Businessolver Blog

Cy Wakeman, is a dynamic international keynote speaker, business consultant, New York Times bestselling author, and global thought leader with over 25 years experience cultivating a revolutionary new approach to leadership. Grounded in reality, Wakeman’s philosophy has helped organizations and individuals all over the world learn to ditch the drama and turn excuses into results. Cy is the keynote speaker at our upcoming Vision 2018 conferences in Philadelphia, and Chicago. This is her third blog post in our reality-based leadership series. 

We came, we learned, we sailed the Bay! Our Vision 2018 event last week in San Francisco was a blast for all who attended. With lively panel discussions, informative leadership training, product updates, and a networking dinner cruise around San Francisco Bay, there was no excuse for anyone’s brain (or bum) to sit still at our packed two-day event! More than a hundred clients, partners, and Solvers joined us for the first stop on our Vision learning leadership tour. Here are a few key highlights.

Cy Wakeman, is a dynamic international keynote speaker, business consultant, New York Times bestselling author, and global thought leader with over 25 years experience cultivating a revolutionary new approach to leadership. Grounded in reality, Wakeman’s philosophy has helped organizations and individuals all over the world learn to ditch the drama and turn excuses into results. Cy is the keynote speaker at our upcoming Vision 2018 conferences in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Chicago. This is her second blog post in our reality-based leadership series. 

Cy Wakeman, is a dynamic international keynote speaker, business consultant, New York Times bestselling author, and global thought leader with over 25 years experience cultivating a revolutionary new approach to leadership. Grounded in reality, Wakeman’s philosophy has helped organizations and individuals all over the world learn to ditch the drama and turn excuses into results. Cy is the keynote speaker at our upcoming Vision 2018 conferences in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Chicago. This is her first blog post in our reality-based leadership series. 

Your company is wasting a lot of time on drama—according to my estimate, as much as 2.5 hours per employee every day.

Last week, we kicked off Horizon 2018 with events in Atlanta and Charlotte. As the first two stops in our Horizon 2018 tour, both events saw numerous HR professionals come out to learn all the latest news and updates in the HR/benefits technology realm. 

Even among top talent, three words can flatline employees’ innovative mindset: Fear of failure.

In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults can correctly define common health insurance terms and more than half of enrollees do not know how HSAs work. This lack of health literacy leads 28 percent of people to say that reviewing their benefits during Annual Enrollment is worse than losing their cell phone – which is pretty bad, considering how much most of us love our phones!   

Last week, we held our Horizon ‘17 series finale in Denver. With Annual Enrollment quickly approaching, we knew this event was the perfect opportunity to discuss the best ways to reach employees during this important time of year. Driving the conversation were industry leaders, including: Cam Marston, an expert on generations in the workplace; Kim Burgess, Statewide Chief Human Resources Officer for the State of Colorado; and Kelley Korte, Human Resources Director of Benefits at American Greetings.

This week, our team of Solvers visited Minneapolis for our penultimate Horizon ‘17 event. Joined by HR pros from across the region, we spent the day sharing ideas and best practices, and learning from industry leaders, including keynote speaker Mike Wagner, president of White Rabbit.

Employee engagement today is at an all-time low – a staggering 70 percent of U.S. workers say they’re not engaged at work. Research shows that engagement has to start at the top and leaders have some work to do. 

We saved the biggest and best for last – our final stop on the Vision 20/17 Tour this week in Chicago was our highest attended event and featured our most exciting product launch so far this year. We covered important topics from empathy to engagement, new products to new national healthcare legislation, insightful keynotes to successful case studies – all in just two days!

Silicon Prairie met Silicon Valley last week, as we hit the road for the first stop in our Vision 20/17 Tour. More than 100 clients and partners joined us in San Francisco for a packed two-day schedule of key product updates and announcements, as well as engaging workshops and networking opportunities.

Nineteen. That’s how many times, in a recent 30-minute team meeting, I heard a woman say “just.”

“I just think we can …” “I’m just checking …” “I just want to be sure …”

Why was I doing all this counting? Because I recently learned that “just” undermines women’s expertise – and in turn, women’s advancement – at work. Using “just” implicitly conveys asking permission to express authority or an opinion, and can even be characterized as an apology for doing so. Realizing that I and many other smart, talented, accomplished women could be held back – even slightly – at work by a four-letter word made me want to scream, well … a few other four-letter words.

This morning’s general session at the 19th HR Technology Conference & Expo focused on engaging and retaining employees. Moderated by CEO of Starfish Media Group and former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, a panel featuring leading C-level HR pros had an insightful and candid discussion about how to find and keep talented and engaged workers.   

America’s Second City is our second home for the week – the Businessolver team is excited to be in Chicago for the 19th HR Technology Conference & Expo. At yesterday’s opening night reception, we launched our E Type Assessment Tool to help people better understand their personal level of empathy.  

We’re just hours away from bringing HR professionals and the Businessolver community together for our second Vision 20/16 Tour of the year in the heart of Philadelphia. We have a packed agenda, with sessions surrounding ACA, voluntary benefits, employee education and engagement, all presented by a stellar lineup of speakers. Here’s a sneak peek at what are sure to be a few of the show’s highlights:

This week we hosted Vision 20/16 in Las Vegas, the first stop on our three city tour. It was a fantastic experience marked by exciting conversation and valuable learnings. A great group of Businessolver clients, partners, vendors and HR professionals came together to share their insights and ideas on some of the most pressing topics facing the industry. Here are my five biggest takeaways from the conference:

Yesterday, Seth Godin, a best-selling author and Businessolver favorite, shared an interesting blog post entitled, “More powerful than you know.” The post serves as a great reflection of what took place during day one of Vision 20/16, which kicked off yesterday.  Seth’s blog reads:

Non-stop, always changing and full of excitement, Las Vegas is the perfect spot to launch this year's Vision 20/16 Tour and we’re just hours away from bringing HR professionals and the Businessolver community together to get things started. Our goal for this year’s tour is to surprise, delight and teach, so that attendees not only find the experience useful, but enjoyable too.

“We will continue having lots of meetings until we find out why no work is getting done.”

It’s easy to laugh at this joke because unfortunately, it resonates with many of us working professionals. We laugh because we’ve been there—a meeting that has unnecessary people. A meeting that took much longer than it needed to. A meeting where no decision was made. A meeting that could have easily been just a conversation instead.

It seems as if today’s meeting culture has gotten a little out of hand. Meetings have become a standard in today’s workforce. They’re our default answer to how we communicate, work on projects, make decisions and brainstorm. But many times, a meeting doesn’t have to be a meeting, and if it does, a little more intention and purpose can go a long way.