Worklab Speaker Series - December

Join us at Worklab Ada for our monthly Speaker Series - fresh ideas, great conversations, and connection with West Michigan professionals. Designed to Perform: A Hands-On Business Simulation Why working harder rarely fixes a performance problem When results fall short, most leaders look first at effort, staffing, or motivation. Often the bigger influence is the system people are working inside. In this interactive 60-minute session, attendees will work in teams through a hands-on business simulation and see that idea play out in real time. Come ready to participate, test a few assumptions, and leave with a new way of looking at how work gets done in your business. What You'll Learn: • See how systems drive performance. Experience how the design of work shapes productivity, quality, and results, even when everyone is putting in full effort. • Separate growth from operational capacity. More demand, more people, and more revenue can strain a business that isn't built to absorb them. Explore why capacity has to be designed on purpose. • Improve the system before adding resources. Practice spotting constraints and measuring improvement, with a clear path to applying the same thinking in your own operations. Meet our Speaker Donny Nguyen is a family business strategist and the founder of VanderWinn Consulting, where he helps owners of family-owned and closely held businesses build the systems that make sustainable growth possible. With more than 20 years of experience across corporate leadership, operations, supply chain, finance, and entrepreneurship, he brings a practical, systems-based approach to business performance. Donny holds an MBA from Michigan State University and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). His working philosophy: every business performs exactly the way it was designed to, and the more useful question is whether that design was intentional. About Worklab Worklab is a flexible workspace and meeting destination with locations in Ada Village and Downtown Grand Rapids. We offer coworking memberships, day passes, private meeting rooms, and spaces for team meetings, offsites, and events. Our Speaker Series is one of the ways we bring the local business community together to learn, connect, and share ideas. If you’re joining us for the event, we hope you’ll take a look around while you’re here. And if you’re looking for a productive place to work, meet with your team, or host an upcoming meeting, we’d love to have you back!