Your Working Life

Cynthia L. Bentzen Mercer, PhD, MBA, BCC, SPHR

Founder / CEO, Bentzen Performance Partners, LLC

Co-Founder / Managing Partner, The Zeal of the Heel, LLC

Strategic Executive, Sociologist, Servant Leader, Speaker, Author, Board Certified Coach

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen Mercer is an elite talent and organizational development strategist, social

psychologist, and author with three decades of experience transforming company culture through her nationally recognized approaches to identifying, unleashing, and actualizing human potential. She is a leading authority on premier workforce cultivation rooted in integrity, passion, service excellence, and diversity. Cynthia's unique ability to inspire professional growth galvanizes a flourishing culture of innovation and discovery. Known as a visionary in organizational design, succession planning, leadership advancement, and executive coaching, she assembles top-tier teams with deep, balanced bench strength.

A stalwart professional, Cynthia's experience traverses domestic and international, public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit, start-up, and aggressive growth companies within the real estate, gaming, hospitality, and healthcare industries. She has been recognized as one of Ingram's 50 Missourians You Should Know, among Becker's 143 Women Leaders of Hospitals and Health Systems to Know, a St. Louis YWCA Leader of Distinction, and one of St. Louis's Most Influential Businesswomen.

Before starting Bentzen Performance Partners, LLC, and The Zeal of the Heel, LLC, Cynthia was executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Mercy, overseeing human resources, government relations, community relations, philanthropy, and other support functions for the ministry. A true catalyst for change, Cynthia launched Mercy's first diversity, equity, and inclusion program and advisory board. With a passion for advancing women's careers in business, she founded Mercy Women in Leadership. Before Mercy, Cynthia served as chief human resources officer for Ameristar Casinos, Inc., a national gaming and hospitality organization; vice president of human resources for The Cheesecake

Factory restaurants; and vice president of international human resources for Oakwood Worldwide.

Book: Now, Near, Next: A Practical Guide for Mid-Career Women to Move from Professional Serendipity to Intentional Advancement

For some women, mid-career feels like a merry-go-round. You begin your career eager to jump on. You pick the pink pony and hold on tight. You might move to the purple pony during the first stop. Look, Mom, no hands! However, a few years later, you look up and are still belted into the same saddle, on the same ride, following behind a new group of riders, going in circles. You need a bigger amusement park and a more challenging ride! A must-read for all women trying to find or fight their way to what is possible. The methodology outlined in Now, Near, Next debunks the myth that just putting your head down, enjoying the ride and working hard is the best way to realize your fullest potential.

LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube www.zealoftheheel.com

www.nownearnext.net

https://youtu.be/EUihG4cziQI

Rebecca Ahmed is an award-winning speaker, business consultant, and an Energy Leadership IndexTM Master Practitioner (ELI-MP). She is also a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Rebecca advises companies of all sizes on how to create a motivational workplace culture by transforming the energy and enthusiasm of their teams. Her new book is, The Energy of Success: Power Up Your Productivity, Transform Your Habits, and Maximize Workplace Motivation (Wiley, April 23, 2024). Learn more at energeticimpact.com.

· https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaeahmed/

· https://www.instagram.com/rebeccaeahmed/https://www.tiktok.com/@rebeccaeahmed

Breaking Free of Destructive Energy towards Work

This segment is about how to feel inspired and motivated about work rather than defeated and frustrated.

The Big Idea: Legions of workers consider their work monotonous or meaningless, and are just punching the clock. It's no wonder that organizations are having a hard time attracting and retaining Gen Z workers. The most recent State of the Global Workforce Report found that less than one-quarter of the U.S. workforce is engaged at work. Lack of motivation leads to a loss of productivity and is reported to cost the economy over $8.1 trillion globally. Traditional methods to engage workers clearly aren't working. But a NEW approach that looks at workplace engagement from an energetic perspective will not only enhance current employees at work, but will attract future talent and decrease turnover.

The So-What: Within the spectrum of workers' positive to negative energy levels, the effects are directly associated with constructive and destructive attitudes. Destructive energy derives from stress or having a victim mentality. Constructive energy fuels growth, motivation, and fulfillment. The energy and vigor workers bring to their job directly correlates with their engagement and performance in their role. Whatever the situation, one's connection with work is similar to one's personal relationships — both require energy to keep the relationship exciting and stimulating. Everyone has the ability to employ specific energetic principles that will enable them to take back their power and remake their work into something that inspires and motivates them.

