Travels from London, United Kingdom
Ben Hines's speaking fee falls within range: $30,000 to $50,000
Businessman and musician Ben Hines improves the way groups do business through teaching them how to harness the power of music. He is Founder and Director of Moving Performance, a consulting firm that has moved some of the world’s top companies toward more collaborative and productive outcomes.
Prior to forming a firm that married his passion for music to his knowledge of business, Ben spent a decade transforming teams’ performances at the U.K.’s Barclays bank. He designed and managed product portfolios in the U.K., Wealth, and African markets, giving Ben an extensive range of commercial experience that allows him to relate to and empower his clients at Moving Performance.
Ben has also taught music at an international school in Kenya and served as a mentor and non-executive director to teenage inner city entrepreneurs in the London-based organization Young Enterprise.
Ben Hines founded Moving Performance in 2009 bringing together his two passions: people development and music. He uniquely combines his 18 years of commercial experience in the corporate world with his own musical abilities as an orchestral French horn player.
Working with some of the world’s leading companies, Ben has used music to help both executive boards and emerging leaders to reflect on their strengths and those of others, to move toward more collaborative and productive outcomes. He works across the world facilitating leadership programs and as a conference keynote speaker.
In his earlier career Ben led high-performing teams in the financial and legal service industries. As strategic marketer for Barclays PLC he created and implemented numerous innovative segmented product solutions across multiple countries extending Barclays’ international coverage. With CPA Global, a leading legal services provider, he advised and brought significant change to how the company structured itself to maximize its key markets.
Ben is married, has five young children and lives in London.
Ben Hines examines what makes exceptional leaders exceptional through the lens of playing the French horn, deemed the most difficult instrument to play by the Guinness Book of World Records. In certain pieces of music that lead with the French horn, horn players decide how much risk they are going to take to get to perfection, a decision that sets the tone for the rest of the symphony and performance. These players have the potential to launch an inspirational musical experience or bring down the entire orchestra.
Likewise, leaders and the directions they take, their self-awareness, and ability to learn about themselves can raise a company to new heights, take it into promising new territory, or mark its demise. Emphasizing the influence that leaders have, Ben states that: “Leadership is the difference between a mediocre company and a great company.”
Ben Hines applies the magic of music to address six key areas vital to any organization’s well being. Implementing a range of approaches, he uses composing, making musical instruments, listening to music, singing, and performing to engage proven theory on leadership, communication, team-working, and emotional intelligence.
Each program is tailored to the group’s size and objectives. Ben collaborates with coordinators to plan a keynote speech with you, and lead an interactive musical activity that will break down inhibitions and inspire your teams with your key messages and goals. He can also incorporate professional musicians to break down inhibitions and make your conference or away day a tangible success.
Change Management Change can be difficult.
It could be the result of an M&A or perhaps you have a new leadership team. Maybe you're wanting to shift your business paradigm. Mismanage the transition and your business will lose productivity.
One of the most significant challenges facing businesses today is how to bring your people with you through these times. Most leaders are good at communicating change rationally. But change is also emotional. Ben can help you get under the skin of the issue.
His creative solutions help teams express how they feel about change, and allow them to develop a greater understanding of how they can work together more effectively in a changing environment.
Time and again he's seen people embrace change, quickly and more effectively, leading to increased engagement and more productivity. He'll help you speak both to the hearts and minds of your people, to get everyone singing from the same song sheet.
Effective Communication Communication is the heart of good business.
Listening to needs. Expressing opinion. Voicing solutions. Communication is complex and subtle. And as many leaders will well know, the success of your business can depend as much on the nuance of non-verbal communication as much as it does on clear verbal communication.
Ben and his team find that in the complexity and nuance of music, there's a lot of crossover with business.
By creating and performing music together with your teams, he'll help you take the communication skills of a successful string quartet or a sell-out rock band and transfer them to your teams.
Leadership Growth You're under the pressure of expectation to perform.
The spotlight is on you to empower a large group of exceptionally talented, emotional individuals. You have to lead them in working together as a single, multi-disciplinary, high performing team. Right here. Right now.
How would you do it?
For an orchestral conductor this is a daily task. Ben will show you and your leaders how conductors lead musicians to play at their very highest capability under pressure. By taking musical leadership as a model for business leadership, and creating role-play scenarios where you are expected to lead and inspire a high performing team, he'll explore with you how to you can get the highest standards of performance from your teams, and exceed the expectations of your clients.
Team Development Teamwork is essential to business success.
Without collaboration in music you get a cacophony. Without co-operation in business you get chaos. We know that teamwork doesn't always come naturally or easily, but we have fun, motivational, rewarding and memorable solutions that will build relationships in your teams. Ben will help your teams achieve the impossible together.
Keeping your specific business objectives in mind, he'll get even the least musical of your people writing and performing music with their colleagues. He offers bespoke musical experiences that will stretch your teams and help them learn the vital skills of working effectively together.
Emotional Awareness The nuance is as important as the note.
Without emotion, music is flat and dull. Many successful organizations have realized that without emotional intelligence, their business is weaker. Strengthening the emotional quotient in your people will help them to lead co-operative and collaborative teams. Music opens up emotions in a non-threatening and accessible way.
Taking your business objectives, Ben will connect to the heart of the issues you and your people face. Using music he'll facilitate how emotional intelligence can help to move your organization forwards.
Vision Creation There's no sound without a score.
Having a clear plan is key to good business. But more than that, is having a clear vision. With a score in front of them, an orchestra can play the right notes at the right time. But with an inspiring conductor leading the score, they create music.
