Dr. Heidi Grant is a social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of motivation. She is the Director of Research & Development for Learning, EY Americas, and Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University. She is also the author of the best-selling books: Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You, No One Understands You and What To Do About It, Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing The World for Success and Influence (co-written with E. Tory Higgins), and The 8 Motivational Challenges. Heidi has worked with and delivered keynotes for Microsoft, HP, IBM, Kaiser Permanente, Medtronic, CVS, Adobe, Blackrock and more. Her TED talk from June 2019 on getting the support you need has over three million views.
Dr. Grant is also a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, 99u, Fast Company, WSJ.com, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today. She has appeared on national television over a dozen times, including frequent appearances on CBS This Morning.
In addition to her work as author and co-editor of the highly-regarded academic book The Psychology of Goals (Guilford, 2009), she has authored papers in her field’s most prestigious journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Social Psychology, and Judgment and Decision Making. She has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation for her research on goals and achievement.
Dr. Grant is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was recently elected to the highly selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She gives frequent invited addresses and speaks regularly at national conferences, and is available for speaking and consulting engagements, primarily in education, marketing, and management. Heidi was named to the Thinkers50 List for 2021. She received her PhD in social psychology from Columbia University, working with Carol Dweck (author of Mindset).
Speech topics
What Successful People Do Differently
All topics are available as a keynote, an interactive keynote, workshop and leadership training module, in-person or virtual. In addition, each topic, short custom follow-on videos to encourage application and support long-term change are available on request
In this talk based on "Nine Things Successful People Do Differently," HBR's all-time most popular article and now best-selling book, Heidi takes the audience on a step-by-step journey to improve individual and team performance, and avoid the common pitfalls of goal-setting and execution. She’ll share simple strategies, based on scientific research and proven effective for how to maximize commitment, resist distraction, make effective plans, seize opportunities to act, and remain agile and resilient in the face of setbacks or challenges.
Special topics include: feedback, goal-setting, monitoring progress, mindset, willpower, if-then planning, short-term vs. long-term goals
Leading through uncertainty in a hybrid world
Our brains were simply not built for this much uncertainty and change. Leading ourselves and others effectively in an environment of constantly shifting sands has to start with an understanding of how the human brain has evolved to deal with largely predictable now and not-so-distant future. We need to embrace the fact that uncertainty is inherently threatening, and use science-based strategies to shift our thinking in ways that make threat more manageable.
In this talk, you will learn:
The effects of uncertainty on the human brain, including reduced ability to problem-solve, learn new information, connect and empathize with others, and maintain well-being.
Strategies for reducing uncertainty threats, for yourself and others
Strategies for managing mental energy and attention
The unique psychological challenges of hybrid work, for individuals and teams, and how they can be effectively addressed.
The Incredible Benefits of a Growth Mindset*
All topics are available as a keynote, an interactive keynote, workshop and leadership training module, in-person or virtual. In addition, each topic, short custom follow-on videos to encourage application and support long-term change are available on request
Dr. Heidi Grant is one of the world’s foremost experts on Growth Mindset and its use in organizations. She has studied mindsets and their impact on adult performance for decades, in collaboration with her graduate mentor, Dr. Carol Dweck.
