Erica Dhawan

We typically associate success and leadership with smarts, passion and luck. But in today’s hypercompetitive world, even those gifts aren’t enough. Strategist 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 top and bottom line impact.
This dynamic, engaging, high-energy, fast-paced keynote will help participants understand the practice of using connectional intelligence as the key to professional success and leadership in the 21st century. 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 include:
- How anyone can excel not just through skills and smarts, but through Connectional Intelligence
- Keys to leveraging your networks and connections, and creating contagious positive results
- Successful tactics used to address connectional overload and in changing turbulent times
- How leaders create deep connections of fierce loyalty and respect from their team and customers
- How connectionally intelligent leaders outperform the competition and create remarkable results

Based on upcoming 2019 book and newest white paper
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 behaviour? 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 objectives include how to:
- Understand your digital communication style and what signals you are broadcasting (even if you don’t intend to!)
- Reduce the confusion and frustration that comes with communication across all our various mediums, like email, phone, IM, text, apps and even live meetings
- Develop a digital communication strategy to create the highest performing teams
- Understand and use digital subtext to create real intellectual and emotional connection, no matter the distance