12/12/2022
Summary of our December 7th Disrupthr Event – Good to be Back – Be Intentional
Congratulations to our speakers, coaches, producers, and participants in making our first Disrupthr event since 2019 a success. We are grateful to our speakers who clearly put in the work with our excellent coaching team from Heroic Voice. Our audience made it clear, that this group of speakers and topics was among our best.
Our theme, Bridging the Chasm of Work served to bring out provocative topics beginning with Jomal McNeal – who focused on embracing change and learning to thrive from hybrid work. He discussed dealing with complexity and improving collaboration while appreciating different kinds of work and how each has its own productive sweet spot. Andrea Robb also touched on different types of work and workers and suggested that the function of the “office” need not be physical and instead think of “space” as a place to get the right work done – where space is both digital and physical. She advocates designing the office as a tool and designing technology to create the space. Jeff Rosenthal focused on the need to reinvent the focus of leadership to service a hybrid workplace. He advocates leading “across” functions, considering the whole business, while reducing typical top-down decision-making – as slow and less able to optimize hybrid work.
Edie Goldberg reminded us that only 1/4th of the workforce feels connected to the company culture. Like Jeff, Edie talks about importance of problem-solving teams who figure out how to do their best work. She stated that remote work doesn’t kill culture, managers do. Hybrid has served to point out weak managing skills and often needless overhead of meetings and oversight. Emily Harburg reminded us of the importance of feeling connected regardless of being in the office or remote. She talked about how addressing emotional needs to improve both a sense of well-being and motivation. While she spoke second during the evening, I wanted to conclude my summary by sharing Dana Bennett’s experience in working through COVID with her organization. She highlighted the need for sensitive leadership, giving full support to keep learning and improving, and creating a new culture that includes both empathy and innovation.
Perhaps the best part of the evening was the discussion that followed the speakers. It was a co-creation experience that centered on the word “intentional”. The word requires a human experience of connecting not just to say hello, but to care, to be authentic, that in addition to the work we all need to be acknowledged as we are – humans. Intentionality is bringing yourself to the party. Your workmates feel it and to work it must be real. As my friend Patrick Cowden reminds us, there is a difference between a polite “how are you”, and “how are you - really”
We are going to discuss an “intentional” culture in our breakout session this week on December 14, following three talks from our thought leadership community, including emotional intelligence, empowering change, and exposing toxic culture. Please join us at 8am, registration at 7:45am PST. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86994228668.
Mike