Ben and his team can help you transform your plan into a vision, using music as the metaphor for encouraging, inspiring and empowering your people to move into a successful future.
SPEAKING.COM: What do you want people to learn/take away from your presentations?
HINES: I want them to leave feeling inspired, empowered and brave enough to step out and go for “it” in whatever their organisation is asking them to do. I want audiences to have an experience like no other Keynote speech, an experience that is inclusive, practically engaging, and will stand the test of time in their memory banks. I also want them to learn and apply key leadership insights, and thoughts that we bring out in the session.
SPEAKING.COM: What kind of special prep work do you do prior to an event? How do you prepare for your speaking engagements?
HINES: It is most important for me to understand what the client / sponsor is wanting from the event as a whole and the Keynote session. I will then tailor my input to meet these needs. I prepare by discussing the above with the sponsor and other key stakeholders to build a picture of the client situation. I like to sit throughout the whole conference to learn on the ground what it is all about, and then I flex and finalize my session to capture the nuances and essence of the event.
SPEAKING.COM: Have you had any particularly memorable speaking engagements / unusual situations arise while on the road?
HINES: The time we got a group of 20 people to flashmob my Keynote in a room of 550 with a song they had written the day before gave me goosebumps! Each speaking engagement is different because we tailor it for each client, but we have some cool stories.
Once in Croatia there was a cubicle at the bank of the conference hall with a team of interpreters translating my speech into multiple languages for the audience – it gave me a glimpse of what the United Nations must be like!
One of the biggest complements I had was from a camera man at a conference in Europe. He was filming the session (along with about 4 other guys) and they had a “TV director” at the back communicating to them through headsets where to stand/go. He came up to me after the speech and said “Ben, I loved what you were saying – it was so interesting! In fact, my Director told me off halfway through, because I was so focused on listening to what you were saying, I forgot I was filming you!”. This meant a lot to me coming from a guy who would have filmed numerous corporate events, meaning that ours was pretty standout to him.
SPEAKING.COM: What types of audiences would most benefit from your message?
HINES: We speak to all levels in organizations. Our leadership messaging is particularly powerful to middle – senior management and we love working with organizations that are keen to push boundaries and move forward.
SPEAKING.COM: Which of your keynote speaking topics are your favorites and why?
HINES: I love talking about courage and being brave enough to step out and achieve what might feel impossible. This is because I have had to (and still do) tread this path and that I genuinely believe that people are limited only by the lack of their ambition. We try and show them through music they can achieve all sorts of exciting possibilities.
SPEAKING.COM: What inspired you to start doing speaking engagements?
HINES: I once led a group of 25 bankers in an a capella performance of a song we wrote in response to the content of the conference. The audience consisted of 150 colleagues and the impact on them was extraordinary – people were literally moved to tears. It was that moment that made me realize I had a gift to lead and inspire people in the corporate world with music – and that inspired me to become a speaker.
SPEAKING.COM: How do you keep your audience engaged and actively listening during your keynotes? Do you use case studies, personal stories and/or in your speeches?
HINES: I keep it interactive – involving the audience in musical exercises and discussion. I also use anecdotes, stories and link them to their business objectives. In most of our conference offerings there is a big scale musical “activity” that the participants are actively involved in – and that most certainly keeps them on their toes and out of their seats.
SPEAKING.COM: What are some of the successes you’ve helped clients achieve?
HINES: Some of the successes include:
“Ben and his team are AMAZING! Their ability to quickly understand, simplify and orchestrate a 500 person team toward a common cultural mission was beyond my expectations! In 90 minutes, they took us out of our comfort zone and the outcome was a mindset of a FASTER, SIMPLER and TOGETHER Cisco IT – with a recording that I can¹t get out of my head. : ) Thank you Ben and Team!!” -Cisco
“You sometimes meet people who have passion coming out of every pore, but not often. To meet someone like this, who’s passion is to help others, is unique in my experience. It is for this reason that I have no hesitation in recommending Ben to anyone who wants help in building their team. A talented musician, a far-sighted faciltator with a clear vision of how to help other people makes him someone you should speak to. – Associate Course Director THE LEADERSHIP TRUST
“Compose a piece of music? But we work in IT! We ‘faced the music’ with Moving Performance to discover new team dynamics that previously had evaded us in the 9 to 5 workplace. Team building has never been so engaging drawing out raw passion and emotion amongst the group that would otherwise have lay dormant. A unique experience! Encore!” – Head of Account Delivery ACCENTURE
“Having produced conferences for over twenty years I was struck by how Moving Performance offers something refreshingly new to clients. They weld the interactive, creative elements of their presentation with the business messages extremely well. Ben has a likeable style and his preparation is meticulous; he carefully researches the business objectives of the client and tailors a solution around this. His own commercial leadership experience gains credibility and empathy with the audience allowing him to obtain speedy buy-in which makes the whole team ethic he promotes more relevant and powerful.” – Managing Director 2IIS
“I recently attended Know the Score®, using music as a metaphor for leadership at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was the most incredible experience I have had on a leadership learning day. The way Ben and team intertwines music and contextualises it with business is superb and leaves you with a wow factor. The boring sporting analogies are a thing of the past… As a result of my first experience I asked Ben to facilitate a leadership piece at the Callcredit Management Conference focused on Collaboration, Agility and Innovation. The result was stunning and attendees are still talking about the experience weeks later, I would suggest the output will live on in our organisation for a long time to come. If you are looking to develop your leaders or managers and want a truly world class unforgettable experience speak to Ben.”
– Chief Operating Officer CALLCREDIT INFORMATION GROUP
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