Event Agenda

Strategic Practices for Success: Outpacing Competitors, Optimizing Bids and Nurturing Top Talent

In today's competitive market, businesses must be strategic in their approach to remaining competitive, lowering bids, and retaining skilled workers. alliantgroup’s manufacturing practice director, Tyler Noesser, who is an engineer by trade leads an interactive discussion on trends in the industry and practical advice on practices that manufacturers can implement immediately. This session will detail recent legislative updates to powerful credits and incentives that have helped WHMA members claim millions in federal funds. Tyler will explain how these changes apply to wire harness manufacturers and how they can benefit from these lucrative federal programs.  

Tyler is a Technical Director at alliantgroup, specializing in the engineering, manufacturing, and system integration industries. An engineer by trade, Tyler combines his strong industry expertise with his knowledge of the tax code to help American businesses identify powerful government-sponsored incentives. To date, Tyler has worked with hundreds of small to mid-sized businesses to help them claim more than $250 million in credits and incentives.

alliantgroup’s mission is to help U.S. companies and the CPA firms that advise them to take full advantage of federal and state tax credits, incentives, and deductions. Our government has legislated these powerful programs to help businesses grow and successfully compete both in the U.S. and abroad. For 20 years, we’ve developed a methodical framework for understanding every client’s industry, issues, and sector dynamics. We invest tens of millions of dollars of our firm’s resources annually in knowledge development, learning and advocacy. We are proud to have delivered nearly $800 million back to businesses in the manufacturing industry.

Turn the Ship Around! Creating Leaders at Every Level™

In this keynote, we share the origins and principles of Intent-Based Leadership®.  We share our unique perspective as the ones who lived the story, influencing up and down the chain of command.  We reveal how this submarine went from the worst submarine to the best submarine, achieving the highest retention and operational standings in the U.S. Navy. 

This interactive keynote requires audience participation. We will take the audience inside a U.S. Navy fast attack submarine, using photographs and stories from the USS Santa Fe, to describe the challenges and frustrations of leading from the middle of the organization and the successes the team experienced.     

While interacting with the audience, we cover the principles of this leadership movement by contrasting bosses and leaders.  He will focus on these basic principles: 

• Giving control and creating leaders 
• Creating an environment that releases greatness 
• Getting people to think instead of just do 
• Using language that inspires collaboration 

David Marquet is the author of Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders, about the USS Santa Fe, where David was the newly assigned Commander.

• Forced to lead differently, he took the crew from worst to first in a year.
• His new leadership approach (“Intent-Based Leadership”) quickly created thinking, engaged leaders at every level of the organization.
• Every person who could reenlist on that ship did so. Many new leaders  went on to command other ships.
• This approach works equally well in the business world.
• David shares his personal story and teaches the simple principles that drive that change in any organization.
• FortunemagazinenamedTurntheShipAroundthe#1must-readbook.
• USA Today put it on their list of the 12 best business books of all time.
• Now on the US Navy recommended reading list.

The Case for Change: Critical Workforce Insights for Leaders

Excessive employee turnover is impacting the bottom line, and organizations are now making workforce retention an executive priority. This session discusses several critical factors when rethinking our approach to staffing, including:

• How the internal “blame game” keeps organizations from gaining the staffing stability needed to be more productive and profitable
• How the current and projected employment landscape is impacting our business practices
• Why today’s workforce has incredibly different expectations than their leaders
• Strategies for keeping people longer through adjusted incentives and creative advancement
• Ways to prioritize retention initiatives for the greatest ROI

Workforce Wake-Up Call the Case for Operationalizing Turnover

In the current workforce landscape, employees have the upper hand with “now hiring” signs on every corner. Staffing challenges and employee turnover are here to stay. It’s time for leaders to rethink staffing stability and set realistic goals, budgets, and business models around unavoidable turnover. The best way to increase employee retention is to plan for and adjust current operations to manage impending levels of employee turnover and make the proper long-term retention investments.

This session will explore strategies for operationalizing turnover so your organization can plan for sustainable success. As the saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. Make your organization a place where keeping people is an actual goal and not just a recurring discussion.

Learning Objectives:

• Discover current employee turnover trends and future staffing projections
• Learn ways to plan and implement strategies to prepare for on-going turnover
• Determine strategies to close the gap to keep people longer and improve profitability

"Workforce thought leader Cara Silletto, MBA, CSP, works with organizations of all sizes to reduce unnecessary employee turnover by bridging generational gaps and making managers more effective in their roles. As an early Millennial herself, she knows first-hand what it is like to have a heightened sense of entitlement, very little employee loyalty, and a dependency upon her smartphone. However, unlike many Millennials, Cara has figured out exactly how these attributes were cultivated during her formative years, and she now shares that story with leaders across the country, including teams at Toyota, UPS, Cintas, and Humana.

Cara learned early in her career, from her Baby Boomer and GenX mentors, what “professionalism” meant to them, and absorbed critical information about management expectations during her first decade in the business world. She then went on to earn her Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the top-ranked University of Louisville Entrepreneurship program, and then lived overseas teaching German executives about business practices in the U.S. In 2012, Cara started her consulting firm Magnet Culture, a Crescendo Strategies company.  

