Back to the Present: Cultivating Resilience Through Mindful Leadership

We are facing an unprecedented time in history, where the landscape is evolving at a faster pace than most businesses can adapt. That has translated into more demands on our time and a longer list of things that seem to require our immediate attention. In addition, our growing dependency on digital devices keep us drowning in data. It’s no surprise that most of us find ourselves steeped in survival mode. This way of working is not sustainable, as anxiety, stress and exhaustion are becoming the norm. In order to succeed, there is an urgency for a radical transformation in leadership strategies.

Mindfulness-based techniques enable us to train our brains to meet these everyday challenges with resilience, by moving from reactivity to responsiveness. By cultivating this practice where we can be more present in the moment, we give ourselves the opportunity to enhance our performance, our engagement, our ability to focus, to innovate and to be creative. The mind is malleable and we can shape it so that we can shift from surviving to thriving.

In this workshop participants will:

• Explore the fundamentals in neuroscience to understand the mechanism of emotional triggers and how habits are formed

• Discuss the applicability of mindfulness for busy professionals
• Practice simple mindfulness-based techniques that can be easily applied in the workplace to produce positive outcomes and a culture of resilience

The Big Brain Theory: Is your Brain Sabotaging Your Success? 

Our brains are physiologically wired for survival, which is not the same as being set up for success. Consequently, we unconsciously seek out situations that will enable us to feel safe and secure while minimizing circumstances that trigger a fear-based response. That risk aversion can work against us by sabotaging our growth and development.

In fact, failure is a necessary part of success. However, that can be a challenging concept to embrace and embody unless we adopt a growth mindset. When individuals exhibit a growth mindset, they believe that their most basic abilities can be developed, and improved upon, which cultivates learning and resilience.

In contrast, in a fixed mindset, we avoid situations where we might experience setbacks because we want to look good. As a result, people who have a growth mindset are more likely to maximize their potential. They tend to learn from criticism rather than ignoring it, to overcome challenges rather than avoiding them, and to find inspiration in the success of others rather than feeling threatened. The goal for all of us is to explore when we are approaching situations with a fixed mindset so that we can create the behavioral shifts that will support a growth mindset.

In this workshop participants will:

• Understand the basics in neuroscience that drive the survival mechanisms
• Differentiate the growth mindset from the fixed mindset
• Explore their mindset in action through experiential exercises to examine whether it is supporting or hindering their business success
• Devise a personalized action plan outlining their commitments to develop a growth mindset

Return of Your Inner Jedi: Developing Influence through Presence & Personal Power

Imagine your influence completely magnified- how would this change the impact you make both personally and professionally? Mastering your personal power enables you to exercise influence at any level and with anyone. Unlike positional power, that is rooted in authority and leaves others feeling diminished, personal power is internal and energetic and has the ability to raise those around us. This type of power involves

mastering three dimensions:  our character (who we are), our communication skills (what we are broadcasting) and our confidence (how we embody the former).

This workshop provides participants an opportunity to explore and heighten their self-awareness regarding the various factors that contribute to creating an influential presence irrespective of their position or role.

In this workshop participants will: 

• Explore the three dimension of personal power and assess how they might be amplifying or detracting from their ability to influence others
• Recognize how their personal power contributes to shaping their perceived capacity to influence
• Devise a personalized action plan to strengthen their personal power, and as a result, their level of influence

 As Yoda would say:

Influence, you will

The Multi-Generational Bunch

Extending beyond the traditional diversity challenges of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, today’s workforce is comprised of arguably more distinct generations than ever before. With several distinct generations active in the workforce, all viewing the world from a different lens, a new approach to leadership development is required where we cultivate and leverage the inherent strengths of each individual to build high-performing teams.  Organizations and leaders who prioritize management of diverse ways of processing and expressing thoughts and ideas, as well communication styles and ways of being, will be best positioned to thrive in an ever-evolving workplace landscape. 

In this workshop participants will: 

• Identify diverse characteristics that typically define each of four distinct generational groups (Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y / Millennial, Gen Z)
• Appreciate different ways of being, thought expression and information processing associated with multi-generational groups
• Explore various tools for effective collaboration, communication and influence building that leverage multi-generational differences and bridges gaps.

The Good, the Bad & the Blind Spots: Targeting Beyond Unconscious Bias

In order for us to move the needle to cultivate cultures that are truly inclusive and equitable, we first need to acknowledge and accept that we are all bias. Our brains gather millions of bits of information from our surroundings every second. The adaptive mental processes that enable us to sort all that data will categorize familiar patterns unconsciously. Developments in neuroscience now demonstrate that many of these biases are formed throughout life and held at the subconscious level, mainly through societal and parental conditioning. Scientists developed the Implicit Association Test (IAT), an assessment that can help us measure our biases and provide some insight. Once we normalize this, we can begin to explore with less judgment how these biases influence us and to what extent. 

Research has shown that diversity of thought is only only a business imperative but a competitive advantage. Yet we need to develop our skills to leverage and productively manage our differences so that they don’t become drivers of divisiveness. A commitment to inclusivity demands that we become more sophisticated and agile in creating space and celebrating a wide spectrum of perspectives and experiences.

In this workshop participants will:  

1. Understand the basics in neuroscience to know how bias is formed in our unconscious and how that shapes our perspectives and our behaviors
2. Engage in an experiential activity that gives the participants an opportunity to explore their own biases
3. Explore inclusiveness strategies and best practices

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