Smita Tharoor is a Global Motivational Keynote Speaker. She is a Thought-Leader on the Unconscious Bias and how it influences us all. She has spoken at conferences globally, from Berlin to Philadelphia, Bangalore to Penang. Smita is an entertaining, erudite, dynamic, story teller who shows us how our personal narratives influence all the decisions we make. Among her topics are Emotional Resilience, Change Management, Leadership in times of uncertainty, Empowerment of Women in the workplace, as well as other similar topics all embedded by our unconscious bias.
She is a co-founder of Culturelytics, a company that uses Artificial Intelligence to understand culture in an organisation. She is the founder of Tharoor Associates, a Training, Coaching and Organisational Development company. A TEDx speaker, Smita is a broadcaster, trainer, coach, mentor, Mindfulness practitioner and Associate Lecturer.
In her podcast Stories Seldom Told, she has interviewed people around the world, sharing their stories and life-lessons on how they manage their unconscious biases. The stories include a transgender man in New Zealand, someone with 4th stage cancer in Delhi, a black man who is mistaken for white over the phone in London, a practising Iranian Muslim sharing stories of Islam and Jihad, our unconscious biases about the Kama Sutra, a gay dad in California, someone who lost 3 limbs in a landmine in Afghanistan and more. It is heard in 107 countries and currently has a global ranking in the top 5% of podcasts.
Smita is an associate lecturer at the University of Arts, London and at Jindal University, India. She is the recipient of the “Global Diversity Leadership” Award at the World HRD Congress. Smita is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practitioner, Coach, Mentor and Mindfulness Practitioner.
Growing up in pluralistic India taught her the value of tolerance and the appreciation of accepting differences. She is passionate about the unconscious bias and how it impacts on all aspects of leadership development. Her experience working in the UK, India, Europe, Asia and the USA gives her a unique advantage in understanding the expectations and needs of different cultures.
You are a busy and hardworking manager working in the modern world. You often wonder whether you have time to think at all and along comes this fad encouraging you to be aware of your Unconscious Bias.
The term may be overly jargonistic for some, but it’s grounded in reality. This keynote is designed to allow participants to explore how they, and others around them, perceive situations and become aware of the need to use lateral thinking – to think outside ones “self-limiting box” and break down preconceived ideas. This interactive and practical talk allows people, in a safe environment, to both understand Unconscious Bias and develop strategies to ensure personal biases are effectively managed.
Aims
– Identifying personal and business reasons to tackle and minimise Unconscious Bias.
– Understanding organisational and individual biases and assessing their impact.
– Identifying strategies to minimise biases on key business decision-making.
Thepandemic eliminated whatever structures we relied upon, destroying our routines, and attacking our emotional well-being. Naturally social, we humans seek constant touchpoints and hints of recognition and need the approval of fellow creatures. WFH and hybrid-working has heightened stress levels without the reassurance of seeing people with whom we work and trust face to face. Such times call for building strong emotional resilience.
Emotional intelligence is not just a desirable ‘soft skill’. Being emotionally resilient makes a real difference to performance, and ultimately, profit. Research indicates that our emotional quotient (EQ) can be a better indicator of workplace performance than IQ.
Aims:
– Explore Self-Awareness – understanding how self-aware we currently are and providing an opportunity to develop this.
– Explore Self-Management – Learning to manage the voice in our heads, overcoming negative ‘self-talk’.
– Explore Self-Motivation – A look at how personal goals drive our self-motivation, how our beliefs, values and attitudes can affect our motivation and some valuable techniques for personal improvement.
Smita will use real-life case studies and share some real-life lessons on how we can all be more emotionally resilient.
Conflict is normal in organisational and personal life, so rather than being avoided it should be viewed as the essential ingredient of the organisation’s reason for being. Learning to constructively resolve conflict is clearly and directly linked to productive and sustainable growth in any field.
Many of us wish that we had more confidence or feel intimidated by others and wish they would change. There’s something rather wonderful we can do. Instead of waiting for someone else to change to make things right, we can decide to take charge of most situations and make them right for ourselves.
Sharing personal stories, Smita will share simple lessons on how to be more assertive.
Aims:
– To understand how individual perceptions about a group conflict can influence the end result.
– To say No without using the word No.
– To use Persuasion as a Leadership skill.
Speaking up and acting on your own behalf is critical to personal and professional advancement.
What gets in our way of asking, and how do we address it?
What can we learn across generations that will help us advocate more successfully?
What actions can we take to help pave the way for future female leaders?
Gender bias today has gone underground. Often referred to as ‘second generation’ gender bias, it involves subtle and often invisible barriers for women due to cultural assumptions and patterns of behaviour that benefit men and put women at a disadvantage. These biases manifest themselves in the lack of role models, gendered jobs and career paths, lack of access to sponsorship programs and informal power circles. It also includes the double-standard of assertive behaviour being admired in men but chastised in women.
However, not all barriers facing women can be attributed to the glass-ceiling imposed by the traditional workplace. Women often hold themselves back from advancement with self-imposed barriers.
Does this occur through a conscious or unconscious bias? Are women and organisations aware of biases such as “maternal wall bias”, “prove it again bias “and “tight- rope bias” and the impact they have on women in the workplace?
Aims:
In this keynote, Smitawill explore individual and cultural biases that impact women in their working & personal relationships.
Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Change is a given in our professional and personal lives — it’s unavoidable and often out of our control. However, our response to change has a large impact on our emotional well-being.
For example, how would you feel if you went into work and were told, “We’re going to have a major structural change?” You might feel resistance, anxiety, fear or even anger depending on the context and details.
We all experience resistance to change in some capacity. Some common resistances you or your team may experience are fear of the unknown, fear of failure or false beliefs.
Many leaders are responsible for leading or implementing these changes, which adds another layer of complexity.
Aims:
In this keynote, Smita talks through the seven stages of change and discusses the most effective ways to manage it.
The world is smaller than ever before, and employees are as likely to find themselves working alongside someone who grew up halfway around the world as they are to work with colleagues born and brought up locally. This has a direct impact on everything they do.
This keynote introduces the concept of cultural intelligence and offers practical advice on understanding cultural diversity. The key is to boost their cultural awareness – in other words to transcend mere etiquette. When should we adopt a “transactional” or business-like approach & when do we cultivate relationships?
Aims:
Through stories, Smita discusses:
– High-Context and Low- context Communication.
– Discuss Individualism and Communitarianism.
– Understand Cultural congruence vs Cultural differentiation.
– Discuss Organisational culture vs Individual culture.
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