Erica Dhawan

We typically associate success with speed and smarts. But in today’s hypercompetitive world, even those gifts aren’t enough.

Collaboration expert Erica Dhawan argues that the game changer is a thoroughly modern skill called Connectional Intelligence (CxQ). As radical a concept as Emotional Intelligence was in the 90s, Connectional Intelligence is turning people into superconnectors who accelerate innovation, break down silos and foster breakthrough impact.

This dynamic, engaging, high-energy, fast-paced session will help participants understand the practice of using connectional intelligence as the key to purposeful collaboration, resilience, and business success.

Attendees will shift the notion of collaboration from more meetings and emails to productive engagement that improves speed and quality of service, increases subject matter expertise and specialist sharing across silos, reduces cross-team dysfunction and delay, and eliminates duplicative work.

Attendees will learn new insights and tools to accelerate the connected power of teams, become more agile and innovative, and drive breakthrough ideas and outcomes.

Learning Outcomes:

• Discover new ways to lead, inspire, and communicate with diverse teams through uncertainty
• Learn how to keep cross team collaborations aligned, build trust, and foster motivation
• Gain specific actions to inspire teamwork, innovation, resilience, revitalization, and results-driven progress
• Behaviors to understand and build trust and connection, no matter the distance

• 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.

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 across genders, generations, and cultures.

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 Dhawan, author of the bestselling book DIGITAL BODY LANGUAGE 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

This isn’t your ordinary keynote; it’s a front-row seat to the future of inspiration and impact in the age of AI. WSJ Bestselling Author and award winning keynote speaker Erica Dhawan promises not just a talk but an immersive experience, where the secrets to unlocking peak performance and team spirit are revealed in the new world of work. Get ready to be captivated, motivated, and equipped with the tools to bring out the best in yourself and those around you.

Discover the exact strategies to build 21st century teams that defy the odds, whether it’s how to be a better leader in the AI revolution or turn challenges into triumphs in the digital-first world. Spoiler alert: AI won’t replace us, but leaders who master it will redefine the game. Globally recognized teamwork expert Erica Dhawan provides actionable insights, equipping attendees with the knowledge and strategies to not only adapt to the changing landscape but to thrive in it.

Key Takeaways:

• Build Trust in Times of Change: Learn proven techniques to foster trust within teams amidst constant digital and AI transformation.
• Thrive Amid Uncertainty: Gain actionable tips to enhance engagement, minimize friction, and confidently navigate the unpredictable terrain.
• AI as a Leadership Tool: Recognize AI as an asset rather than a threat, and harness its capabilities for organizational success.
• Cultivate Team Spirit: Uncover strategies to enhance collaboration, experimentation, and camaraderie within your teams.

We live in a culture defined by a distinct empathy deficit: The boss who constantly emails you are “wrong”—but never shows you how to correct those mistakes. The colleague who mansplains you to death in every conference call and has no interest in what you have to say. The team member who won’t stop looking at her phone as you share sensitive information during a meeting.

Why is empathy today at such a low point? You can credit various factors, including fewer face-to-face interactions, an ever-accelerating pace of change and an increasing number of global teams working remotely. These and other elements make it harder for any of us to understand and meet the unspoken needs of others. Teams have it especially hard. The more digitized teams become, and the more we interact online, the greater the need for empathy becomes to balance distances and misalignments and foster inclusivity and belonging.

In this keynote, attendees will learn to activate Concrete Empathy, a playbook for building trust and collaboration with confidence today. With a combination of engaging stories, science, and practical tools, it shows leaders how to cultivate greater empathy across teams, ultimately creating cultures of connection and high-performance. 

Learning Outcomes Include:
· Simple ways of seeing the world as others do, even during emails, conference calls, and video discussions.
· Rules of thumb to avoid misunderstanding, ambiguity and rushes to judgment (or what we call, reading digital body language).
· Signals that show others you understand their feelings and hear their ideas, especially when you are not in the same room.
· Tools to diffuse tensions, bring an end to conflicts and create lasting connections.