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Tim Arnold

Leadership Development and Teambuilding Expert

Tim Arnold
Speaker Reel
The Power of Healthy Tension
Lead with AND
Arnold Thumb 5
Next-Level Teamwork
Arnold thumb 4
Leading Change
Tim
Arnold Thumb 5
Arnold thumb 4
Tim Arnold
Speaker Reel
The Power of Healthy Tension
Lead with AND
Arnold Thumb 5
Next-Level Teamwork
Arnold thumb 4
Leading Change

Leaders and teams are often in a tug-of-war, facing competing demands such as planning vs. action, structure vs. flexibility, change vs. stability, and work vs. home. In order to thrive, they must tackle these tensions head on. For over two decades, Tim Arnold has helped leaders better manage complexity, increase resilience, and deliver results, with past clients including United Nations, UPS, Allstate Insurance, and Stanford Medicine. He equips audiences with powerful tools that help them understand and breakthrough chronic issues and leverage healthy tension in their efforts to pursue both profit and purpose.

Having launched and sold a successful for-profit business, pioneered a social enterprise, and led a homeless shelter, Arnold leverages real-world experience to guide leaders and organizations. His keynotes and workshops are not just events; they’re transformative experiences. His specialty is helping professionals harness the power of “and” thinking in what’s becoming an increasingly “either/or” world.

Arnold is the author of four bestselling books: Lead with AND: The Secret to Resilience and Results in a Polarized World; The Power of Healthy Tension: Overcoming Chronic Issues and Conflicting Values; Next-Level Teamwork: The Five Tensions to Manage for High Performance Teams; and his latest, Leading Change: The 5 Tensions to Manage for Successful Transformation.

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

  • The Power of Healthy Tension: How to Overcome Chronic Issues and Conflicting Values

    In a world where people like to pick sides, we can mistakenly treat every challenge as if it’s a problem to be solved, with a right or wrong answer:

    • Change OR stability?
    • Structure OR flexibility?
    • Truth OR tact?

    When team members end up in this kind of tug of war, it feels like no matter what someone will lose. Leaders can easily identify there is TENSION but have no idea how to confidently lead through it.

    Through this keynote, audiences will learn how to:

    • Move from “OR” to “AND”: Learn a simple framework that helps you to stop picking sides and tap into the superpower of “AND” thinking.
    • Unlock diverse perspectives: Develop the ability to work effectively with team members who hold different viewpoints, turning potential conflicts into catalysts for innovation.
    • Elevate your communication: Gain crucial insights on how to address tensions productively, fostering an environment where all voices are heard and valued.
    • Sharpen decision-making: Acquire a thoughtful, deliberate approach to tackling complex issues that leads to better outcomes and stronger team alignment.
    • Create a safe and challenging environment: Learn how to build a workspace where team members feel secure in expressing diverse ideas while pushing boundaries for growth.

    Book this keynote to equip your leaders with the tools they need to navigate complexity, foster collaboration, and unlock your organization’s full potential.

    This keynote can be adapted into a half-day workshop for deeper exploration and hands-on application.

  • Lead with “AND”: The Secret to Leadership Resilience and Results

    As a leader, you’re committed to making a difference and delivering on expectations. But, do you often feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle? How do you rise above impossible demands, broken systems, and unreasonable people?

    In “Lead with ‘AND’” expert business strategist Tim Arnold offers an innovative framework that goes beyond the traditional “either/or” approach to solving problems and embraces the transformational power of “AND” thinking.

    Arnold’s insights have been applied at The United Nations, World Vision, UPS, Allstate Insurance, and Stanford Medicine and he’s thrilled to bring them to your group.

    Through this keynote, you will learn how to manage these six specific leadership tensions:

    • Set high expectations AND extend grace
    • Increase confidence AND retain humility
    • Leverage optimism AND maintain realism
    • Embrace change AND preserve stability
    • Care for others AND care for yourself
    • Focus on profit AND be driven by purpose

    “Lead with ‘AND’” is a paradigm-shifting approach for progressive leaders who want to transform their workplaces. Learn how to rise above polarity, division, and conflicting values and lead with resilience, results, and lasting impact.

    This keynote can be adapted into a half-day workshop for deeper exploration and hands-on application.

  • Next-Level Teamwork: The 5 Tensions to Manage for High-Performance Teams

    Let’s face it, most teams struggle to work together effectively. Despite having smart, hard-working people, dysfunction, and division can still run rampant. This can make coming to work feel frustrating and exhausting. But there’s hope!

    While other teams run away from tension, business strategist Tim Arnold will show you how to embrace it. When you learn to harness the power of healthy tension in these five key areas, your team will shift from unproductive to unstoppable:

    1. Build trust by focusing on tasks AND relationships.
    2. Increase engagement by leveraging structure AND flexibility.
    3. Have courageous conversations through truthful AND tactful communication.
    4. Align your team to win by promoting collaboration AND independence.
    5. Unleash ownership by increasing empowerment AND accountability.

    While this keynote won’t provide you with miracle cures or magical formulas, what it does offer is something even more valuable: strategies and tools you can put into action. Prepare to transform your team into a cohesive unit, energized and motivated to achieve collective goals.

    This keynote can be adapted into a half-day workshop for deeper exploration and hands-on application.

  • Leading Change: Learn the 5 Tensions to Manage for Successful Transformation

    Most change initiatives divide and disappoint. Opposition and confusion are common, making the process feel like an uphill battle. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

    While others struggle to deal with the inevitable conflicting values that come with change, business strategist Tim Arnold will teach you how to tap into the power of “and” thinking.

