The Sweeney Agency

About Dr. Brian Little - Business Communication Speaker:

Dr. Brian Little is an internationally acclaimed scholar and speaker in the field of personality and motivational psychology. His pioneering research on how everyday personal projects and free traits influence the course of our lives has become an important way of explaining and enhancing human flourishing.

Professor Little is currently at Cambridge University where he is a Distinguished Scholar and Director of the Social Ecology Research Group in the Department of Social and Development Psychology and a Distinguished Associate of the world renowned Cambridge Psychometrics Centre.

Previously, he taught at McGill, Oxford, and Harvard Universities. His course on personality in Harvard’s Department of Psychology was immensely popular, and he was elected as a Favourite Professor by the graduating classes of Harvard for three consecutive years.

Dividing his time between Canada and the UK, Brian is also a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa and he lectures world-wide on personality, motivation and well-being.

Highly successful corporations and professionals understand the profound effect that personality has on performance, and they use this knowledge to their advantage. In his presentations – which are both deeply informative and outrageously funny – Dr. Little helps his audiences learn how to make effective use of these personality differences. A cross between Robin Williams and Einstein is how one client described him.

Brian’s unique approach to the science of personality is the focus of his current book project on Third Natures: The Happiness of Pursuit, which will be published by PublicAffairs Books in the USA and HarperCollins in Canada and France.

What Brian Little Talks About:

Described by a client as a cross between Robin Williams and Einstein, Dr. Little is one of the funniest speakers on the planet, as well as one of the most respected. Believing that a prime function of scholarly research is to have an impact beyond the university, Dr. Little has given well over five hundred keynote presentations to groups around the world.

Dr. Brian Little's Topics Include:

Personalities at Work: Free Traits and Third Natures
This presentation discusses how individual differences in personality play a subtle and vital role in the lives of professionals, their clients and the broader community. Professor Little illustrates, with practical examples, the effect of personality on communication, memory, learning styles and decision-making. However, he also argues that in our professional work, we are not always what we appear to be. Little rejects the notion that we have fixed traits that are set like plaster. He argues that we have free traits and are, at worst, only half-plastered.

Professor Little issues a call for a free trait agreement in which we will undertake to act out of character if we are provided restorative niches in which we can occasionally escape into our first natures. Although presented with great wit and whimsy, the presentation is deeply provocative and touches people’s hearts.

How to Build Winning Teams
Increasingly, the performance of your team determines the performance of your organization. But how do you ensure you're getting the most from your group? In this presentation, Dr. Little applies insights based on his years of psychological research to help you create and lead teams that perform and excel. He shows audiences how to combine the different skills, behaviors and personalities of their members, reducing stress, increasing productivity, and inviting success.

Through this humorous, interactive presentation, Dr. Little's audiences learn to benefit from diverse personalities. They will understand the different learning, communication, and work styles of team members, and to develop strategies to bring them together harmoniously. Audiences walk away with a new understanding of how different personalities work together. The end result will be teams that perform to their potential and take your organization to new heights.

Achieving Success in A Competitive Environment
Drawing on contemporary research into physical and emotional health, Dr. Little outlines practical strategies to help you and your team achieve success and deal with the stresses of life in a competitive environment. The issues he addresses in his funny, upbeat presentation include:

• Challenging some common myths about stress, poor communication, and personality clashes, and they ways they affect your workplace
• How to combine professionalism with innovative leadership styles
• How perceived control affects people's behavior
• The latest insights into ‘type A’ personalities
• Managing anger and aggression in the workplace
• Building the most productive relationship with your clients

Whether you're dealing with difficult clients, working with aggressive co-workers, or coping with stress of change, Dr. Little will equip you with the interpersonal tools and strategies you need for success.

Communication and Your Client
As Dr. Little will demonstrate, good salespeople understand their products -- but great salespeople understand their clients. Whether you are trying to sell a product, a service, or an idea, selling involves listening, watching, and understanding how your clients communicate. With his boundless expertise and enthusiasm, Dr. Little draws upon his pioneering personality research and teaches his audience how to identify different personality types, and how to communicate successfully among them.

The innovative and valuable perspective provided by Dr. Little will revolutionize your approach to clients. You will learn to evaluate differences in how clients interpret information; to determine what a client needs to make a decision; and to adapt your approach to suit different personality types. This unforgettable presentation will not only show you how to make the sale, but how to build long-term productive relationships.