Key Messages: Rebecca Ahmed draws from an extensive career in People Services (HR) to reveal the practical steps that improve energy and transform workplaces. She addresses:

· How to create energetic shifts that increase your own energy, as well as the energy of those around you

· How to leverage five energetic success principles to propel you into higher levels of energy

· How to shift your employees' focus from dwelling on challenges to innovating and communicating solutions

· How to help your company attract and retain the talent that will catapult you into the future

· Where to complete an assessment of your own, your team's, or your organization's energy level

The Source: Rebecca Ahmed is an award-winning speaker, a business consultant, and an Energy Leadership IndexTM Master Practitioner (ELI-MP). She is also a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Rebecca advises companies of all sizes on how to create a motivational workplace culture by transforming the energy and enthusiasm of their teams. Her new book is, The Energy of Success: Power Up Your Productivity, Transform Your Habits, and Maximize Workplace Motivation (Wiley, April 23, 2024). Learn more at energeticimpact.com.

Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, as well as the Co-Director of the Family Law Center. Cahn is the author or editor of numerous books written for both academic and trade publishers, including Red Families v. Blue Families and Homeward Bound. In 2017, Cahn received the Harry Krause Lifetime Achievement in Family Law Award from the University of Illinois College of Law and in 2024 she was inducted into the Clayton Alumni Hall of Fame.

June Carbone is the Robina Chair of Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School. Previously she has served as the Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law, the Constitution and Society at the University of Missouri at Kansas City; and as the Associate Dean for Professional Development and Presidential Professor of Ethics and the Common Good at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has written From Partners to Parents and co-written Red Families v. Blue Families; Marriage Markets; and Family Law. She is a co-editor of the International Survey of Family Law.

Nancy Levit is the Associate Dean for Faculty and holds a Curator's Professorship at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law. Professor Levit has been voted Outstanding Professor of the Year five times by students and was profiled in Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz's book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. She has received the N.T. Veatch Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity and the Missouri Governor's Award for Teaching Excellence. She is the author of The Gender Line and co-author of Feminist Legal Theory; The Happy Lawyer; The Good Lawyer; and Jurisprudence—Classical and Contemporary.

Book: Fair Shake: Women & The Fight to Build a Just Economy

Simon & Schuster, May 7, 2024

A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce—why women's progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back.

You hold in your hands a book that, finally, proposes how to fix the system, rather than how to fix the woman. No more "leaning in," no more "girl bossing." FAIR SHAKE explains plain and simple how the American economy is rigged to hold women back.

Legal scholars Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit have identified the winner-take-all economy as at the root of these problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. Cahn, Carbone, and Levit call this feedback loop "the triple bind," and it works like this:

1. If women don't compete on the same terms as men, they lose.
2. If women do compete on the same terms as men, they're punished more harshly for their sharp elbows and misdeeds.
3. When women see the rules of the new game, they don't want to play on those terms.

With odds like these stacked against them, it's no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead. In an era of supposed greater equality, women are still falling behind in the workplace: even with more women in the workforce than in decades past, wage gaps continue to increase and recourse for discrimination and harassment become more difficult to obtain. But FAIR SHAKE suggests there is a countermovement and a way out of this. If women figure out what the nature of this new game is, they realize that the only way to fight back is to challenge the system itself.

Kim Dabbs, Founder: To Belonging

Book: You Belong Here: The Power of Being Seen, Heard, and Valued on Your Own Terms.

Kim Dabbs is a global leader in Belonging and Purpose, whose unique life story informs her passionate advocacy for inclusion and understanding. Born in Korea and adopted by American parents, Kim's journey has taken her from feeling perpetually out of place in different cultures to becoming an influential voice in creating spaces where everyone feels they belong.

As the Global Vice President of ESG and Social Innovation at Steelcase, she applies her extensive experience in social innovation, honed through roles like the Executive Director of the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology and a residency at Stanford's d.school, to foster more inclusive and equitable environments.

