Member since January 2020
Elise Keith is a speaker, facilitator, and the founder of Lucid Teams and the New Rules for Work Labs.
Organizations bring Elise in when they need high-energy, practical sessions about collaboration that works—not theory, but tools teams can use immediately. She's "fun, grounded, and in charge in a good way," leading interactive workshops, breakouts, and dynamic online events where participants leave with concrete changes they're making to how they work together. She's delivered presentations for Calendly, Under Armour, Harvard Business School, the Teamsters, Workday, California State University, Northstar Meetings, and more.
With 20+ years dedicated to merging research with practice, Elise is the author of "Where the Action Is: The Meetings That Make or Break Your Organization" and a frequent media guest and speaker on the topic of collaborative business culture.
She works with clients from across sectors and regions. Sample clients include IKEA, Under Armour, Intel, City of Portland, Logitech, ICANN, Conservation Colorado, Valdez Ports & Harbours, and more. Her work has been described as "deep," "golden," and "surprisingly fun!"
I'm passionate about creating workplaces where doing good work is the natural, easy default, not some heroic achievement requiring workarounds and weekend hours.
I love it when leaders honestly brag about their teams. I want more people to read the horror stories online and just shake their heads: "Those poor saps." I want to sell a million "I ❤️ my job" t-shirts, because it's so cool to love what you do.
I focus on designing ways of working that make excellence feel inevitable and helping leaders manage their culture investments as a strategic portfolio rather than a pile of disconnected initiatives. I specialize in meeting performance and collaboration design because that's where you can shift the fundamentals fastest. Meetings are the real-time crucible where decision rights, psychological safety, and accountability either work or don't. Change how people interact there, and you often reveal the next bottleneck in the performance network—which is where the useful work begins.
Through the New Rules for Work Labs and the open Ways of Working Initiative, I stay close to both the research and the practitioners. We're identifying the conditions that let good work happen naturally, then bringing frameworks to clients that respect their intelligence and their constraints.
A leader from Indonesia asked me: "What do I say to get my team to trust each other?"
His team was polite in meetings. Problems only surfaced later. His organization is doing critical work—helping refugees, building economies, and elevating women. Dysfunctional teams mean real people don't get help.
He was asking the wrong question. Team trust isn't built through better talking alone —it's built by creating systems where trust can flourish.
I asked the 25 leaders—gathered in Germany while I joined from Portland at 5 am—to share what works on their teams. Three jumped in: daily check-ins, a "no surprises" rule where you raise problems before deadlines, and Friday week-in-review accountability checks over coffee.
The Indonesian leader stopped taking notes. Then he said, "I've been trying to fix trust by talking about it with my team. But the real problem is I haven't designed my team's work to make it easy for people to keep their commitments to each other."
By the end of that session (which was unexpectedly cut from three hours to two, delivered hybrid across eight time zones to leaders who spoke English as a second language) every participant identified something they were going to change about how they led their teams.
I shared the importance of creating the right conditions. Then we created those conditions right there, so leaders could learn from the real experts—each other.
My mom and I raced to be the first in our family to earn a college degree. She won by three months, finishing her nursing degree in April. I finished my theatre degree in June. Her degree led to steady work. Mine led to waitressing.
When my kids arrived, I needed a more reliable income, so I moved into tech. A young mother with a theatre degree on a team of male engineers high on startup fumes—plenty of barriers to navigate.
But also gifts. My background in the arts taught me to see what my engineering colleagues often missed: the way people interact shapes what's possible. You can't code your way to alignment, or logic clients into trusting you. I became fascinated by how the best leaders design workplaces that nurture quality interactions—the meetings, the rituals, the ways of working—to achieve all their goals.
After 25 years of focused practice, I help other leaders see what I saw. Not the fluffy stuff. The structural stuff. How the way you design collaboration either enables or blocks the work you're trying to do.
"Nailed it. That was exactly what we needed to hear."
- Rochelle Arnold-Simmons, Sr. Director Talent & Org Development, Under Armour
"That was such an engaging, inspiring, and relevant experience for us and the group. You really engaged our head, heart, and hands with such grace, lightness, and depth at the same time. You helped us frame what we often feel in teams in an understandable way that actually calls us to do something about it. Thank you for doing this critical work with so much passion. It brought hope to many across the globe! And we loved all the ways you kept up the energy!"
- Manali Shah, Event Manager IAF Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
"Thank you so much for bringing SUCH a wonderful event to our community. People walked away buzzing. Let's keep in touch! That was too good to only do once."
- Quinn Rose, Director, City Club of Central Oregon
"This was an EXCELLENT session! I’m already getting thank you email from attendees for the great presentation and insights. Elise did an incredible job delivering value for everyone who joined.”
- Jennifer Wicks, L&D Executive, CSU Office of the Chancellor
Your leadership team approved another culture initiative. Six months later, the same problems persist.
Organizations spend $60 billion annually on leadership development, yet 93% of executives say their companies are failing to build effective leaders. The problem isn't necessarily bad content or weak providers. It's how leaders contract for culture work: buying one-off workshops and retreats without reinforcement, assessing against generic standards that reveal nothing actionable, and focusing on isolated fixes instead of a connected system.
This session introduces a portfolio approach to managing culture investments. You'll learn why most initiatives fail—not because the work was bad, but because it was contracted for the wrong level of support. Through real case studies spanning manufacturing, pharma, tech, and infrastructure, we'll examine what happens when you try to fix a node without addressing the network, and how to follow the chain reactions that reveal where your investments can compound.
