Christian Knutson Speaker Page

A Professional Engineer and
Project Management Speaker[su_spacer]

Nothing is more essential to achieving success, both personally and professionally, than developing the qualities of good leadership and having an execution-mindset.

If you’re looking to increase your leadership potential and ability to take action, Christian can help.  His service as a military engineer required him to lead people and execute programs and projects constantly, consistently, and successfully.  His knowledge and experience have taught him what happens when the qualities of good leadership and an execution mind-set combine.

The need for these two qualities in organizations everywhere hasn’t gone away…in fact, it’s needed more than ever.

Leadership by Design

Rather than cover the aspects of leadership covered in most books or seminars on the subject, Christian focuses on the basis of design of one’s leadership skills, providing a framework that can be applied to individual development of ones leadership potential.  Topics discussed include…

• The foundation of leadership – you.  Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation on which your leadership skills are established.
• The design of leadership – blueprinting what leadership means to you.  Defining what leadership means to you, what level you wish to aspire to, and how you’ll go about gaining the knowledge, then wisdom, to be that leader.
• The flexibility of leadership ­- ensuring flexibility in your design.  Developing flexibility in the design of your leadership is really about situational leadership.  Situational leadership is essential to ensuring each area of your life – career, family, and other pursuits – benefit from your ability to create optimal results for those you lead and yourself.  Whether aspiring to be a partner in your firm or being an adult leader in your daughters Girl Scout Troop, each aspiration/situation calls for a different approach.

This seminar will give you insight into leadership principles that you can begin implementing immediately, right in the position you occupy today and make you the engineer leader you have the potential to be!

Decision Making – Optimizing Your Time to Achieve Exceptional Results

Every person has a distinct, bespoke means of making decisions.  What every person doesn’t have though, is an understanding of how they make decisions or how they might better structure their decision making to achieve extraordinary results.  When a person implements a type of reasonable, reflective thinking aimed at deciding what to do or what to believe it’s known as “critical thinking”. Decision making and critical thinking are linked.

Topics covered in this seminar include…

• The basics of critical thinking and how it, combined with knowledge of the decision making process will allow you optimize for the extraordinary
• Optimizing your return on time investment.
• Increasing the objectivity and openness of your thinking.
• Ensuring you have a standardized structure for collecting information, presenting data, and making decisions.
• Achieving extraordinary results

As engineers, we wield critical thinking almost every day.  We use it on projects, designs, networking at events, or communicating proposals to clients.  While one can deep dive into how critical thinking is used in philosophical or Socratic discussions, what most of us really want to know is: “how can it help me make better decisions to achieve extraordinary results in the office, my life, and on my next project?”

Communicating Clearly to Succeed

Communications is ultra-critical for success in our careers and life.  Without a solid grasp of the skill, we run the risk of missing opportunities or worse, losing the ones we already have.  In this seminar, Christian focuses on developing your clear and concise voice for both written and verbal communications.  He then provides numerous tips that you can immediately apply to your presentations, email and written correspondence, and communicating with people on professional matters.  Specifically, the presentation covers:

• The 7 Essential “C’s” of Communicating – get these right and you’ll get your point across every time.
• Why active listening and speaking is important – hint, you need to do both get your point across and it will take planning.
• The 8 Rules for Presentations – once learned, these steps ensure you address key elements necessary for a Powerpoint presentation to deliver your message concisely.
• How use clear communications to uncover opportunities in your career and life

Effective communication skills isn’t just reserved for the business and marketing types.  More than ever, engineers must cultivate the skill of communicating in order to ensure their voice is heard on projects and programs affecting communities everywhere!