Erica Dhawan

Transform your business through the power of empathy and belonging.

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.

How do we actively generate empathy in organizations? How do we bring people together, and make individuals feel genuinely emotionally connected, full-fledged members of the teams that have become the DNA of today’s organizations—teams that are virtual, global, multigenerational and matrixes?

In this keynote or workshop program, attendees will learn to activate the Empathy Advantage, a playbook for leading empathic teams today. With a combination of engaging stories, science, and practical tools, it shows readers how to cultivate greater empathy across teams, ultimately creating cultures of connection, collaboration and high-performance. Among other things, The Empathy Advantage teaches readers how to operationalize empathy with:

Learn the new common sense rules of effective communication on digital teams across business silos, levels, backgrounds and regions.

When your colleague replies “fine!” are they actually fine… or are they angry? Do you wait hours to get clarification on a vague e-mail? Did that weekend text message from your boss irritate you? We are communicating faster and more often than ever before. We feel like we’re connected – but are we really? We save time using email, right? But then we end up using all of that ‘saved’ time to clarify what we meant in the first place. In person, we can clarify context immediately. We rely on body language and tone to grasp the real meaning. With our digital walls up, we lose subtext and nuance.

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 creating human connection in digital communication, led by collaboration expert Erica Dhawan.

Learning Outcomes include:

• 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

• Learn successful tactics to address communication overload and create authentic digital and in-person relationships
• Discover how to break down silos and keep teams aligned, accountable, and motivated beyond in-person meetings
• Gain specific actions to foster loyalty, respect, collaboration and innovation across all stakeholder networks regardless of physical distance