Paul Rulkens works with executives when adding more has stopped working.
In many organizations, the best people spend half their energy on alignment meetings, veto prevention, and pleasing committees. Capable leaders approve decisions that look logical at the time and turn out to be wrong. Another culture initiative will not fix that.
Paul’s work is subtraction. He helps leaders decide what matters, remove the structural constraints that keep producing the same problems, and protect the space where they and their people do the work. The result: organizations do fewer things and get more done. Their people go home tired from good work instead of from fighting the system.
On stage
Paul shows why smart leaders and capable organizations get in their own way, then gives them practical fixes they can use on Monday. His TEDx talk, “Why the Majority Is Always Wrong,” has been viewed more than seven million times and is used in executive programs worldwide. He is also a trained stand-up comedian, so audiences laugh. Then they realize he is talking about them.
He has spoken and run closed-door strategy sessions in more than 25 countries across five continents.
In the boardroom
Paul advises Fortune 2000 leaders. Together they uncover what keeps producing the same problems: wrong priorities, competing commitments, unnecessary vetoes, and work nobody needs. Then they redesign the underlying architecture.
Clients include ASML, BASF, Unilever, Nestlé, Meta, Shell, Novartis, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, and McKinsey & Company.
Background
A chemical engineer by training, Paul combines an engineer’s logic with a comedian’s sense of timing. He is the author of The Michelangelo Principle, a practical guide for business leaders to achieving more by doing less. He is a Senior Fellow at The Conference Board and a guest lecturer at Solvay Business School in Brussels. His ideas have appeared in Fast Company, Inc., and other business media.
Work with Paul
Each week, Paul publishes one field-tested idea about executive subtraction in his free MasterMind newsletter. Subscribe here.
Looking for a keynote that changes how your leaders think, or boardroom advisory that changes how your organization operates? Get in touch.
