Webinar- The Advent of Sparring and What it Means for High Performing Teams

November 11, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Sparring ButtonTraditional mentoring takes a top-down approach—senior people give advice and junior staff are supposed to zip their lips and take notes. But old models don’t work in our multi-generational, global workforce where the traditional corporate hierarchy must be transcended in order to respond to rapid change.

Innovation Sparring Zones are spaces of power-free collaboration that create an optimally innovative, responsive, and flexible environment for ideas to germinate and grow by leveraging the groups’ collective experience, differing viewpoints and strengths. The result? Friction-free communication, an open flow of ideas and profitable collaboration. This provides new tools for a new era of collaboration and conflict.In our webinar, I’m going to go into detail on how you can use Sparring to:

  • Learn to harness productive conflict and spar with your team in a way that brings results, more ideas, and greater execution

  • Learn what questions to ask, which suggestions to make and how to adapt their styles to the styles of those on their team

  • How to measure the ROI of innovation sparring zones to make it a productive result for your bottom line to drive results

When is the Webinar?

Presenter: Me! Erica Dhawan

Format: The Advent of Sparring and What It Means for High Performing Team

Day: Wed, November 20 2013

Time: 2 PM EST – 11 AM PST (US and Canada)

To reserve your spot in the webinar (spaces are limited), click HERE.

Join the Facebook Event here and Get the FREE Sparring Script here.

Filed Under: innovation, inspiration · Tagged With: , ,

5 Breaks You Must Take At Work

August 15, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Getting exhausted in your chair at work? Take a break! Here are 5 Key Ways to Take a break at work to rejuvenate, re-energize, and get your creative juices flowing.

Check it out below in this latest infographic from Learn Stuff:

Filed Under: productivity, success · Tagged With: , , ,

Social Media Hurts Productivity

August 2, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

Many companies are struggling to balance the freedom to use social media with how it might be affecting employee productivity.

According to Mashable, "You may think it's harmless to check a tweet or respond to a personal message on Facebook, but it will take you 23 minutes to get back on track. A social media interruption occurs every 10.5 minutes on average, and people waste 41% of that time on Facebook."

Want to learn how to manage social media overload? Check out the infographic below and 8 Ways to Avoid Being Overwhelmed for more!

socmed

Filed Under: productivity, success · Tagged With: ,

10 Tips to Become the Most Successful Person You Know

April 25, 2013 by · 5 Comments

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The best definiton of success involves having a clear sense of what impact means to you and making it happen. Part of my mission is to help you create explosive success so you get big things done (and make your life matter and create impact through the power of innovation and connectional intelligence.)

Here are 10 tips to become the most successful person you know.

1. When facing any change, understand what is at stake. Change gets made when we see what on the table matters and make real tradeoffs. We evaluate the tradeoffs rather than making rushed decisions.

2. Focus on deepening your insight, rather than gathering information. You can watch a lot of reality TV or read 3 thoughtful books –you choose. Deepening insight in a one hour phone call can be much more impactful than 10 hours of internet research. Figure out how to get the insight you really need. 

3. Know Your Rhythm. Know what "rhythms" work best for you. Are you a morning or night person? When do you do your best work? Find ways to use your energy more effectively. 

4. Be Politically Saavy. Recognize, understand and leverage the centers of influence and power within your environment.  Always see big picture and integrate this knowledge into your decision-making.

5. Find Champions that will change your life. Build and maintain a rich network of mutually valued relationships that provide opportunities for mentorship, sponsorship and community as you advance.

6. Think of strategy as a hypothesis rather than a prediction. Think of strategy as a verb, not a noun. We never start with a plan and end with the same plan. When we dive in, we often discover new ways of thinking.  Strategy is about about adapting and learning from real experiences.

7. Don't wait for a "perfect answer." Start with what you know and work your way to a solution.

8. Build an Game Plan in 3 month increments. Every few months, get committed to achieving new clearly defined outcomes and acting with purpose in order to produce results that are meaningful and measurable.

9. Find Sanctuaries that you use to decompress. Find places of rest to rejuvenate. For me it's the dance floor, home, and reading a book. What are yours? 

10. Share your story. By telling others how you came to be who you are, you create space to connect with listeners, increase your visibility and move people to act. Never hold back from sharing your story with anyone you seek to build a relationship with.

I truly hope these 10 success tips have been valuable to you. And that I’ve been of service. Your success and impact in life is what we need most. Please protect it and make it happen.

Any other tips made you successful? Please share below!

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Filed Under: generation y, inspiration, leadership, success · Tagged With: , , ,

Own Your Time

December 18, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

“We spend 2/3 of time answering email, going to meetings and doing our job. Our competition has figured out that they need to spend time doing remarkable art.” –Seth Godin, Medicine Ball session, Dec 9, 2011

Last week, I attended marketing guru Seth Godin’s Medicine Ball session. It got me unstuck, ready to rethink and focus on producing remarkable art in the world.

Before the event, my biggest ‘challenge’ or ‘excuse’ was that there wasn’t enough time in the day to produce my art in the world: to build a women’s leadership business, start a Bollywood dance company, and finish graduate school. The truth is: I OWN my time, I make choices about how to spend my time and ultimately what works of art get done done.

Timezones were invented 120 years ago and the notion of synchronization worked well in a factory-oriented world. Today’s connection economy is asynchronous, success is about producing remarkable art, presenting it to the world, and eventually people caring enough to pay for it.

Here’s my top four list of nuggets that Seth taught me about ‘owning my time’ to produce my art in the world.

1)   Set up your calls and meetings only 2 days a week. The other days are for your work, your time, your art.

2)   Have less meetings. Meetings don’t make decisions, leaders make decisions. When you have less meetings, more work gets done. Check out Al Pittampalli’s  “The Modern Meeting Standard” for more tips on effective meetings.

3)   Follow the 7pm rule. Why do we work past 7pm? We make rules to have lunch and shower, so when did it become optional to go home at 7pm – it’s the end of the day! Take the time you need to recharge and you’ll produce better art.

4)  Schedule hours per day for various tasks. Set a scheduled time each day for the work that matters most. Plan everything else around that precious time. Owning your time is about making time for the art that matters.

So get to work and OWN YOUR TIME! More tips from Seth are to come in my upcoming blog posts. And if you have other tips on how to own your time, please comment and share!

Filed Under: leadership · Tagged With: , ,