As a sought-after speaker, Kim has delivered keynotes to organizations and institutions such as Google, Microsoft, MIT, The Drucker Forum, and The Guggenheim. Her debut book You Belong Here: The Power of Being Seen, Heard and Valued on Your Own Terms, reflects her transformation from a cultural chameleon trying to fit in to a thought leader who champions the idea of belonging to oneself.

Everyone feels like an outsider at some point in their life—when we walk into a room and think to ourselves, "I don't belong here." To avoid these feelings of exclusion, many of us hide our authentic selves and allow others to define our identity.

You Belong Here offers a new framework that allows each of us to define how we want to be seen, heard, and valued on our own terms so we feel a sense of belonging in any situation. Further, it serves as a launchpad for organizational leaders and culture builders to create safe spaces for individuals to show up as their authentic selves.

Readers will explore our four identities:

• Our Lived Identity is made up of the aspects of our identity we inherit when we are born into the world.
• Our Learned Identity includes the parts of our identity that we've chosen or claimed as we make our way through the world.
• Our Lingering Identity is the identity we default to when we feel like an outsider and fall back into as a survival mechanism.
• Our Loved Identity is where we find our authentic selves and see ourselves through a lens of empowerment.

In the journey to understand our past experiences and how society has established barriers to entry, we can design our own future, rooted in our Loved Identity. We learn to rewrite the stories that aren't serving us and embrace the ones that do. Rather than look for a seat at someone else's table, we find the tools to build our own.

When we fully leverage this and live with authenticity and purpose, we can be seen, heard, and valued in a way that gives us a sense of belonging at home, at work, and in society. Belonging is realized when we understand everyone is an outsider and it's the power to create space for those differences that unite us all.

Social media:

· https://www.facebook.com/104175065145280

· https://www.instagram.com/tobelonging

· https://www.linkedin.com/company/tobelonging/

· https://www.youtube.com/@tobelonging

DEI has evolved over the years, and I wanted to reach out about a new term being discussed and practiced — justice (aka DEIJ). Mary-Frances Winters, founder and CEO of The Winters Group Inc., a global DEI consultancy, focuses on this topic in her new book: Racial Justice at Work: Practical Solutions for Systemic Change. Justice is a newer concept in the corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion space, and there is a lack of understanding about what it means and how to actualize it.

Mary-Frances Winters (she/her/hers) is the best-selling author of Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit and We Can't Talk About That at Work! How to Talk About Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics. She is the Founder and CEO of The Winters Group, Inc., a global diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice consulting firm. She came of age during the civil rights movement of the 1960s and is a passionate advocate for justice and equity. Named a top ten diversity and inclusion trailblazer by Forbes, Mary-Frances believes in opening doors and amplifying marginalized voices and their allies. She has received many awards and honors, including the ATHENA Award, Diversity Pioneer from Profiles in Diversity Journal, and The Winds of Change recognition from The Forum on Workplace Inclusion. As CEO of The Winters Group for the past thirty-nine years, Mary-Frances harnesses her extensive experience in strategic planning, change management, diversity, organization development, training and facilitation, systems thinking, and qualitative and quantitative research methods to work with senior leadership teams to drive meaningful organizational change. This is her seventh book.

Mareisha N. Winters Reese (she/her/hers) is president and chief operating officer of The Winters Group, Inc. As president and chief operating officer, Mareisha's primary responsibility includes leading the firm's finance, human resources, information systems, marketing and branding, and client management operations. Prior to her role as president and chief operating officer, Mareisha served as vice president of The Winters Group where her contributions to supporting The Winters Group's growth included significant enhancements to the firm's technology infrastructure, web presence, social media platforms, and client service offerings. Before joining The Winters Group in 2012, Mareisha worked as Program Manager of a National Science Foundation grant focusing on diversity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) in Charlotte, NC. Mareisha worked for 6 years at Northrop Grumman where she gained a variety of experience working in their business management, supply chain management and engineering business units. Mareisha's experience also includes time working at a small DC based software company and the US Patent and Trademark Office.