TAKEAWAYS:
This is an interactive session. You'll explore how to apply these frameworks to real scenarios, compare notes with peers, and leave with a diagnostic tool you can use immediately. Designed for leaders who are tired of funding theater and ready to manage culture investments that make work genuinely better.
In this interactive session, we'll explore a visual framework for identifying group frames and then delve into how intentionally shifting perspectives can help teams navigate challenges and unlock new growth opportunities. Discover practical strategies for mapping and shifting perspectives in your daily interactions to build empathy, enhance team dynamics, solve problems, drive innovation, and adapt to change more effectively.
Learning Objectives:
Escape the quagmire of endless deliberation and conflicting priorities! This talk delivers a three-part strategy to unshackle your team from decision-making paralysis. Learn how to cut through the fog of competing interests, clearly define who calls the shots, and kick your decision-making into high gear. Leave armed with actionable tools that streamline your team's decision processes and let you pivot with agility.
A leader from Indonesia asked me: "What do I say to get my team to trust each other?"
His team was polite in meetings. Problems only surfaced later. His organization is doing critical work—helping refugees, building economies, and elevating women. Dysfunctional teams mean real people don't get help.
He was asking the wrong question. Team trust isn't built through better talking alone —it's built by creating systems where trust can flourish.
I asked the 25 leaders—gathered in Germany while I joined from Portland at 5 am—to share what works on their teams. Three jumped in: daily check-ins, a "no surprises" rule where you raise problems before deadlines, and Friday week-in-review accountability checks over coffee.
The Indonesian leader stopped taking notes. Then he said, "I've been trying to fix trust by talking about it with my team. But the real problem is I haven't designed my team's work to make it easy for people to keep their commitments to each other."
By the end of that session (which was unexpectedly cut from three hours to two, delivered hybrid across eight time zones to leaders who spoke English as a second language) every participant identified something they were going to change about how they led their teams.
I shared the importance of creating the right conditions. Then we created those conditions right there, so leaders could learn from the real experts—each other.
My mom and I raced to be the first in our family to earn a college degree. She won by three months, finishing her nursing degree in April. I finished my theatre degree in June. Her degree led to steady work. Mine led to waitressing.
When my kids arrived, I needed a more reliable income, so I moved into tech. A young mother with a theatre degree on a team of male engineers high on startup fumes—plenty of barriers to navigate.
But also gifts. My background in the arts taught me to see what my engineering colleagues often missed: the way people interact shapes what's possible. You can't code your way to alignment, or logic clients into trusting you. I became fascinated by how the best leaders design workplaces that nurture quality interactions—the meetings, the rituals, the ways of working—to achieve all their goals.
After 25 years of focused practice, I help other leaders see what I saw. Not the fluffy stuff. The structural stuff. How the way you design collaboration either enables or blocks the work you're trying to do.
"Nailed it. That was exactly what we needed to hear."
- Rochelle Arnold-Simmons, Sr. Director Talent & Org Development, Under Armour
"That was such an engaging, inspiring, and relevant experience for us and the group. You really engaged our head, heart, and hands with such grace, lightness, and depth at the same time. You helped us frame what we often feel in teams in an understandable way that actually calls us to do something about it. Thank you for doing this critical work with so much passion. It brought hope to many across the globe! And we loved all the ways you kept up the energy!"
- Manali Shah, Event Manager IAF Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
"Thank you so much for bringing SUCH a wonderful event to our community. People walked away buzzing. Let's keep in touch! That was too good to only do once."
- Quinn Rose, Director, City Club of Central Oregon
"This was an EXCELLENT session! I’m already getting thank you email from attendees for the great presentation and insights. Elise did an incredible job delivering value for everyone who joined.”
- Jennifer Wicks, L&D Executive, CSU Office of the Chancellor
Your leadership team approved another culture initiative. Six months later, the same problems persist.
Organizations spend $60 billion annually on leadership development, yet 93% of executives say their companies are failing to build effective leaders. The problem isn't necessarily bad content or weak providers. It's how leaders contract for culture work: buying one-off workshops and retreats without reinforcement, assessing against generic standards that reveal nothing actionable, and focusing on isolated fixes instead of a connected system.
This session introduces a portfolio approach to managing culture investments. You'll learn why most initiatives fail—not because the work was bad, but because it was contracted for the wrong level of support. Through real case studies spanning manufacturing, pharma, tech, and infrastructure, we'll examine what happens when you try to fix a node without addressing the network, and how to follow the chain reactions that reveal where your investments can compound.
TAKEAWAYS:
This is an interactive session. You'll explore how to apply these frameworks to real scenarios, compare notes with peers, and leave with a diagnostic tool you can use immediately. Designed for leaders who are tired of funding theater and ready to manage culture investments that make work genuinely better.
In this interactive session, we'll explore a visual framework for identifying group frames and then delve into how intentionally shifting perspectives can help teams navigate challenges and unlock new growth opportunities. Discover practical strategies for mapping and shifting perspectives in your daily interactions to build empathy, enhance team dynamics, solve problems, drive innovation, and adapt to change more effectively.
Learning Objectives:
Escape the quagmire of endless deliberation and conflicting priorities! This talk delivers a three-part strategy to unshackle your team from decision-making paralysis. Learn how to cut through the fog of competing interests, clearly define who calls the shots, and kick your decision-making into high gear. Leave armed with actionable tools that streamline your team's decision processes and let you pivot with agility.