Motivational Speaking
Lisa Fitzhugh
Past Keynotes

A collection of excerpts from past keynote speeches that touch on leadership, introspection, creativity, stepping up, and more.

Past Keynotes
Team Building
Lisa Fitzhugh
Adventure on the High Seas

This essay was based on a vivid and disturbing dream. It describes a large ship of adolescents trying to sail into a fierce storm, unable to harness the power of their collective courage and creativity to save themselves.  It speaks to what’s needed for any team to assemble well and survive such times. 

Adventure on the High Seas
Creativity
Lisa Fitzhugh
A Fool's Errand

In this essay, I highlight the essential role of the fool and his/her capacity to challenge our assumptions about what we accept as the truth, the key to any creative endeavor worth its salt. This may be more relevant now in 2025 than when I wrote it in 2021.

A Fool's Errand
Team Building
Lisa Fitzhugh
An Act of Imagination

During the pandemic we had different experiences of the lockdowns, the virus, and other people’s choices.  I encourage people to consider that we are, each of us, afraid of different things. So if something scary is happening ‘out there,’ it’s important that some people hold less fear, otherwise the collective nervous system would collapse under the strain. 

An Act of Imagination
Leadership Coaching
Lisa Fitzhugh
Leading From the Inside Out

How we lead is directly related to how well we tend to our inner emotional and psychic landscape. Whatever untended ‘business’ inside of us will be projected onto the people around us, especially if we hold more positional authority.   

Leading From the Inside Out

Leadership Case Studies

King County Transit

King County Transit engaged me for several years on a variety of projects.

Rob Gannon hired me to support his first year as General Manager with King County Metro-Transit.  He was taking over from a GM who had been in place for many years and was seeking to establish a strong foundation for his executive team and a different leadership culture.  I coached all members of his team, facilitated several team retreats and supported them to identify the practices and agreements they would commit to over time to sustain trust, and engage in collective sense- and decision-making.   

“As a leadership coach, Lisa has shown me how to wrestle with competing forces–even the ones I had labeled irreconcilable.  With her support and guidance, I have found ways to energize inside of conflict, whether it be actual “on the ground” issues, or the sparring of my own internal demons and better angels.  I am finding ways to cast off the archetypes of traditional leadership in favor of expressing myself genuinely.  And my team, my whole organization, for that matter, is refreshingly responsive.  Lisa is interwoven grace and tenacity; equal parts gunnery sergeant and zen master.”

–Rob Gannon, King County Transit General Manager

The Creative Ground team was also hired by King County Transit’s Design & Construction Division to help remedy an incoherent leadership team and a disjointed culture amongst its engineers and project managers.  The culture that its new Manager Pete Melin stepped into was dominated by petty politics, blame lack of accountability, all too common within deep bureaucracies.  We interviewed a select group of staff, developed an organizational culture assessment and suggested a slate of recommendations to rebuild the senior team and develop better practices of communication across the Division. 

“We worked with Lisa over several productive months when I took over a section of Metro Transit that was struggling with trust and communication issues.  Lisa is an insightful, compassionate truth teller who will provide you valuable feedback and tools.  She truly cares yet she’ll tell you what she sees, not necessarily what you want to hear.  If you are willing to acknowledge the true state of affairs, and buy into a collaborative plan, you’ll not be disappointed. From organizational development, to executive coaching, or anywhere in between, Lisa provides a positive view of leadership, staff, or organizational challenges and an achievable path to improvement.”

–Peter Melin, previous Manager, King County Transit Design & Construction

Regional & Rural Services

King County’s Director of Regional & Rural Services, Joan Lee, hired me to bring her leadership team back together in 2023, the first time they had come together in person following the pandemic.  Since then, I have continued to support them to create more reflective time together to face some uncomfortable realities as many of them start to consider retirement and how to grow the next generation of leadership.  Specifically, I have helped Joan challenge older assumptions she carried about herself and her own leadership, which has been food and inspiration for her team.

“Lisa Fitzhugh came with outstanding recommendations from a colleague at the County.  Over the last few years, she has supported our leadership team into a more generative, integrated and productive collaboration.  She has also coached challenged me to think differently about my approach. We collaborated on a learning map process to incisively pinpoint the most profitable area for me to grow around related to my own leadership development.  The whole team stronger, and I have moved to a place of more authentic transparency.  I am so grateful for Lisa’s clarity and conviction in the leadership she has drawn out of me and our leadership team members.”

-Joan Lee, Director of Regional & Rural Services, King County DNRP