Cyriel Kortleven

Making Change Simple

Categories: Business, Change, Creativity, Innovation, Leadership, Motivational

For more than 20 years, Cyriel Kortleven has been inspiring organisations like IKEA, NASA and Unilever to approach Change with courage, confidence and enthusiasm. His pragmatic advice has earned him the nickname The Simplifier. In an increasingly complex world, we need new simple perspectives to enable us to navigate uncertainty and to turn problems into opportunities. Cyriel has already delivered presentations in more than 42 countries around the world, bringing a truly global perspective to his work.

Be ready for practical tips & tools to help you as a leader drive behavioural change. Your audience will be armed with new language and a boost of energy to transform the fear of change into a positive attitude towards the goals you want to achieve. Cyriel uses interaction and humour to create a context where people think and feel differently to reignite their appetite for creativity, taking risks and achieving ambitious results. More than 345 recommendations on LinkedIn are proof of his track record of satisfied clients. Don’t mind the change. Change your Mind.

The Change Mindset

Survival kit for professionals in change

Every day, we’re confronted with new challenges: global competition; demanding clients; new technologies; … We need professionals who dare to leave their comfort zone and suspend their judgement. We need professionals who explore the world from a different perspective and can turn problems into opportunities. We need professionals who get into action and who aren’t scared to fail fast, often and forward by experimenting with Nano actions. Are you one of those professionals?

YES … suspend your judgement to break fixed thinking patterns.
AND … explore the world from a different perspective to generate new ideas.
ACT … take small actions because the key to real innovation is doing experiments & fail fast, often & forward.

In this interactive and entertaining presentation, you will get the spark, tools and language to influence others to be more creative & entrepreneurial and give a big boost to your own Change Mindset. Yes And Act … Now.

Making Change Simple

Embrace the power of Simplification to boost the effectiveness of change initiatives. Make it Specific, Smooth & Small.’

This presentation is aimed at professionals who are looking for a simple and pragmatic formula to enhance the success rate of a change project (personal behaviour or organisational change projects).

Explore the fascinating ‘Brainflix’ metaphor, where you’ll delve into the workings of our unconscious mind in decision-making. And discover how we can use simple principles to steer our unconscious mind in the direction of the desired behaviour. The key to overcoming common obstacles in change projects lies in creating momentum and engagement by focusing on 3 principles: Make it Specific, Smooth and Small.

Specific: Define clear goals and translate them into tangible behaviours. Create a vivid image of desired change and trust the locals to make it specific.
Small: Take incremental steps that lead to significant change, acknowledging that action today shapes a brighter future.
Smooth: Connect new desired behaviour to old routines. This will lead to less resistance towards the change and increase the chance of success.

You will of course taste Cyriel’s signature with pragmatic tools, interactive exercises, inspiring examples, and the necessary humor to elevate your change initiative to the next successful level. Ready. Set. Go.

“Cyriel is pro-active, interested, easy to work with and a pleasant person. Cyriel got the highest score of all speakers with a 4,6/5 followed by comments such as “Absolutely brilliant”, “By far the best inspiration and needed session”, “Excellent thinking”,…This says it all and makes my day,
– Michael Nielsen – organiser HRcoreAcademy @ Teneo Meetings

“Cyriel worked with the Belgian Unilever Change Leaders on innovative and creative thinking. He delivered a splendid and energizing keynote presentation and afterwards facilitated a workshop in which we developed new ideas and solutions for some Unilever challenges. A great experience.“
– Sabine Blanchet – Country HR manager @ Unilever

“Cyriel is able to apply enormous amounts of creativity to his sessions. Whether it’s about behaviour, strategy, team-spirit or out-of-the-box-thinking, it’s always worthwhile exchanging thoughts with Cyriel!”
– Peter Lathouwers – Europe Business Intelligence Director @ Nike

“Cyriel’s approach and insights into “how to succeed in business” is fresh and exciting! He teaches with humor down to earth tools that can easily be used by graduates to seasoned business professionals. With less effort, you get better results – a winning formula! South African’s thoroughly enjoyed his unique approach!”
– Julia Cook – director Global Corporate Leadership @ DUKE Corporate University

“We experienced a very inspiring presentation from Cyriel, with humor, down to earth examples, and some practices. Many thanks! highly recommended!”
– Connie van Marrewijk – director commercial @ Amgen

“Cyriel’s keynote was awesome. I received a lot of positive feedback and appreciate the good and professional collaboration with you!”
– Pia Kuss – senior Marketing Manager – Coliquio

“Cyriel’s talks are simple, well-thought and yet “unpredictably” interesting.”
– Alfred Chin – Sales Director Southeast Asia @ AIP Corporation

“Speaker” doesn’t even do him justice. More like Engager, Change maker, ‘get people to really get his point’.
– Jill Hutchison (Australia)

“Cyriel is in a league of his own! His energy, enthusiasm and passion towards delivering an interactive, educational and fun keynote presentation are undeniable, leaving a lasting and memorable impact on attendees.”
– Daniel Merza – speaker @ Different thinking Events

“He holds the audience on the edge of their seats from start to finish.”
– Simon Harvey – organiser Fit for the Future event (New Zealand) – 150 pax

“Cyriel pushes people to get out of their comfort zone.”
– Sophie Cools – Director Sport – Flemish Sportfederation

“Cyriel is a professional speaker who lives his topics rather than just talking about them.”
– David Sand – CEO Uwin Iwin

“Cyriel delivered one of the best conference talks I’ve ever seen.”
– Ben Flavel – co-founder at CheckinLine (Australia)

“The Ladders & Banana session was a highlight of the conference.”
– Melanie Chancellor – Change Management director @ Orchard Supply Hardware

“It’s not every day that you get a large crowd raving about a speaker – in this case, they did.”
– Sam King – Innovation Manager @ AGL Energy

“He spoke to our staff as if he were one of them, familiar with their workplaces. Cyriel strikes a very nice balance of authority and humility.”
– Marcus Gibson – Quality manager @ Fulton Hogan

“Cyriel has jump-started our project management conference with a very creative, entertaining yet also very to-the-point presentation.”
– Peter Coesmans – Project Manager @ IPMA

“With an inspiring dynamic kick-off, the whole audience was ‘YES-AND-ACT’ minded for the rest of the day”.
– Joke Dielisen-Rosier – Organiser HRM in Government (700 pax)

“Feedback from the entire audience was extremely positive ranging from ‘fun’, ‘inspirational’, ‘just the boost I needed at the end of an interesting day.”
– Maarten Laukens – organiser @ CTG Experience Day (400 pax)

“Cyriel has jump-started our project management conference with a very creative, entertaining yet also very to-the-point presentation.”
– Peter Coesmans – organiser International Project Management Association

“Cyriel triggered some 200 BDO colleagues to say “YES AND” to the change they will have to manage in the near future. Through his inspiring and creative presentation, he enthused the audience and put a new perspective on a lot of situations.”
– Marleen Theunis – Head of BDO Academy @ BDO