Rock star developers, charismatic leaders, star players, genius specialists, baby-faced risk takers... just put them in a room, add agility and press go – right? If you’ve ever tried to do it, you know the results are as about as successful as egotistical scientists collaborating themselves out of a paper bag.

So how do we operate effectively in this crazy environment? How can we make great decisions? How do we deal successfully with big egos and political hell? Playing politics and stroking egos is out – being authentic is in. Consider: Innovation is our industry’s primary nirvana but at speed it can make any genius a babbling-has-been in seconds. Our industry now changes at a rate so fast we don’t even have time to laud our achievements over each other before we’ve already become 2nd in line.

Katherine puts forward her experience that, in reality, what has really been most successful for individuals in our rapidly ever-changing landscape is.... being ordinary. As much as possible.

In fact, recent trends in magazines like Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fortune are recently overflowing with research, articles and conjecture about ‘a new radical leadership’ like ‘being humble’, ‘authentic’, quiet and data driven.

But how does that really work, on the ground...?

In this entertaining talk, Katherine shares real life, practical steps and techniques (inspired from 2,500 year old Eastern Philosophical models) that she's successfully used - fresh from this last year – to help solve tough tech people issues with teams, executives and divisions who have been going through painful change from mergers to highly stressful crucially inter-dependent hell.