Gregory Smith

Gregory Smith

MS

NC, US
Motivational Leadership Speaker and Author

Recognized as a leading authority on talent management, leadership development, employee engagement and retention. Smith teaches businesses how to create exceptional workplaces that attract, retain and motivate their people.

"The backbone of any organization is the people on the front line. No matter what industry you are in, success depends on engaging their creative abilities and accelerating the performance of the entire workforce, from the bottom to the top."

As an international speaker and author, Smith has addressed organizations in over 26 countries. He has spoken to hundreds of associations, human resource associations, healthcare organizations and businesses. Key topics include how to:

• Manage change
• Create exceptional places to work
• Build strong leaders
• Deliver outstanding customer service
• Attract, retain and engage your workforce
• Grow your business and increase sales

Smith's presentations are inspirational, informative and entertaining with a highly interactive style that connects with audiences. He combines story and strategy to teach audiences how to create high-performance organizations that facilitate change, growth and innovation.

As the founder and Lead Navigator of Chart Your Course International Inc., Smith helps executives and business owners accelerate individual and organizational performance and navigate through increasing rates of change. He helps design strategies and processes to grow organizations and implements business initiatives creating clearer direction, increased profitability, stronger executive teams, improved communication and happier and more productive employees.

Clients include Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners and Fortune magazine's "Top 100 Best Places to Work." Smith has also designed professional development programs for national and international organizations including Yamaha, Ace Hardware, AFLAC, Hallmark Cards, Sony, Deloitte, Bobcat, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, Turner Broadcasting, Delta Airlines and Honda.

Smith built his career on the front line as a U.S. Army Officer. He worked for the Army Surgeon General as a senior consultant responsible for quality management and strategic planning for the U.S. Army Medical Department. In addition, he served on the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest honor for business excellence presented by the President of the United States.

Smith has written and published over 350 articles and 9 books including his latest, Fired Up! Leading Your Organization to Achieve Exceptional Results. He has been featured in hundreds of magazines and trade journals and appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including Bloomberg Business News and PBS television.

Publications

• The Navigator Newsletter, Publisher (over 25,000 subscribers)
• The New Leader: Bringing Creativity and Innovation to the Workplace
• TNT for Teams: Dynamic Ways to Reward, Energize and Motivate Your Teams
• Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High-Turnover to High-Retention
• Icebreakers and Teambuilding Exercises
• Supervisor's Passport to Success: A Quick and Easy Guide for Managing People
• 401 Proven Ways to Retain Your Best Employees
• Fired Up! Leading Your Organization to Achieve Exceptional Results (2010)
• Talent Relationship Management: Competing Through Talent, Contributing Author

Features

• USA Today
• HR Magazine
• Business Week
• Christian Science Monitor
• President & CEO
• Boston Globe
• Kiplinger's Personal Finance
• Investor's Business Daily

Honors & Awards

• Member of Georgia Toastmaster's Hall of Fame
• Board of Examiners, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
• Legion of Merit and the Order of Military Medical Merit, U.S. Army Surgeon General
• Harvard University's International Directory of Management Scholars
• Who's Who of Professional Speaking
• One of the nation's Top-Ten "Rising Stars" in human resource management, Human Resource Executive magazine

Testimonials
Melodi Szymczak, Director, Vital Learning
"Greg is a creative genius. He is laser-focused on providing his clients with solutions in talent management, leadership development and customer service. He gets the job done and will produce the results you need."

Dave Dibble, Director of Marketing, Sunshine Companies
"Four hours of my time in your seminar has resulted in a 51% improvement of our revenues during the first quarter of the year. We should reach $450-500 million easily. Our teams work smart as well as hard and each member is having a lot more fun working together. You are the ‘Deal of the Century.'"

Rolando Marchis, President, Odyssey Transformational Strategies
"[Greg's] insights into determining issues, problems and opportunities inside any company are among the best I have seen. He can literally walk into a company or organization, and just by observing people work and communicate and asking a number of key questions, he can ... understand why the company is not advancing the progress on its own and what it needs to do to move forward. If you want problems identified and solutions provided and implemented, Greg is one of the best I have seen. You will go ‘right' by working with Greg." 

 

Recognized as a leading authority on talent management, leadership development, employee engagement and retention. Smith teaches businesses how to create exceptional workplaces that attract, retain and motivate their people.

"The backbone of any organization is the people on the front line. No matter what industry you are in, success depends on engaging their creative abilities and accelerating the performance of the entire workforce, from the bottom to the top."

As an international speaker and author, Smith has addressed organizations in over 26 countries. He has spoken to hundreds of associations, human resource associations, healthcare organizations and businesses. Key topics include how to:

• Manage change
• Create exceptional places to work
• Build strong leaders
• Deliver outstanding customer service
• Attract, retain and engage your workforce
• Grow your business and increase sales

Smith's presentations are inspirational, informative and entertaining with a highly interactive style that connects with audiences. He combines story and strategy to teach audiences how to create high-performance organizations that facilitate change, growth and innovation.

As the founder and Lead Navigator of Chart Your Course International Inc., Smith helps executives and business owners accelerate individual and organizational performance and navigate through increasing rates of change. He helps design strategies and processes to grow organizations and implements business initiatives creating clearer direction, increased profitability, stronger executive teams, improved communication and happier and more productive employees.

