Photo: Jana Madzigon/epmedia Werbeagentur
teams
leadership
innovation
Signature Keynote or Executive Strategy Day
The Michelangelo Principle:
How Busy Organizations Accomplish More by Doing Less
Designed to spark a transformative shift in executive thinking, this keynote and accompanying Executive Strategy Day offer a fresh, counterintuitive perspective on leadership and organizational performance. Based on the principle that excellence is revealed not by addition, but by subtraction, this engagement helps senior leaders challenge conventional approaches, remove strategic drag, and unlock high-impact results.
Drawing on over two decades of working with global business leaders, Paul Rulkens delivers an insight-rich session that goes beyond inspiration. The Michelangelo Principle equips participants with actionable frameworks for subtraction-based strategy and performance improvement. Whether delivered as a keynote or expanded into a one-day strategic offsite with the executive team, the experience is designed to align leaders around clarity, decisiveness, and resilience.
Core Deliverables:
- Reframing complexity and overload into elegant, high-leverage execution strategies
- Tools to subtract what holds teams, strategies, and leaders back from exponential progress
- Strategic clarity that leads to faster, simpler, and more sustainable performance improvements
Format & Size
- The Michelangelo Principle is delivered either as:
- A high-impact keynote for leadership audiences, or
- An Executive Strategy Day: a full-day session with the senior team to apply the principles directly to current business priorities and execution challenges.
- Both formats are fully customized and designed to catalyze high-performance thinking within complex organizations.
Who It’s For
Ideal for executives and leadership teams who:
- Are navigating turbulence and transformation
- Face strategic execution friction or initiative overload
- Want to improve performance by reducing noise and sharpening focus
- Seek a thought-provoking, practical approach to lead differently at the highest level
Key Takeaways for Leaders:
- Harness the power of strategic quitting to drive performance with less effort
- Master the Valley of Death and sustain momentum in strategy execution
- Build high-performance teams fast, with minimal friction
- Create a culture of ownership and resilience through strategic subtraction
Watch Paul in action
Success Stories
-
"Just terrific"
Stephen Hall, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company"Paul, I wanted to thank you for coming to join us in Barcelona last week and for your excellent keynote speech. Your topic of innovation was positioned exactly right in the context of our overall agenda priorities. And your anecdotes and humour were just terrific" -
"A resounding success"
Erik Oostwegel, Chairman of the Executive Board, Royal HaskoningDHV"Wit & Wisdom: Paul’s key note address at our international management conference was a resounding success. Weeks later, we are still hearing references to his talk on Strategic Acceleration. Worthwhile points, delivered in an entertaining and memorable way, have staying power" -
"Very witty, funny, insightful and very inspiring"
Sarah Herrmann, Internal Communications & Corp. Events MediamarktSaturn Retail Group"We’ve received a lot of great feedback from the participants. You clearly delivered as what can only be described as a very witty, funny, insightful and very inspiring presentation that really captured many of the ongoing topics in our company" -
"Paul’s always ensures that our colleagues remain engaged throughout our meetings"
Paddy Mullaney – VP/GM EMEA, Greif Inc"Paul’s use of humour and delivery of message always ensures that our colleagues remain engaged throughout our meetings. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Paul as we strive for excellence across our business" -
"Insightful, constructive and even provocative."
Stepan Breedveld, CEO Ordina"Paul’s contribution to the Ordina Open Innovation Days was insightful, constructive and even provocative. The combination of powerful insights into human behaviour and humor gave the audience food for thought and created lively discussions. " -
"Touched personally"
Lizette Sint, Managing Director Rabo Private Equity"Paul held up many mirrors to the audience allowing everyone to be touched personally. Our portfolio event was a huge success with many participants weeks later continuing to refer to the metaphors shared and applying them! "