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Erica
Dhawan

Leading Authority on Collaboration and Innovation

Profile

When leaders want to break team silos, drive exponential growth and
innovate through teamwork, they call Erica Dhawan.

Erica Dhawan is an internationally recognized leading authority, speaker and advisor on 21st-century teamwork, collaboration and innovation.

Named as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world by
Thinkers50, she is the author of two bestselling books, Get Big Things
Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence and Digital Body
Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance.
As we continue to experience an increasingly digital world where work
practices are changing at a blistering pace, Erica shares innovative
strategies to unlock the collective power of teams, build a culture of trust across any distance and create authentic engagement to ensure
competitiveness.

Rated #1 on the Top Women Keynote Speakers list, Erica frequently appears in the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. Erica speaks on global stages ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos, to the US Army, to companies such as Coca-Cola, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, and Cisco.

She holds degrees from Harvard University, MIT Sloan, and The Wharton School.

Expertise
Talking Points

Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence

We live in a world of endless meetings, emails, constant cross-team dysfunction, duplication and delays. Our collaboration skills aren’t always working to unlock better value in our business. As radical a concept as Emotional Intelligence was in the 90s, Connectional Intelligence is turning people into super connectors who accelerate innovation, break down silos and foster breakthrough bottom-line impact by harnessing the power of networks.

Learning Outcomes:
- Learn successful tactics to address communication overload and foster authentic, innovation-driving relationships
- Discover tools to break down silos and keep teams aligned, accountable, and motivated both in-person and online
- Gain specific actions to foster loyalty, respect, collaboration, and innovation across stakeholder networks, regardless of physical distance

Digital Body Language: Collaborate Faster and Further, Together

Email replies that show up a week later. Video chats full of “oops... sorry no you go” and “can you hear me?!” Ambiguous text messages. Is it any wonder communication takes us so much time and effort to figure out? How did we lose our innate capacity to understand each other?

Humans rely on body language to connect and build trust, but with most of our communication happening from behind a screen, traditional body language signals are no longer visible - or are they? In her keynote, Erica combines cutting edge research with engaging storytelling to decode the new signals and cues that have replaced traditional body language. In-person, we lean in, uncross our arms, smile, nod and make eye contact to show we listen and care. Online, reading carefully is the new listening. Writing clearly is the new empathy. And a phone or video call is worth a thousand emails.

In this keynote, Erica will supercharge your teams with collectively understood rules that foster connection, build trust and drive innovation.

Learning Outcomes:
- Understand your collaboration style and the digital body language signals you may be broadcasting (even if you don't intend to!)
- Create cultures of maniacal clarity across email, phone, IM, text, video and even live meetings
- Develop a collaboration strategy that fosters valuable relationships, both in-person and online
- End cultures of useless meetings, missed deadlines, and digital misunderstandings

Concrete Empathy: A Playbook for Leading Modern Teams to Innovation

We live in a culture defined by a distinct empathy deficit: The boss who expresses displeasure without giving valuable feedback. The mansplaining colleague who has no interest in the opinions of others. The team member who spends most of the meeting texting and answering emails.

Why is empathy today at such a low point? Fewer face-to-face interactions, an ever-accelerating pace of change, and an increasing number of matrixed teams working remotely.

In this keynote, attendees will learn practical ways to activate Concrete Empathy to create cultures of psychological safety, employee engagement, wellbeing and innovation.

Learning Outcomes:
- Discover simple ways to signal understanding and empathy across difference and distance
- Learn rules of thumb to avoid misunderstanding, ambiguity, and conflict
- Gain tools to foster innovation and create lasting relationships both within your organization and with clients, customers and other key stakeholders

Maniacal Clarity: Reimagine Leadership to Drive Impactful Innovation

We used to think of leadership as constant hustle and grit - the leader that never slept, sent profits through the roof, and embodied the classic rags-to-riches story… But this tired playbook doesn’t seem to work as well as it once did. What changed? What makes a 21st-century leader and a great team now? Is it their ability to tell stories? Their decision-making skills? Their communication style?

The critical missing factor is Maniacal Clarity. This is when leaders give their teams exactly what they need to do their absolute best work and enable them to be empowered to influence anyone, anytime, anywhere. Without it, even skilled, motivated, and effective teams languish, with cross-team dysfunction, duplicative work, and unhealthy internal competition. Maniacal Clarity in our modern world delivers the ability to spark overarching optimism, inspirational imagination, continuous courage, and fast focus.

In her new keynote, WSJ bestselling author and world-renowned speaker Erica Dhawan constructs a new framework for truly shifting minds and changing hearts, in the office, across any distance, and with customers. Based on years of research and advising the respected companies around the world, this keynote promises a ground-breaking look into the science, frameworks, and stories of how to inspire anyone, anytime, anywhere to deliver their best results.

Key outcomes include:
- Conduct your own clarity audit of your workplace and assess your own Maniacal Clarity habits
- Learn the 4 foundations of Maniacal Clarity and how to bring it to everyone around you with optimism, imagination, courage, and focus
- Assess your strengths and opportunities to become a Maniacal Clarity change agent
- Develop an action plan to inspire your teams, customers, and the world around you to drive performance, teamwork, and innovation
Feedback
Non-verbal cues are vital to understanding each other. Now that so much communication happens online--and with the massive shift to distance learning and remote workplaces--we need Erica Dhawan’s book more than ever. In Digital Body Language, Erica shares tips and strategies for communicating effectively on chats, emails, and video calls, so everyone can successfully share and connect in the digital age. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

Erica offers a profound look at how to foster inclusion and better leadership in our digital world.

Billie Jean King, Founder, Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative

Terrific. Our leaders were very engaged and had immediate practical takeaways. Erica made a big impact.

Deloitte

Erica’s session was engaging, relevant, and actionable. She is thoughtful, inspirational, and smart with a contagious positive energy. All organizations and executive leaders would benefit from having her as an advisor to drive behavioral change, harness the power of networks, and think beyond traditional cohorts. She is a thought leader in the development of collaborative ways of working, improving productivity and customer engagement and experience.

Korn Ferry

Erica’s presentation was absolutely perfect for our leaders. Our group was diverse and Erica was a hit with everyone! Her storytelling style of presenting along with a healthy dose of informative case studies kept everyone engaged and interested and excited about using connectional intelligence to transform our business.

Sodexo

As a presenter at our organization's first large scale virtual conference, Erica delivered a keynote session that was not only engaging and thought-provoking, it was extremely relevant to what our organizational membership is currently experiencing. Erica's presentation took viewers outside of their home offices and truly felt like a live, in-person event.

AACSB International

Erica delivered an outstanding keynote. Her message about digital body language could not be more relevant and timely than it is today.

Association for Talent Development

Erica’s presentation was an absolute hit.

Miami Heat

So many of us saw ourselves in the vignettes that you shared both in terms of what we are doing well and areas that we need to develop. We appreciate that your tips were very practical and easily implementable. Incredibly good takeaways!

World Bank

WOW, what an incredible message you delivered today! I was getting feedback during the event from so many attendees saying how relevant and relatable your content was.

CDWG

Erica was even more impressive, relatable and engaging in person, I really enjoyed the session and Erica has a unique way of making you feel in a group she is speaking directly to you.

Sony
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