SPEAKING
Unwritten Rules
You want to change something — how your organization works, how your industry operates, how a community functions. You've got the ambition and the ideas. But something keeps getting in the way. Not resources. Not talent. Something you can't quite name.
It's the unwritten rules.
Your team, your organization, your industry, and your community are all governed by invisible forces — norms, habits, and assumptions so deeply embedded that most people don't even notice them. They shape what gets taken seriously, what quietly dies, and whether bold ideas survive long enough to matter. They're older than your strategy, stronger than your org chart, and more influential than anyone in the room.
Most people try to drive change by fighting these forces. New policies. New structures. New incentives. It rarely works, because the unwritten rules always win.
But the people who actually pull off big change — who build new things, who transform how institutions work, who solve problems nobody else can solve — aren't fighting the unwritten rules. They're seeing them. Because once you can see them, you can design around them, build with them, and use them to create the change you've been trying to create.
Seeing the unwritten rules is where all ambitious change begins. In this talk, I show you how.
SEE THE TALK
TEDx Lake Forest College
Business Innovation Factory
SELECT SPEAKING VENUES
Harvard Graduate School of Design · Stanford d.School · World Government Summit (Dubai) · Facebook · Microsoft · AT&T · MetLife · US General Services Administration · University of Southern California · International Federation of Arts Councils (Kuala Lumpur) · Wilton Park (West Sussex) · CoreNet Summit Europe (Madrid) · American Dental Association · Association of Legal Administrators · HATCH · Loyola University Law School · Chicago Kent College of Law · TEDx Lake Forest College · Business Innovation Factory · and 40+ other institutions, companies, associations, and conferences
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
“Jeff’s talk on unwritten rules was as insightful and thought-provoking as it was entertaining and engaging.”
Esther Lee
Global Chief Marketing Officer
MetLife
“Jeff gets to the heart, soul and guts of what it takes to make organizational change stick. He had our audience of corporate executives riveted and wanting a lot more of Jeff.”
Robert Jordan
Founder & CEO
InterimExecs
“We keep inviting Jeff back because he has an extraordinary talent for engaging an audience. He masterfully combines intellect with humor, thinking with doing, and ideas with stories.”
Raman Chadha
Founder
The Junto Institute