Bring the Six Cs
to Life with
Your Leadership Team

Keynotes and executive workshops based on The Strategy Trap,
designed to help leaders avoid the execution failures
caused by conventional business wisdom.

Bring Kevin to Your Organization

Keynote
Speaking

Reset how leaders think about
strategy and execution

  • 20 to 60 minute versions

  • Overview of the Strategy Trap

  • Challenges conventional business wisdom

  • Establishes shared language around the Six Cs system


Best for:
Leadership offsites, kickoffs,
conferences, company-wide resets

Executive
Workshops

Apply the Six Cs system to real work

  • Fully customized to your business, team, and moment

  • Formats range from half-day working sessions to multi-day or week-long engagements

  • Designed to build the conditions required for execution, not add process

Best for:
Executive teams,
senior leadership groups,
transformation moments

Which Is
Right for You?

A keynote is the right choice if your organization needs a wake-up call around how it approaches strategy and execution.

Choose a keynote if:

  • Your organization needs inspiration and a reframing of how execution really works

  • The results of past strategies have consistently fallen short of expectations

  • You want people to recognize the Strategy Trap, and feel urgency to avoid it

  • Leaders are still operating on conventional business wisdom

  • You need shared language before asking teams to do harder work

A keynote challenges assumptions, surfaces uncomfortable truths, and helps people see why change is needed, not just what to change.

Choosing the right entry point

A workshop is the right choice when you’re ready to do the work.

Choose a workshop if:

  • You want to co-create the strategy with the people who must execute it

  • Leaders need to align, validate assumptions, and commit together

  • You need to build or pressure-test a real strategy

  • Execution has broken down due to misalignment, overload, or unclear ownership

  • You’re ready to design the execution plan, not just announce it

Workshops are where the co-creation process happens, aligning leaders, forcing trade-offs, and building the conditions required for execution. Depending on your needs, this can extend into designing the ongoing execution process and operating plan.

Many organizations use a keynote
to spark the realization that change is needed,
then move into a workshop to
build the strategy and execution plan together.

Executive Workshops
in Detail

Built around the Six Cs system. Designed around your reality.

  • Every workshop is tailored to your specific strategy, constraints, and leadership dynamics

  • The system stays fixed; the application flexes

  • The goal is always the same: clearer decisions, cleaner ownership, and fewer active priorities

What to expect:

  • Half-Day: Targeted reset or decision sprint

  • Multi-Day / Week-Long: Deep work to rebuild execution conditions across teams

Typical Formats

Common focus areas include:

  • Co-creating strategy with real alignment, validation, and commitment

  • Forcing clarity on priorities, trade-offs, and definitions of success

  • Creating capacity by stopping work that no longer serves the strategy

  • Designing communication rhythms that survive contact with reality

  • Establishing coordination and ownership without bureaucracy

  • Coaching leaders to reinforce execution in real time

“The success of the workshop has had a lasting impact, and we’ve already started integrating several of Kevin’s exercises into our company culture.”

— Sky Kelley, President, Pantone

“Kevin’s workshop on The Strategy Trap was all of the things: insightful, digestible, actionable, and collaborative. Walking away with new muscle memory from real time practice I went back to work with a mission - how can I take this back to my team in an impactful way? Not only was the workshop great, but I love how The Strategy Trap book serves as my companion guidebook to continue to build upon impact of the workshop.”

— Ann Marie Ippoliti, SVP, Digital Commerce, Michael Kors

“I had the privilege of hearing Kevin speak to a room of C-level leaders at a recent retail conference, where his presentation was easily the highlight of the event. He masterfully walked us through his Six C system, providing a clear roadmap for those of us who excel at crafting strategy on paper but struggle to execute it to the finish line.”

— Chris Hardisty,  Former CEO, Alexis Russell Jewelry

Kevin Ertell brings rare clarity to the often abstract challenge of strategy execution. His recent presentation to the NRF councils stood out not because it was theoretical, but because it was immediately usable. The tools he shared from his new book, The Strategy Trap, offer leaders a practical disciplined way to turn strategy into action.”

— Dave Finnegan,  Chief Connection Officer, BlackFinn

“We’re already seeing the impact: our leaders are focused and confident, our customers are happier, and our business results are improving.” 

— Jeff Gottlieb, President, Music & Arts

“The Six Cs system provided a powerful and actionable roadmap, that clearly resonated with all those in the session based on the extreme note-taking and nodding heads. The rapid-fire hands-on exercise made the ideas tangible and immediately applicable, not just theoretical.”

— Bryon Colby, Chief Digital Marketing Officer, Purchasing Power

Let’s talk