Mike Abrashoff

Former Commander, USS Benfold and Author, It’s Your Ship

Biography:

Mike Abrashoff is the NY Times Best Selling Author of "It's Your Ship" former Naval Commander and a leadership and teamwork expert.

At 36, he was selected to command the USS Benfold, making him the youngest commanding officer in the Pacific Fleet. The challenges facing this underperforming destroyer were staggering, with low morale and the highest attrition rate in the Navy. Few believed the ship could improve. Yet 12 months later it was ranked number one in performance - with the same crew. How did Mike do it? By replacing command-and-control leadership with engagement and cohesion. The lesson was clear: leadership matters and culture is everything.

Since leaving the Navy, Mike has worked with over 1200 organisations, introducing leadership initiatives at every level - achieving phenomenal change in unexpected places. He focused on the one thing he could influence: the attitude of his crew, because culture is the ultimate competitive weapon for any organisation. That's why the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and others have quoted Mike's story. It's also why Mike is so popular with such a wide audience.

Mike is the author of four books. His first, It's Your Ship, has a timeless message: don't use external forces in your way as an excuse - control the things you can influence and amazing results will happen. His next books, It's Our Ship and Get Your Ship Together, showed how business leaders put these principles into action in their own organisations. Mike's latest book, Ship Happens (co-authored with Stacey Cunningham), serves as a guide for leaders, detailing his strategies for transforming the USS Benfold into a high performance ship.

The speaker talks about:

Mike motivates audiences to rethink their beliefs about leadership and organisational culture, tailoring the message to focus on engagement, execution, change, safety, diversity, leadership, teamwork, innovation, accountability and more.

Keynote Speaker Programs:

• IT’S YOUR SHIP – ACHIEVING BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
• THE VIRTUAL LEADER’S ROADMAP
• NO LIMITS – DON’T LET GOALS BECOME LIMITATIONS
• GO DEEPER WITH HALF-DAY AND FULL-DAY PROGRAMS