Workforce Magazine in Chicago named Cara a “Game Changer” for her innovative approach to solving generational issues in the workplace and Recruiter.com listed her in their “Top 10 Company Culture Experts to Watch,” list. Today, she’s a highly-sought-after national speaker conducting 50 to 100 engagements annually and she has earned her Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, which less than 10% of speakers achieve. Louisville Business First named Cara one of their 2018 Forty Under 40, and she is also the author of the book, Staying Power: Why Your Employees Leave & How to Keep Them Longer."

Building Cultures of Connection

The simple structure to create connection, validation, and understanding at work, home, and beyond.

Brian Fretwell developed a radically new approach for reducing the burnout, disengagement, and disconnection that plagues organizations, schools, and families by changing our conversations. "Building Cultures of Connection" is a 1.5-hour experience that will revolutionize the way you listen, validate, and support each other. In this keynote, you’ll learn the simple question and response structure for transforming the way you and your community engage with others.

Your audience will have the tools to...

• Decrease feelings of loneliness and disengagement in those around them.
• Build engagement, resilience, and commitment in themselves and others.
• Bring out the best in each other in daily conversations

Key takeaways

• How to make conversations meaningful
• How to ask the “right” questions to engage and connect
• How to get out of a validation vacuum and start creating trust
• How to practice questions so you’ll have the tools when you need them the most

While most speakers are focused on being thought leaders in their area of expertise, Brian Fretwell strives to be an application leader. He’s constantly creating new tools that people can use right away whether they understand the science behind it. As the Founder of Finding Good, he works with his team to build these tools daily. As a speaker, he has delivered keynotes from Istanbul to Perth and all points in between.

His TEDx has generated over 2.4 million views, his TikTok videos are viewed by millions monthly, and his book "Experts of Our Potential" is widely popular as Brian is a natural, compelling, and engaging storyteller.

He lives in Boise with his wife Jamie, who just happens to be a Transpersonal Counselor. They spend their time taking walks and doing behavioral experiments on their dogs Hank & Daisy.

From Now to Next: The Emerging Trends Reshaping the Electronics Industry

A profusion of tectonic shifts on the horizon are poised to forever change all that we do and how we do it. These changes will impact every industry in unique and subtle ways. Journey into the heart of the emerging trends defining the next era of electronics. From transformative technologies like AI to the profound influence of societal changes, uncover the key drivers that will shape the path forward for organizations across our industry.

As IPC’s chief economist, internationally recognized thought leader, global futurist and trendcaster, Shawn DuBravac works to expand IPC’s research program and provide insights on the biggest issues facing the $2 trillion global electronics industry, including supply chain resiliency/uncertainty, trade wars, skilled workforce shortage, and the expanding role of electronics in the global economy.

For more than a dozen years, DuBravac served as chief economist for the Consumer Technology Association, a U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer tech companies. More recently, he has provided consulting, research, and advisory services to clients on topics including digital transformation, business model disruptions, and global supply chains. He is also the author of the New York Times best seller, “Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Transform the Way We Work, Live, and Communicate,” and has appeared in Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post and more. DuBravac is a member of the National Association of Business Economists and currently serves as the president of the Conference of Business Economists.

DuBravac has taught at the George Washington University School of Business, American University’s Kogod School of Business, the George Mason University School of Business, Marymount University School of Business, and the University of Mary Washington. He holds economic degrees from Brigham Young University and George Mason University.

Get In the Game: How to Create Rapid Financial Results and Lasting Cultural Change

Based on Jack Stack's bestselling book, The Great Game of Business, is a unique and well-proven methodology and approach to running a company, based on a simple, time-tested principle: "When employees think, act and feel like owners… everybody wins." In its simplest form, The Great Game of Business gets everyone focused on the company's success. It teaches all employees the "critical numbers" of the company and how they can make a difference - both individually and as part of a team.

Breakout Session Workshop: Educate, Empower and Engage Your Team with MiniGames™

Part of the magic behind The Great Game of Business® comes from tapping into the universal human desire to win. Give people a chance to win early and win often, and you’ll capture their interest, keep them engaged and drive the success of your business. Whether you are already on your Great Game journey or simply looking for a boost, inject some fun and focus by launching some departmental MiniGames and create the wins your team needs. This highly interactive session will give participants the skill-set and confidence they need to design and apply effective, self-funding incentive programs or “MiniGames” for immediate use in their own organizations, a direct take home that will drive business results.

Steve coauthored Get in the Game as well as the update of the number one bestseller, The Great Game of Business—20th Anniversary Edition. Known for his engaging and irreverent style, Steve is a top-rated, sought-after speaker and coach on open-book management, strategy and execution, leadership, and employee engagement. His audiences range from Harvard University to the Department of Defense, and he is a regular at Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 Conference. He has served on the Board of the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) and SRC Holding’s Ownership Culture Initiative.

Steve is an award-winning artist and lives in Springfield, Missouri, with his trophy wife, JoAnn, and three above-average children.