This session kicks off the conference with one simple idea: we don't all play (perform) at work in the same way, and understanding that changes how you lead, collaborate, and connect.

 

You'll learn what play actually is, discover your dominant Play Personality from a framework developed by Dr. Stuart Brown of the National Institute for Play, and leave with a practical lens for spotting how the people around you are wired.

 

You'll get a short worksheet, a moment of honest self-reflection, and one thing to pay attention to for the rest of the day.

Discover the instinctual patterns and internal drivers that shape how leaders think, decide, communicate, and lead.

 

Strong leadership isn’t just about what we do, it’s about understanding what drives how we do it. This session explores what self-awareness actually means and why it is foundational to effective leadership. You will learn how instinctual patterns influence decision-making, delegation, communication, and stress responses. Through reflection, journaling, and small-group discussion, you will examine the forces beneath your leadership habits and develop practical insights you can apply immediately in your own leadership context.

In a world where expectations are high and demands are constant, many leaders are not lacking strategy. They are carrying too much while trying to execute it.

 

Leadership today is not just demanding. It is becoming harder to sustain.

 

This session introduces a different approach. One where leaders strengthen how they think, decide and operate so they can lead with clarity, steadiness and confidence even as complexity increases. When leaders shift how they operate, performance improves without adding pressure or eroding capacity.

 

Through humour and relatable stories, Kate introduces a simple but powerful framework that helps leaders recognize the patterns driving their results and shows them how to shift toward a more sustainable way of leading.

 

This is not about doing more. It is about sustaining what you have already built.

33 Minute Problem-Solving Sprint

 

Most leaders and business owners are already playing a game with no rules. Too many problems, competing priorities, and no clear way to decide what actually matters first.

 

In this high-energy, 33-minute breakout, you will step into a fast-paced collaborative sprint built around a realistic scenario: a stalled company, too many priorities, a burned-out founder. Working in small groups, you'll be guided through a three-part framework to cut through the noise: understand what's really going on, focus on the highest-leverage problem, and build an action plan that doesn't depend on the leader doing it all.

 

But here's the twist. The framework isn't handed to you. You build it. The rules emerge from the room, one at a time, as the game needs them.

 

You will leave with tools you can use immediately in your own organization and a fresh perspective on what good leadership actually looks like.

 

What you'll walk away with:

• Clarity on what matters most. How to identify the real bottleneck in your business, not just the loudest or most visible problem.

• A decision-making framework that fits you. A simple method for prioritizing based on what actually matters to you, not what you think should matter.

• A new way to lead. How to stop carrying it all yourself and start building plans that use the right people, tools, and systems around you.

Using some familiar ideas companies use to introduce the idea of play at work, this breakout applies the Play Personality framework created by Dr. Stuart Brown and play-based insights to make "work" enjoyable for everyone. You will learn how each of the 8 play styles shows up on a team, what those people need to do their best work, and what happens when the environment isn't designed for them.

 

You will work through a real workplace challenge in a small group, with each person contributing through the lens of their play personality rather than their job title. The results tend to surprise people.

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You will leave with a practical way to look at your team differently, a clearer sense of who you might be excluding from the conversation, and a few specific actions you can take when you get back.

 

This session is for anyone who leads people, runs meetings, builds teams, or wants to build a culture that nurtures their team using the things we naturally do. "Play"!

As automation and AI continue to dominate discussions around how we work, we all have an opportunity to reconnect with the art of our work. The unique creativity, humanity and playfulness we and our teams bring to work continues to be a competitive advantage and is perhaps more important than ever.

 

In this keynote, we will share how work is changing and how leaders and team members can respond and experiment with how we get work done. We’re in a time of massive change and big changes bring big opportunities to impact the ‘how’ behind our work and get even better results.

 

 Outcomes:

• Attendees will understand some of the current pressures on workplaces and teams, as well as trends in how the world of work is shifting.

• Attendees will reflect on the art and creativity in their own work and how they can leverage that artfulness for a bigger impact.

• Attendees will learn examples of how teams and workplaces are experimenting with how we work to drive not just performance but also well-being.