10 Key TED Talks for Growth Leaders

If you are a growth leader today, whether a corporate innovator or a disruptive entrepreneur, you likely don’t have time to sift through all these great presentations, with more than 1700 TED talks now available online. FORBES contributor, Rick Smith, Founder of the Bionic Network, working with senior executives from the world’s most respected companies to accelerate growth and innovation, has selected 10 talks that offer critical perspectives for growth leaders.

My favorite is the one below by Simon Sinek. His insight, “In the military they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In business, we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that they may gain,” leads to a great perspective on leadership today. His point is great leaders make their teams feel safe.
Please let us know which is your favorite.

Here are all ten presentations …

Nicholas Negroponte: A 30-year History of the Future
“We have been consuming information through our eyes, and this may turn out to be an inefficient channel. My prediction is that we will ingest information. You’re going to swallow a pill and know English. You’re going to swallow a pill and know Shakespeare.”
Seth Godin: How to Get Your Ideas to Spread
“The way that you are going to get what you want, or cause the change that you want to happen, is to figure out a way to get your ideas to spread.”
Tony Robbins: Why We Do What We Do?
“I believe that the invisible force of internal drive, activated, is the most important force in the universe. Emotion is the force of life.”
Joi Ito: Want to Innovate? Become a Nowist
“This is a fundamentally new way of thinking about innovation. It is bottoms up innovation, it’s democratic, it’s chaotic, it’s hard to control. It’s not bad, it’s just very different.”
Simon Sinek: Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe
“In the military they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In business, we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that they may gain.”
Derek Sivers: How to Start a Movement
“It’s important to focus on not just the leader, but the followers, because you will find that new followers emulate the followers, not the leader.”
Ken Robinson: How Schools Kill Creativity
“What we do know is this; if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. We run our companies like this. We stigmatize mistakes.”
Regina Dugan: From mach-20 Glider to Hummingbird Drone
“The fear of failure constrains us. It keeps us from attempting great things. And life gets dull. Amazing things stop happening. Sure, good things happen. But amazing things stop happening.”
Tim Harford: Trial, Error and the God Complex
“We have no idea why a certain thing will work. No idea at all. But the moment you step back from the God Complex and you say let’s just try a bunch of stuff, let’s have a systematic way of determining what’s working and what’s not, you can solve your problem.”
Elizabeth Gilbert: Your Elusive Creative Genius
“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. Ole to you, just for having the sheer human love, and stubbornness, to keep showing up.”