She was named to Diversity MBA's Top 100 Under 50 Executive and Emerging Leaders and Diversity Woman Media's The Power 100 List. In 2023, Mareisha was named a Who's Who in Black Charlotte and was recognized in the Charlotte Business Journal's Power 100 and Profiles in Diversity Journal's Women Worth Watching. A graduate of both Spelman College and Georgia Institute of Technology, Mareisha holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. In 2009, she received her MBA and MS in Information Systems from University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Book: We Can't Talk about That at Work! How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics (second edition)

Social media:

· Mary-Frances' LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryfwinters/

· Mareisha's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mareishawintersreese/

The Winters Group, Inc. Website: https://www.wintersgroup.com/

Regina Lawless helps high-achieving Black women find purpose beyond their paycheck in order to experience more bliss in their lives and sustainable success at work and at home. Before starting Bossy & Blissful, a community for Black women executives and business owners, Regina served as the head of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at Instagram (parent company Meta).

Prior to Instagram, she served as the global director of diversity, equality, and inclusion at Micron Technology, where she led the creation of their diversity curriculum and spearheaded talent initiatives to mitigate bias in interviews and performance discussions. Lawless has more than 18 years of HR experience working for Fortune 500 companies across various industries, including Target, Safeway (Albertsons) and Intel.

Lawless spent the early part of her career as an HR business partner, working closely with business leaders to translate their goals into effective people strategies. Her DEI focus is the culmination of her varied HR experience and personal passion for social justice that was fostered at an early age. Lawless grew up in an underserved community that bordered some of the most affluent zip codes in the country. Growing up experiencing inequality firsthand fuels her determination to work toward creating equal opportunity in the workplace and the world.

In 2021, Lawless was appointed to the Board of the World Women Foundation and serves as an Advisory Council Member for the University of San Francisco's Engineering Program. She is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento, in Communication Studies and holds a Master of Science degree in Organization Development from the University of San Francisco. Lawless is a Bay Area native and currently resides there with her partner, her teenage son and their dog, Rocket. She is an avid reader and loves yoga and listening to music and podcasts.

Do You: A Journey of Success, Loss and Learning to Live a More MeaningFULL Life is Lawless' first book published by Greenleaf Book Group in partnership with Fast Company

Social media links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginalawless/

https://www.instagram.com/regina.lawless/

Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. She is the author of the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict and a cohost of HBR's Women at Work podcast. Her articles have been collected in dozens of books on emotional intelligence, giving and receiving feedback, time management, and leadership. As a sought-after speaker and facilitator, Gallo has helped thousands of leaders deal with conflict more effectively and navigate complicated workplace dynamics. She is a graduate of Yale University and holds a master's from Brown University

Book: You Can't Make a Tomelette without Breaking Some Greggs

HBR's Antidote to the Logan Roy School of Toxic Leadership.

For four unforgettable seasons, Succession has riveted viewers inside and outside the business world. Too absurd to be true, too real to truly be fiction, corporate patriarch Logan Roy, his feuding children, and the executives of Waystar Royco have kept us rapt. Every week the show has dominated office chatter and flooded Slack channels with expletive-laden memes, quotes, and insults.

But does the series offer any insights of real-world value to leaders or organizations? Can the psychological power dynamics, nine-figure negotiation tactics, and intricate M&A maneuvers actually teach us something about succeeding in business? Definitely: whatever the Roys do, do the exact opposite.

"You Can't Make a Tomelette without Breaking Some Greggs": Toxic Management Lessons from Succession (and What to Do Instead) pairs advice from HBR experts and researchers with some of the most unforgettable, hilarious, and cringey moments from the show. Featuring an introduction by workplace relationship expert Amy Gallo, author of Getting Along and the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, you'll learn about:

Topics:

• Giving pep talks that inspire (no f-bombs needed)
• Holding offsites that work (tip: don't play Boar on the Floor)
• Avoiding jargon and bizspeak (when the boss asks you to just feed him metadata)
• Leading with trust (what's Kendall's "wobble"?)
• And even improving succession planning (beyond never relinquishing control)

Social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyegallo

http://instagram.com/amyegallo

Maureen Dunne is a cognitive scientist, neurodiversity expert, global keynote speaker, board director, and business leader with over two decades of experience helping organizations build thriving cultures. She has served as a Senior Advisor to some of the world's top corporate brands, Fortune 500 companies, universities, venture capital funds, and government officials, including the LEGO Foundation, Cornell University, and Members of Congress. She also recently co-created the executive education program for business leaders on "Future-Ready Leadership" at the Harvard Kennedy School.

