Erica Dhawan

When leaders want to break team silos, drive exponential growth, and innovate through teamwork, they call Erica Dhawan. Dhawan is an internationally recognized authority, speaker, and advisor on 21st century teamwork, collaboration, and innovation, and was named one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. In this era of digital-first workplaces, she shares innovative strategies to help business leaders unlock the collective power of teams, build a culture of trust across any distance, and create authentic engagement that drives sustainable growth and competitiveness.

Dhawan is the CEO of Cotential, a firm that helps modern leaders develop so they can drive disruptive thinking while removing bureaucracies and inefficient communication patterns. As a speaker, she has presented to organizations and enterprises ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos to the US Army and companies such as Coca-Cola, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, and Cisco. Real Leaders named Dhawan #1 among their “Top 20 Women Keynote Speakers of 2020.”

With degrees from Harvard University, MIT Sloan, and The Wharton School, Dhawan has taught courses in leadership and collaboration at both Harvard and MIT. She is also the host of the award-winning podcast Masters of Leadership, and the bestselling author of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence and Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance.

SALES:
Selling Value in a 21st Century Marketplace: The Power of Connectional Intelligence +

Selling value in a 21st century marketplace demands a significant transformation in go-to-market strategies and a profound evolution in salespeoples' omnichannel communication skills and competencies—where up to 70% of sales interactions are virtual-first. We no longer rely solely on the lean-in, handshake, and eye contact. Today, reading virtual cues carefully is the new listening and writing emails clearly is the new empathy.

Erica Dhawan, author of the WSJ bestselling books Get Big Things Done and Digital Body Language, is the go-to expert helping salespeople become superconnectors to decode the new signals and cues of prospects and customers by mastering the power of Connectional Intelligence. In this keynote, learn the differences between the buyer’s brain during virtual interactions and in-person meetings, how to tackle the unconscious cognitive bias in both in-person and digital sales interactions, and how to elevate your presence and increase your level of influence using omnichannel communications. Salespeople will leave blown away by how to better connect with customers, build stronger relationships, and drive sales success in the modern age.

Learning Outcomes:

• Decipher Digital and In-Person Body Language: Master the ability to read and respond to the subtle cues of your prospects and customers, both online and offline.
• Optimize Omnichannel Communications: Embrace and effectively utilize a variety of communication channels, tailored to your prospects' and customers' digital and generational preferences.
• Craft Personal and Emotional Experiences: Create compelling virtual experiences that keep prospects engaged and eager for more in-person and virtual interactions.
• Balance Real-Time and Asynchronous Communication: Strategically use real-time interactions (live meetings, phone, video, chat) and asynchronous methods (email, text, social media) to maximize engagement and productivity. --

LEADERSHIP:
Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence +

We live in a world of endless meetings, emails, and 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. In this presentation, teamwork and collaboration expert Erica Dhawan will show you how to harness this powerful new idea.

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 / Communication:
Collaborate Faster and Further, Together
Learn the new common sense rules of effective communication on digital teams across business silos, levels, backgrounds and regions. +

We all leave a digital impression on each other. If someone doesn’t text back for hours or even days, do you think they are being rude? Is using an emoji or LOL unprofessional, or creating a human connection with your team? What impression does your boss, team, or colleague think of that kind of behavior? Whether your team works on separate floors, buildings or even countries, they have to connect online in order to collaborate. These new misunderstandings are happening all day, every day. They’re reducing your employee engagement, morale, and team performance each time.

In this keynote, you will learn new rules and nuances of Digital Body Language, the new requirement to innovate faster and further together, led by collaboration expert Erica Dhawan.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand your collaboration style and what digital body language signals you are broadcasting (even if you don’t intend to!)
• Create cultures of maniacal clarity in email, phone, IM, text, video mediums and even live meetings in the new normal
• Develop a collaboration strategy to create the highest performing teams and relationships --

COMMUNICATION:
Maniacal Clarity: Reimagine Leadership to Drive Impactful Innovation
Inspire Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere +

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, 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 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.

Learning Outcomes:

• 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 --
  

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 presentation, attendees will learn practical ways to activate concrete empathy to create cultures of psychological safety, employee engagement, well-being, 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. --