Paul McGee
Most workforces are not short on strategy. They are short on the personal capacity to keep performing through change, setbacks and rising pressure. When confidence slips and energy drains, the cost shows up as disengagement, attrition and stalled execution long before it shows up in the operating plan.
Paul McGee is a behavioural psychologist and creator of the SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) framework who helps organisations build the personal resilience, confidence and composure their people need to perform through change.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Paul McGee
- He gives organisations a single, named, portable language for resilience. SUMO has been translated into more than 20 languages and used inside global brands, which means the ideas travel beyond the keynote into how teams actually talk about setbacks.
- His behavioural-psychology background turns wellbeing content into something a senior buyer can defend commercially. The argument is rooted in cognition and behaviour change, not motivation.
- His track record sits in serious operating environments: Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS and Manchester City FC have all booked him for change, performance and confidence work.
- Self-Confidence held number one on the WHSmith Business Book chart for 24 weeks, which is unusual evidence that the content lands with a workplace audience and not only a self-help one.
- Visiting Professor at the University of Chester since 2019, appointed specifically for translating academic behavioural research into practical use. That credential supports the seriousness of the work without academic detachment.
Biography highlights
- Visiting Professor, University of Chester, appointed 2019
- Creator of the SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) framework; Sunday Times bestseller, translated into 20+ languages
- Author of Self-Confidence, which reached number one and held the WHSmith Business Book chart for 24 weeks
- Capstone-published author of nine titles, including How to Speak So People Really Listen, How Not to Worry, How to Succeed with People, and YESSS!
- Delivered keynotes for 1,000+ organisations across 40+ countries, including Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS and Manchester City FC
- Background as a behavioural psychologist with more than 30 years of applied practice
Biography
Most organisations underestimate how much of their performance problem is a confidence problem. Strategy is rarely the missing ingredient. What gets in the way is the personal cost of repeated change, knocks to self-belief, and the quiet drain of pressure that nobody names. SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) gave that problem a vocabulary. It is a behavioural framework that asks people to stop, examine the thinking that holds them back, and choose a different response.
The framework belongs to Paul McGee, a former behavioural psychologist who now sits as Visiting Professor at the University of Chester, an appointment made in 2019 to recognise his work translating academic research into practical use. SUMO became a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into more than 20 languages. His follow-up, Self-Confidence, spent 24 weeks at number one on the WHSmith Business Book chart, a result that is hard to fake and tells you who the content actually serves.
Nine books for Capstone, the Wiley business imprint, sit behind the keynote work. They cover communication, worry, confidence and resilience, but the through-line is behaviour change inside ordinary working lives. The argument is consistent: small, repeatable mental habits compound into the resilience that organisations now need from their people, especially under sustained change.
The client list reads as a workplace one rather than a wellness one. Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS and Manchester City FC have all commissioned McGee for change, performance and confidence work. Across 40+ countries and more than 1,000 organisations, the brief is usually the same: give our people something that holds up after the keynote ends.
Key speaking topics
- Resilience and personal performance under pressure
- Confidence and self-leadership at work
- Behaviour change and the SUMO framework
- Leading through change and uncertainty
- Communication and influence
- Wellbeing as an operating capability
Ideal for
- HR and people leaders building resilience capability across the workforce
- Senior leadership teams managing fatigue from repeated change programmes
- Customer-facing and high-pressure functions where confidence directly shapes performance
- Learning and development heads commissioning durable, named frameworks rather than one-off motivational content
Audience outcomes
- A shared vocabulary, drawn from SUMO, for naming and interrupting unhelpful thinking patterns
- Specific behavioural habits to rebuild confidence and composure after setbacks
- A practical way to separate the parts of a problem people can act on from the parts they cannot
- A clearer view of how individual resilience translates into team performance and customer outcomes
Talks
A keynote on building durable personal resilience inside high-pressure workplaces, rooted in the SUMO framework.
Key takeaways:
- How to recognise and interrupt the thinking patterns that drain resilience
- Practical behavioural habits for recovery after setbacks
- Why wellbeing is an operating capability, not a perk
A talk on the leadership behaviours that sustain performance when teams are tired, stretched or uncertain.
Key takeaways:
- The specific habits that separate leaders who hold composure under pressure from those who do not
- How to lead conversations about confidence and setbacks without slipping into platitudes
- Where behaviour change actually starts inside a team
A keynote applying SUMO to the personal and team challenges of sustained organisational change.
Key takeaways:
- A language for what people are actually experiencing during change
- Tools to move from rumination to action
- How leaders can model and reinforce these habits across a team