    By learning how to leverage healthy tension in these five areas, change management becomes change mastery:

    • Embrace innovation AND consistency
    • Validate facts AND feelings
    • Focus on the short term AND the long term
    • Promote planning AND action
    • Value complexity AND simplicity

    This keynote does not claim to provide you with a silver-bullet solution; instead, it offers something much more valuable: a practical, actionable blueprint to navigate change with skill and confidence.

    Change is hard. But, it doesn’t have to be a source of constant stress and overwhelm. With this keynote presentation, learn how to turn resistance into resilience and division into unity.

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Related Content

More great information and resources.

Books

  • Leading Change by Tim Arnold
    Leading Change: The 5 Tensions to Manage for Successful Transformation

    Tim Arnold has spent over two decades helping leaders manage complexity, increase resilience,...

    → Read More
  • The 5 Tensions to Manage for High-Performance Teams
    Next-Level Teamwork: The 5 Tensions to Manage for High-Performance Teams

    Are you tired of dreading Monday morning? Does working in a dysfunctional team drain your energy...

    → Read More
  • Lead With AND by Tim Arnold
    Lead With AND: The Secret to Resilience and Results in a Polarized World

    As a leader, you’re committed to making a difference, leaving a mark, and making the world a...

    → Read More
  • The Power of Healthy Tension by Tim Arnold
    The Power of Healthy Tension

    Often leaders and teams have a clear vision but fail to live it out. They get stuck because of...

    → Read More

Articles

Client reviews

  • Executive VP, Miami Heat

    Healthy Tension is a simple yet profound concept that our senior executives are now raving about. Tim’s presentation style kept the crowd engaged because we were able to learn and have fun at the same time!

  • CIBC World Markets

    It is always challenging to come up with a program that is the right fit for a senior management team who has experienced a variety of activities during the course of their careers. This turned out to be a truly innovative experience with the right combination of challenge, creativity, teamwork and fun. The dynamic and professional approach made the event a terrific success.

  • Ministry of Transportation (Ontario)

    Despite a challenging venue and very diverse group, Tim was able to capture everyone’s attention and provided a wonderful opportunity for staff to interact, reflect, and learn. People still stop me in the hallway to tell me how much they loved the event.

  • President, San Francisco Giants

    I found great value in Tim Arnold’s presentation, realizing that some of our organizational issues are not problems to be solved, but tensions to be managed. More importantly I learned that if viewed from the proper perspective, tension between individuals on the team can be the catalyst for creative energy, innovation, and positive change. People walked away with a more positive outlook towards their working relationships and their personal relationships.

  • Niagara College Canada

    Tim Arnold’s down to earth approach empowers the head, enables the hand, engages the heart, and enriches the spirit. Participants raved about the relevance and usefulness of the content as well as the fun and effective facilitation style.

  • Manager Citizenship and Immigration Canada

    Thank you for providing a very engaging experience. We appreciated the energy and found the learning component of the keynote applicable to work and personal life. The feedback from the team has been incredible!

  • The Ian Martin Group

    The concept of Healthy Tension has become one of the most useful tools in our company’s toolkit. It has transformed our understanding of how to approach issues like team building, leadership, change management and developing healthy dialogue on tough topics.

  • The Responsive Group

    Through business cases that everyone could relate to, real life examples, and humour, Tim was able to equip us with the tools needed to overcome some of the toughest team and leadership challenges that we face in the workplace.

  • YMCA Canada

    Thanks for the great job! You helped us achieve our goals we had for the day, the engagement was high, there was substance to the content, and the participants all learned a little more about each other. I heard only positive comments from the directors about their experience.

  • Ronald McDonald House Charities

    In this new world of work, leaders are dealing with unprecedented challenges like remote work, labour shortages, and ever-evolving technology, making teamwork more difficult yet more important than ever. “Next Level Teamwork” faces these challenges head on and provides a plan that can be implemented immediately in any workplace.

  • Jobber

    Thank you so much! We finished our leadership team offsite, and I have to say, Tim’s keynote was the highlight. I’ve never received such positive feedback on a speaker in my career.

  • City of London

    Tim took the time to really understand our objectives, and the outcome was phenomenal. He captivated our entire audience. You could see people nodding their heads at the points being made and laughing at his stories and examples. In the end, we walked away with practical tools that I am confident we will put into action. I could not be more thrilled!

  • 7Shifts

    Tim! WOW! That was such an incredible session. The leaders are BUZZING – I received so so so many messages raving about what we covered.

    I had to share what a few of our attendees had to say:

    • “I also really enjoyed Tim Arnold’s Change Management Session because of the visuals and how he presented the information.”
    • “Extremely relevant to the current state of our business. Had a great mix of ‘theory’ and practical, applicable content I can take away and action.”
    • “I found the tension between change and tradition really interesting, especially the balancing and acknowledgement of being both Optimistic AND Realistic.”

    Thank you again, that was truly a game changer for our leadership team.

  • ROI Solutions

    This is my second time taking part in “Lead with ‘AND’”, and I’m as blown away as I was my first time. There were a lot of “aha” moments talking with folks after the session, and we’ve had colleagues asking how we can keep up that dynamic. Tim took the time to get to know us before presenting and went above and beyond to provide our leadership with additional resources so that we could lead a follow-up workshop in small groups across the organization.

  • Spark Event Management, Inc.

    As an event professional, I’ve literally seen thousands of speakers and I can count on one hand the number of speakers who: 1) have a unique perspective on a topic that will change the way your audience thinks and 2) can deliver it in a way that keeps audiences engaged. Tim Arnold is at the top of that list! You won’t go wrong booking Tim for your next event.

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