Spark the Change Part 1 — The Power of Human Connections
Last week, Sergio and I attended Spark the Change in Montreal. It was the first Spark the Change to take place in our beautiful city, and I hope it won’t be the last. For those of you who haven’t heard of this event, let me take a moment to walk you through it:
Spark the Change is a worldwide conference series with events taking place in 5 cities, so far. It brings people together, from a variety of industries, for one purpose: to work together in creating lasting and total change within their companies and beyond. Organizers recruit inspirational speakers who exemplify positive change to help attendees develop skills they can take with them.
At PeopleLikeUs, we’re all about changing the workplace and making it better and more enjoyable everyday, so when Sergio and I read the event description, we were on board right away! Anything that can help us reach our goal of creating a more efficient environment is music to our ears.
But was the event all talk? Nope, not even close. Even though I could only see a handful of the guest speakers, the knowledge I took away was so valuable and plentiful, that this is only part 1 of what will be a 4-part recap. I hope you’ll also find value in what I learned.
We started day one with the most inspiring talk I’ve heard in a while. No need to go to TED Talks to hear great ways to change the world.
This talk was given by Vikas Narula, the founder of Keyhubs, and focused on the power of human connections. He spoke to us about about two types of people you’ll find in any organization: influencers and resistors. An influencer has the trust of his team and can help make big changes, while a resistor is seen as someone more negative who stops things from happening. Complete opposites. And guess what, most of the time our leaders are seen as resistors.
This shows that our self-perception can be biased. You may think you are an influencer…and you may be wrong. It’s important in your organization to have the right people in the right seat and to cherish your influencers and listen to them.
How can you reveal who your influencers are?
Let’s say you use tools like OfficeVibe or Keyhubs: you could ask your employees who they would like to have as a manager or who they would have on their dream team. If you want to go deeper you could also work with Vikas to identify who is a resistor in your organization and who is an influencer.
We then moved on to see how these influencers come to life and what is really unique about them. According to Vikas, here’s what it takes to be an influencer: be helpful, be positive and love humanity. Ok, simple enough, but how can I apply it in my life? By reaching out to other people, by bridging the gap between different networks, by being positive, and above all, by giving love because it’s bigger than anything. The more open your network is, the more successful you’ll be. You’ll pick up a wide variety of knowledge, you’ll be able to adapt to different situations and you you’ll have a broader network to reach out to for support.
Here are a few key takeaways I look forward to applying at work:
- Don’t be afraid to meet new people, especially at events–go talk to them
- Stop the echo chamber, be open to different opinions
- Be positive, even when it’s hard
- And love, love, love
I left this talk wanting to immediately start connecting with people and broadening my network.
Stay tuned. This is the first of four posts about Spark the Change talks. Tomorrow: courage.
