...e breath of air.
In 2003, in response to an audience challenge, he proved his Ten Rules for Taming Tigers by becoming a jockey in 12 months. At the outset he was 3 stone (20kg) too heavy and could not ride a horse. At 36 years old, how do you go from an 11 ½ stone non-riding smoker in a suit to a 9 ½ stone jockey sharing a weighing room with Frankie Dettori and making an impact on one of the world’s most dangerous sports? Working with the Ten Rules as his guide, Jim Lawless took delivery of his £1 winnings on 22nd November 2004 on returning to unsaddle from the 12.00 at Southwell.
On becoming a jockey Jim says, “it took many years, but at last I have found a place where being short is an advantage.”
After starting life as a City lawyer, Jim Lawless moved in-house to become International Legal Counsel at ICL (now Fujitsu) before founding the cultural change consultancy Optimise (now Taming Tigers) in the late 90’s. His clients have included Apple, Legal and General, BT, AstraZeneca, Barclaycard and the NHS.
Jim Lawless advises teams and individuals in some of the UK’s leading companies, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in 2008, writes regularly for a range of publications including Finance Week and Personnel Today and is a columnist for the Institute of Leadership and Management’s periodical “The Edge”.
Jim's keynote speeches inspire action, provide insight into change and deliver solid practical routes to achieving peak performance. His presentations are peppered with personal experience and numerous anecdotes and pictures from the colourful, fast and dangerous world of horseracing - guaranteed to fire up the team for the changes ahead!
He speaks about Personal and Team Peak Performance, Leadership, Communication and Change and his presentations are liberally illustrated with Energy, Humour and Anecdotes. Jim has the ability to delight any audience because he talks common sense and explores how simple changes in mindsets and behaviours can influence our chances of success
Jim Lawless gives his audiences a new set of possibilities and responsibilities and changes their ideas about what they can achieve and send them out excited about making a difference.
He has great credibility with audiences having not only achieved his sporting goal, but also having worked at board level in business and sales and as a current advisor to many major British and international companies.
Jim Lawless is also the author of the book “Taming Tigers”, now in its second edition, the antidote to ‘self-help’ and a highly practical approach to overcoming fear and doing things you never though you could do.
Speech
topics include:
Taming Tigers - The Ten Rules for Taming Tigers.
- Excellent for teams needing a boost of self-belief, a surge of energy, a new burst of creative ideas to be generated or to assist leader to generate energy and enthusiasm in the team for the tasks in hand.
- Ten practical and powerful rules complete with highly usable tips, all proven in many businesses and in Jim’s trip from non-rider to licensed jockey in twelve months.
- Hugely popular with great feedback from all industry sectors.
Taming the Change Tiger.
- Not only has Jim put himself through great personal change, he has also led change programs for organizations small (20) and large (working alongside Accenture in an organization of over 6,000)
- Even more useful than a copy of “Who Moved My Cheese”, Jim’s take on change is personal, authoritative, insightful, highly amusing and motivates and inspires the people who will make or break the change to drive through to new pastures!
Taming Tigers Workshop
Learn the secrets of communicating to inspire your people to succeed in difficult times. In a 1 day highly practical workshop packed with immediately usable tips you will:
- Learn the secrets of inspiring an audience through different channels – and which channels to use.
- Learn the top ten mistakes that leaders make that turn their people off.
- Learn how to create energy and inspire action.
- The Key 7 Strategies for Leadership Communication.
- Learn how to inspire without spending large budget.
- Create a personal plan to inspire your people to action.
Other speech titles include:
- Taming the Communication Tiger
- Taming the Leadership Tiger.
- Taming the Sales Tiger.
Testimonials
"We at Apple pride ourselves in thinking differently, that is why we work in partnership with Jim. Our big conference pitches and our key sales presentations have both been inspired by the Lawless touch." - Human Resources Director, Apple Europe
‘Your Key Note presentation was spot on and linked perfectly. You managed to bring across a strong inspiring message, packaged in a story that was also a lot of fun." - Elke Anders, Organiser, HP Software Universe, Nice
"Life is about good communication skills and this has helped move my communications skills forward" - Martin Buggy, Business Development Manager, AstraZeneca
"I have worked with Jim on stage at three high-profile Barclaycard leaders' conferences. Not only is he engaging, challenging, inspiring and very funny but he delivers a practical, compelling model for achieving results - which he has risked his life on the racecourse to prove." - Gary Hoffman, Group Vice Chairman, Barclays
"Captivating! A great way to end the conference - on an inspiring and thought provoking high note which appealed 'personally' as well as to the business." - Closing Keynote address to the Deloitte International Client Conference, Paris, Summer
“Jim, We fraud managers have a responsibility (to society) to do our work well, and having the right attitude and approach works wonders. Your talk really will help the youngsters to become courageous leaders” - Ron Warmington, Director, GE Money EMEA
“Jim spoke at our annual partner event in 2006. I was truly impressed with Jim’s impact and Style. His speech was motivational and inspirational in many ways. Our partners and employees commended us for having Jim share his thoughts and experience in our event”. - Ali Faramawy, Area Vice President, Microsoft International
“Jim is great at showing two things. One, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Two, the key to delivering this is to ‘act now’ on the difficult but necessary tasks. He does this in an entertaining and engaging manner”. - Rob Fleming, Market Strategy and Planning Manager, Procter and Gamble.
“Have to say that Jim was first class. Comments ranged from "a real thought provoker" to "an inspiration to change my approach" to "so much better than anyone we have seen before". -Christian Armstrong Head of Human Resources Thistle Hotels.
"The De Beers client lunch at Ascot during De Beers Diamond Day 2006 was greatly enhanced by the amusing anecdotes from Jim Lawless. His insight into the world of racing and his personal experiences as a jockey fascinated all our guests. Working with Jim was an absolute pleasure and it certainly made it a most entertaining pre race lunch. I would certainly endorse any company's invitation to him to be the speaker at their lunch or dinner, be it relevant to racing or not." - Lesley Tabard, Special Events Executive, The Diamond Trading Company Limited (De Beers)