Shockingly Different Leadership CEO, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes, was recently a guest speaker and workshop presenter for the Talent Revealed conference, a virtual event hosted by Big Bend SHRM in Tallahassee, Florida.
Posted by
SDL Press Team
On August 11-13, 2020, Big Bend SHRM hosted an incredible conference called, Talent Revealed. Big Bend SHRM’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee took the lead in educating members, employers and the community-at-large on the benefits of hiring, retaining and promoting a diverse workforce, with emphasis on the following populations: those over 50, those with disabilities, veterans, and returning citizens. The activities in the Talent Revealed event underscored Human Resource’s role as advocates for these “new diversity” groups.
The opening keynote address was conducted by The Honorable Mayor John Dailey, City of Tallahassee. He spoke about ways that society and the local workforce can help to overcome bias and discrimination in the workplace.
The keynote address was followed by a webinar on Coaching Tools to Build Trust and Creativity in a New Normal, led by Denny Clark and Kevin Kjellerup of Pinnacle Performance Coaching.
On Day 2 of the conference, our SDL CEO, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes spoke on how the powerful tool of design thinking can be a game changer for Human Resources functional leaders, to help eliminate challenges and accelerate desired outcomes. She also hosted a mini-Design Sprint, commonly called a “mini-hackathon”, which is an exciting, experiential development experience which uses the method of design-thinking to accelerate ideating and vetting potential options to solve a specific challenge. She rapidly led the conference participants through all six stages of the Design Sprint process (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test and Implement). The focus of Design Sprints is not to create a finished end result, but to speed up learning by rapidly creating and testing ideas. The Diversity & Inclusion problem challenge was: How might we develop leaders who energize work cultures by leading with inclusion, not just diversity?
The closing keynote address was conducted by Dr. Robert Lemon, a renowned professional speaker, who inspires people to take responsibility for their lives and live up to their greatness. Robert emphasized how it is more important than ever to provide strong leadership and a clear focus on diversity and inclusion within our workforces.
