Based on Joseph’s book All Business Is Personal, this keynote reveals how the most admired organizations win by pairing human connection with operational discipline. Joseph explains that memorable experiences happen when leaders and teams create personal bonds and design processes that deliver consistently. He explores how technology and AI can augment—not replace—human service, enabling teams to anticipate needs, simplify transactions and free up time for genuine connection. Attendees leave with actionable ideas to build cultures where emotional connection and operational excellence work hand in hand to drive loyalty, referrals and long‑term growth.

Within days of COVID-19 disrupting the business world, Dr. Michelli began asking senior leaders at major companies about their specific challenges and how they were meeting them, getting raw yet thoughtful real-time insights into the greatest business crisis in generations. In this presentation, Dr. Michelli shares the invaluable wisdom and practical insights from 150+ top global business leaders on all aspects of leading through and beyond COVID, including crisis management, keeping employees and customers safe, maintaining a culture of engagement, rapidly innovating, and more. In this highly customized presentation, Dr. Michelli will provide winning leadership methods based on his conversations with Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, United Way, RBC, Verizon, Southwest Airlines, Goldman Sachs, and H&R Block.

In 2007, the founders of Airbnb had a roommate move out of their San Francisco apartment. To pay rent, they placed air mattresses in a spare room and created a website where they listed the sleeping space. Within a decade, the company was valued at 38 billion dollars. In this presentation, Dr. Michelli outlines the process of creating a 21st-century customer experience that is technology-aided and human-powered. He offers tools for disrupting or averting disruption by creating customer belonging, designing for trust, and maximizing team member and customer empowerment.

Many businesses were not created on a customer experience or customer service foundation. They started from a founder’s passion for a given product or industry. These types of businesses might have innovative products, operational excellence, and even great marketing. However, they often lack a consistent and emotionally engaging customer experience that lives up to their product quality. In Driven to Delight, Dr. Michelli looks at how an iconic brand with the motto “best or nothing” set sights on being one of the world’s best customer experience providers. Moving from the middle of the pack among luxury automobile manufacturers on customer satisfaction surveys toward levels that rival a brand like The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, leaders at Mercedes-Benz USA created a compelling transformational vision while aligning and mobilizing people, processes, and technology. If you are on a cultural journey to be Driven to Delight, this message will inform and resonate!

Let's assume you have an engaged workforce and a consistent experience that drives staff and customer loyalty. How will you sustain and build on that success? For example, how does your business remain relevant to your existing customers while continually developing products that attract diverse customer segments? In Leading the Starbucks Way, Dr. Michelli touches upon key drivers that led to Starbucks' meteoric success. He also emphasizes actionable takeaways born from the wisdom of Starbucks leaders as they leverage technology, mobilize the interpersonal connection through social media, expand offerings into the consumer product goods space, and increase sustainability and global relevance. If you are looking for lasting success built on a passion for product and people, Leading the Starbucks Way is for you.

Culture, culture, culture! This presentation highlights tools that have created a rich and unorthodox service culture at Zappos. Against all odds, this online business (known primarily for selling shoes in playful and emotionally engaging ways) has revolutionized social media strategies, developed an environment that has earned it a consistent spot in the top ten of Fortune magazine's best places to work, created zealous fans, and attracted Amazon.com as a purchaser for more than $1.2 billion. In this keynote or workshop, Dr. Michelli outlines the five principles leaders, and frontline workers can use to "zappify" enduring success (Serve a Perfect Fit, Make it Effortlessly Swift, Step Into the Personal, S T R E T C H, and Play to Win). It's time to integrate (not balance) work and fun. It's time to benefit from the unique and effective employee and customer engagement techniques of Zappos!

Imagine running a business that requires the innovation of Apple, the commitment to the safety of NASA, and the customer service of The Ritz-Carlton. Further, imagine your mandate demands you are a world-class educator, your work product holds life and death in the balance, and you are responsible for discoveries that shape the future of medicine. That is the charter of the UCLA Health System. As such, UCLA tackles a diverse set of challenges faced by most businesses. Borrowing from transformational leadership at UCLA, Dr. Michelli outlines lessons on how to catapult your business to preeminence at an unusually rapid pace, transform the satisfaction and engagement of your customers through a service-centric approach, achieve enviable profitability during economic downturns, and re-design, elevate, and humanize your customer experience. Through the context of business principles like Commit to Care, Make the Best Better, and Create the Future, Dr. Michelli offers insights about elevating service excellence by consistently executing against the highest service standards.

In this presentation, Dr. Michelli examines how to deliver legendary customer experiences such as those consistently offered by The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, Zappos, and Starbucks. The New Gold Standard presents cutting-edge leadership strategies for selecting, training, and retaining the "right" staff. It demonstrates how leaders and frontline workers can drive staff engagement and ownership behavior that ultimately produces transformational customer experiences. Expounding on leadership principles such as "Define and Refine," "It's Not About You," and "Leave Your Mark," this presentation examines ways to keep your service relevant to changing customer needs and shifting economic times.

By strategically executing the details of the internal and external customer experience, Starbucks has become an employer and coffee provider of choice. Truly, Starbucks has become a name synonymous with coffee itself. While most people see Starbucks as a coffee company that serves people, its success is inverse. It is a people company serving coffee. In this keynote or workshop, Dr. Michelli shows frontline workers and business leaders how to "stage" and perform on their brand's promise. He analyzes the importance of identifying a desired emotional connection with the customer and helps participants see the important distinction between "good" and "bad" profit. Using principles like "Make it Your Own," "Surprise and Delight," and "Embrace Resistance," Dr. Michelli shows how to create the ultimate customer experience. Lights, camera, action! Your experience awaits.

Dr. Michelli helps you create a unique and durable experience that energizes employees and draws customers — excerpting from his book of the same name, Dr. Michelli reels in the complete fish story behind the World-Famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle (where they are known for throwing fish and engaging antics). In this keynote or workshop, Dr. Michelli examines core principles like "Commit It," "Be It," and "Coach It," which create a market's uniquely vital and creative culture. This culture leads to excellent customer service, legendary employee morale, a fun, and dynamic work environment, and ultimately makes a "World Famous" difference in the lives of those they serve. This presentation offers a cohesive strategy for achieving world-famous results for owners, managers, frontline workers, and customers alike. If Pike Place Fish can achieve world fame from a small storefront, with zero advertising in a smelly, physically arduous profession, think about what is possible for your company!

Based on the global growth of MindChamps (Singapore’s premier pre-school), Dr. Michelli outlines the importance of a clear leadership vision, values-based service delivery, and an unwavering commitment to the success of those you serve. In this presentation, Dr. Michelli offers tools for driving an “open mindset” to foster leadership and frontline growth. He also provides a model for challenging conventions, prototyping new offerings, and expanding the impact of your business.