A maximum-security prison unit is not the typical training ground for an internationally renowned management consultant. But for Dr. Frank Petrock, founder of General Systems Consulting Group and president of the LEAD Institute for High Potential Managers, the experience and insights he developed there served as the basis for what has proven to be a highly successful 30 year career as a psychologist, organizational consultant, workshop leader and author.

Confronted with the challenge at age 25 of being the warden of a maximum security Readjustment Unit for difficult to manage inmates, Dr. Petrock designed an innovative process for behavior and organizational change deep inside prison walls. His goal was to bring out the best in inmates upon whom everyone had given up.

Perhaps he reasoned, the inmate’s deviant behavior in prison was more a function of how the prison was managed rather than the inmate’s own pathology. The first step he reasoned was to change the prison itself and then perhaps the inmate’s behavior would change as well. The program of changes that he implemented resulted in a dramatic improvement in inmate behavior. From this initial success he developed a lifelong career of helping organizations change in ways that would make them more productive and better places in which to work.

In the early 1970’s Dr. Petrock's innovative work in the field of treatment and corrections led to an invitation by the Department of Psychology at The University of Michigan to earn a Ph.D. in behavior and social change and, as his professors pointed out, to learn the theory behind his successful innovations in prisons.

Dr. Petrock has literally gone from the cell block to the board room. Today, he and his firm consult for a host of Fortune 500 Companies. Dr. Petrock has become an internationally recognized authority on organizational culture, leadership, team effectiveness, performance improvement and change management. The transition from prisons to corporations started when a manager of a well known corporation asked Frank to create the same type of motivational environment in his factory that Frank did in prison. He did. The rest is history.

In addition, he has served on the faculty of numerous corporate and university based executive education programs in North America, Europe, South East Asia and Australia. Frank is also a featured keynote speaker for corporate and association sponsored conferences, workshops and executive off-sites.

Dr. Petrock proves to be an engaging, dynamic and humorous speaker whose presentations enlighten and energize his audiences. He speaks from first-hand experience and imbues his presentations with wonderfully graphic anecdote to illustrate key learning points, many of them from his years behind bars. Audiences find Dr. Petrock fascinating, entertaining, informative and a hands-on kind of a guy. “Frank gets his message across.”
“Brilliant! It was nice to have a more active session. Very well presented” Dr. Petrock is prepared to speak on a number of management related topics that draw upon his expertise behind both prison and corporate walls. Some of these topics include: