, let’s talk about the right speaker to catalyze that shift. Not every speaker fits every audience or objective, but when the match is right, the impact extends far beyond the keynote hour.
The teams that win aren’t the ones with the most talent or the biggest budgets. They’re the teams that built systems for truth—and had the courage to use them.
Book a 15-minute call today and let’s discuss strategies for building teams that say what others won’t.
Email us at info@thekeynotecurators.com to explore keynote speakers who specialize in team performance, psychological safety, and courageous leadership.
Visit thekeynotecurators.com to discover more engaging keynote speakers who deliver frameworks your teams can implement immediately.
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