Clients include Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners and Fortune magazine's "Top 100 Best Places to Work." Smith has also designed professional development programs for national and international organizations including Yamaha, Ace Hardware, AFLAC, Hallmark Cards, Sony, Deloitte, Bobcat, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, Turner Broadcasting, Delta Airlines and Honda.

Smith built his career on the front line as a U.S. Army Officer. He worked for the Army Surgeon General as a senior consultant responsible for quality management and strategic planning for the U.S. Army Medical Department. In addition, he served on the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest honor for business excellence presented by the President of the United States.

Smith has written and published over 350 articles and 9 books including his latest, Fired Up! Leading Your Organization to Achieve Exceptional Results. He has been featured in hundreds of magazines and trade journals and appeared on numerous television and radio programs, including Bloomberg Business News and PBS television.

Publications

• The Navigator Newsletter, Publisher (over 25,000 subscribers)
• The New Leader: Bringing Creativity and Innovation to the Workplace
• TNT for Teams: Dynamic Ways to Reward, Energize and Motivate Your Teams
• Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High-Turnover to High-Retention
• Icebreakers and Teambuilding Exercises
• Supervisor's Passport to Success: A Quick and Easy Guide for Managing People
• 401 Proven Ways to Retain Your Best Employees
• Fired Up! Leading Your Organization to Achieve Exceptional Results (2010)
• Talent Relationship Management: Competing Through Talent, Contributing Author

Features

• USA Today
• HR Magazine
• Business Week
• Christian Science Monitor
• President & CEO
• Boston Globe
• Kiplinger's Personal Finance
• Investor's Business Daily

Honors & Awards

• Member of Georgia Toastmaster's Hall of Fame
• Board of Examiners, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
• Legion of Merit and the Order of Military Medical Merit, U.S. Army Surgeon General
• Harvard University's International Directory of Management Scholars
• Who's Who of Professional Speaking
• One of the nation's Top-Ten "Rising Stars" in human resource management, Human Resource Executive magazine

Testimonials
Melodi Szymczak, Director, Vital Learning
"Greg is a creative genius. He is laser-focused on providing his clients with solutions in talent management, leadership development and customer service. He gets the job done and will produce the results you need."

Dave Dibble, Director of Marketing, Sunshine Companies
"Four hours of my time in your seminar has resulted in a 51% improvement of our revenues during the first quarter of the year. We should reach $450-500 million easily. Our teams work smart as well as hard and each member is having a lot more fun working together. You are the ‘Deal of the Century.'"

Rolando Marchis, President, Odyssey Transformational Strategies
"[Greg's] insights into determining issues, problems and opportunities inside any company are among the best I have seen. He can literally walk into a company or organization, and just by observing people work and communicate and asking a number of key questions, he can ... understand why the company is not advancing the progress on its own and what it needs to do to move forward. If you want problems identified and solutions provided and implemented, Greg is one of the best I have seen. You will go ‘right' by working with Greg." 

 

Employee Engagement Strategies to Boost Performance

Successful organizations realize employee engagement is critical in sustaining their leadership and growth in the marketplace. Employee engagement is the person’s connection to their work, the organization, their customers, the leaders and the relationships they have with their co-workers.  Engaged employees stay with their employers, have higher levels of job satisfaction and make significant contributions.  During this fast-paced workshop you will learn dozens of strategies and...

Entertainment-basedEducational / Informative

Fast, Focused and Friendly: Building Great Customer Loyalty

 Learn to create a powerful culture of exceptional customer service that permeates and drives the actions of the entire organization. This program will help you create a five-step service quality process that develops the right attitudes, behaviors and emotionally connects with your customers. Discover how to hire, manage and reward your employees so they act quickly, take responsibility and deliver a high level of service. Learn how to train your...

Customer LoyaltyEntertainment-basedEducational / Informative

Transformational Leadership for a Changing World

The actions taken by the leader is the driving force in building effective teams, improving performance and engaging and retaining a talented and skilled workforce. This session will provide attendees with five key strategies that drive performance and inspire and motivate people to go above and beyond. You will learn how to reward, motivate, engage, make accountable and coach people toward higher performance. By building confidence in your abilities you will be able to handle leadership...

Entertainment-basedEducational / Informative

Navigating Change: Keeping People Engaged, Motivated and Heading in the Right Direction

The ability to navigate change, see beyond the horizon, innovate and keep people engaged and motivated is more important than ever before. Change affects people in different ways – new directions, new strategies and ongoing uncertainty plague the workforce.  Success comes to those who transform themselves, leverage human talent and harness the opportunities this changing environment brings.  In this interactive and motivational presentation, Greg provides a transformation process...

Fired Up! Leading Your Organization to Achieve Exceptional Results

Are you ready for the new economy? Are you prepared for the changing horizon?  Every organization today must achieve higher levels of performance. Success depends on your ability to manage change, improve financial results, build customer loyalty and motivate your workforce from the bottom to the top. This session will help you design a road map and a long-term strategy that gets your business heading in the right direction and each person performing at a higher level – achieving peak...

Entertainment-basedEducational / Informative

Above and Beyond: The Power of a Positive Attitude

 

In his practical and motivational style, Greg unfolds a blueprint that has helped thousands of people empower themselves, transform others and drive a positive “can do” attitude. People can choose to be negative or positive – it is their choice. Those that choose to be negative affect the attitudes of others, cause conflict, complain and resist change. You will learn how to become a leader, build enthusiasm and make a powerful difference to the lives of others. This session...