In this talk, she describes the mindsets individuals and organizations bring to the goals they pursue, and explains why we should avoid a Fixed Mindset — one where we are constantly attempting to prove ourselves and outperform others. Instead, we should embrace a Growth Mindset — where we believe the point of the work we do each day is to get better, rather than be good. When we embrace a Growth Mindset, we welcome smart risks and are less afraid of failure, both keys to personal and professional success. We more easily remain agile and resilient in the face of change and challenge, and experience greater well-being. In this talk, you’ll learn:
• How to identify your own mindset, and the mindset of others in your organization
• How mindsets influence persistence, creativity, engagement, resilience, and performance
• Strategies for changing your own mindset
• Strategies for creating a growth mindset culture, on your team or in your organization
Special topics include growth mindset in: leadership, feedback, career conversations, coaching, goal-setting, and psychological safety
*based on Dr. Grant’s book Succeed: How To Reach Our Goals
How to Influence Others to Get the Support You Need*
All topics are available as a keynote, an interactive keynote, workshop and leadership training module, in-person or virtual. In addition, each topic, short custom follow-on videos to encourage application and support long-term change are available on request
We all need help--especially in today's hyper-collaborative workplaces. Here's the good news: humans are naturally wired to want to help each other. Now here's the bad: asking for support makes most of us wildly uncomfortable. As a result, we do a poor job of calling in the reinforcements we need, leaving confused or even offended colleagues in our wake. In this talk, you will learn:
• how to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of getting the support you need from others
• how to tap into one or more of the primary drivers that motivate helping
• how to make helping you rewarding for them
• how to avoid the common mistakes that we all make when making requests for support from friends, colleagues, and strangers
*based on Dr. Grant’s book Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You
How Leaders Can Increase Trust and Influence (In person and virtually)*
All topics are available as a keynote, an interactive keynote, workshop and leadership training module, in-person or virtual. In addition, each topic, short custom follow-on videos to encourage application and support long-term change are available on request
Do you ever get the feeling that you are not coming across the way you intend to? Ever felt that someone on your team, or a colleague or client has somehow gotten the wrong impression of you? You are not alone. It's very easy to be misinterpreted, or to accidentally send the wrong signals. And the gap between how we think we are coming across, and how we actually are, is most often responsible for our failure to be trusted and influential leaders. In this talk, you will learn:
• why other people almost never see us as we see ourselves
• about the unconscious biases and assumptions that perceivers almost always make
• how to project trustworthiness and increase your influence using specific behavioral strategies
• what to keep in mind – and the strategies that work best – when leading teams virtually
*based on Dr. Grant’s book No One Understands You and What to Do About It
What the Brain Tells Us About How to Manage Bias and Increase Inclusion
All topics are available as a keynote, an interactive keynote, workshop and leadership training module, in-person or virtual. In addition, each topic, short custom follow-on videos to encourage application and support long-term change are available on request
It’s reasonable to assume that if we create awareness about unconscious bias, that people will search their thinking for evidence of bias and root it out. It makes sense that if people understand the importance of inclusion on teams and in organization, that people will behave in ways that make others feel included. Unfortunately, none of that is true. What science tells us is that people can’t search their thinking for bias, because it’s unconscious and it largely stays that way. People don’t behave more inclusively when asked to because they think they are being inclusive in the first place.
In this talk, Dr. Grant explains the role the human brain plays in bias and inclusion – specifically, the blind spots we can’t ever really avoid, and the strategies that actually work when it comes to making decisions and collaborating with others. These evidence-based strategies help leaders and team members to reduce the influence of unconscious bias on people and business decisions, and behave in ways that make others feel respected and valued.
Creating Psychological Safety in Teams
All topics are available as a keynote, an interactive keynote, workshop and leadership training module, in-person or virtual. In addition, each topic, short custom follow-on videos to encourage application and support long-term change are available on request
Psychological safety refers to the experience of working in an environment without interpersonal fear – fear or anxiety related to how other people will perceive you and treat you. When an employee feels psychologically safe with their leader, on their team, and in their workplace, they feel able to be themselves, admit what they don’t know so they can learn it, speak up with their ideas or concerns, and ask for the help they need.
In this talk, you will learn:
• The effects of lacking psychological safety on the human brain, including reduced ability reason effectively, learn and remember, connect and empathize with others, and resist distraction and temptation.
• The unique role of leaders in creating a psychologically safe team culture
• The different kinds of psychological safety, and strategies for creating each, including:
• Safe to make mistakes and learn
• Be yourself and live your authentic identity
• Challenge the status quo and champion new ideas
• Ask for help and seek support
Books
Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You
With humor, insight, and engaging storytelling, Heidi Grant, PhD, describes how to elicit helpful behavior from your friends, family, and colleagues--in a way that leaves them feeling genuinely happy to lend a hand.
Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals
Whether you want to motivate your kids, your employees, or just yourself, Succeed unlocks the secrets of achievement, and shows you how to create new possibilities in every area of your life.
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently
Are you at the top of your game—or still trying to get there?
Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence
Examining how promotion/prevention focus applies across a wide range of situations—from selling products to managing employees to raising children to getting a second date—Halvorson show us how to identify, change, and use focus to get the results we want.