A member of the neurodiversity community, she is a frequent media commentator and contributor on neurodiversity and the future of work. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, Entrepreneur, MIT Sloan Management Review, Chicago Tribune, DiversityQ, Salon, New York Times, People Management magazine, USA Today, Inside Higher Ed, Unleash and Newsweek. A keynote speaker at Stanford University and the National Science Foundation, she was also a featured speaker at The Atlantic Festival where Neurodiversity was included as part of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion theme for the first time in history.

A successful entrepreneur and business leader, Maureen is CEO of Nodi.ai and a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, an invite-only organization for the world's top chief executives. At LEGO, Maureen helped launch a Social Impact Accelerator Fund to support innovation and entrepreneurship in neurodiversity. The first community college graduate to be named a Rhodes Scholar, she is also an elected official helping to build the talent pipeline with community colleges, representing over 12 million students at the national level. She received a joint BA/MA from the University of Chicago, MSc from the London School of Economics, and doctorate from the University of Oxford. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.

Website: www.maureendunne.org

Book synopsis: 1 in 5 people are estimated to be neurodivergent (have a mind that works differently), but we are often wasting their potential. I'm very excited to be representing Dr. Dunne's forthcoming book, THE NEURODIVERSITY EDGE: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization (Wiley, March 12, 2024). Dr. Dunne is absolutely brilliant and can discuss what it means to be neurodivergent, how society often overlooks unique skills neurodivergent individuals can bring to the table (nonlinear thinking, advanced creativity, keen observation skills, and many more) and how we can do better to change the stigma outside the neurotypical script for working and living.

Dr. Dunne will discuss:

• Why are neurodivergent employees the most untapped talent opportunity for organizations to compete?
• What exactly does neurodiversity mean and what are the nuances?
• How should we rethink "culture fit" as it relates to considering neurodivergent employees?
• What are some of the challenges neurodivergent employees face at work?
• What benefits do neurodivergent employees bring to the workplace?
• How have your own experiences as a neurodivergent employer, entrepreneur, board member, and CEO informed your decision to write this book?
• What is the "double empathy problem" and how do we bridge the gap between neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals?
• What is the largest misconception about neurodivergent employees?
• What is the best way organizations can avoid the pitfalls of the "check the box" mindset to neurodiversity and make meaningful change?
• How do neurodivergent workers compliment the growing AI focused workplace?
• Which companies are some of the best role models for tapping neurodiverse talent and what have they done to make an impact?
• What is something recruiters or HR personnel could start working on today to immediately improve workplace conditions for neurodivergent candidates and employees?

Social links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureen-n-dunne-ph-d-a2609a45

Scott Anthony is a multidisciplinary expert who is passionate about helping individuals and organizations develop the capacity to thrive in today's world of never-ending change. He has worked at Innosight, a growth strategy consultancy cofounded by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, since 2003. As a senior partner there, he has advised leadership teams at top global companies on growth and innovation challenges. Anthony has given keynote addresses on six continents and is Harvard Business Corporate Learning's most in-demand external subject matter expert. Anthony has been based in Singapore since 2010, where he served as a member of the Committee on the Future Economy and a board member of MediaCorp and NTUC LearningHub. Anthony has written eight books, including most recently Eat, Sleep, Innovate (2020) and Dual Transformation (2017), which describe how forward-thinking organizations can navigate disruptive change and own the future. In 2021, Thinkers50 named Anthony the world's seventh most influential management thinker; Anthony has been nominated for the group's innovation award three times and won the award in 2017.

Topics for discussion:

· What Scott learned from Clayton Christensen: the basics of disruptive innovation, how to shape and develop ideas, and why the innovator's dilemma has proven to be so persistent

· The challenges of leading through disruptive change

· A culture of innovation: what it is, how do you build it, what makes it hard, and how to encourage it?

· The definition of innovation in the workplace

· Great innovators take an idea from one place and bring it to another. if you wander, your brain starts to see dots you can connect.

· The role of failure in innovation and how successful companies have rituals around accepting failure

· A tool called BEAN (behavior enabler, artifact and nudge) – what is it and how does it encourage innovation

· The importance of using stories to change CEO's minds instead of facts and figures

Social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdanthony/

From the cornfields of Iowa, Jane Boulware defied expectations to lead billion-dollar businesses and rise as a top Microsoft executive. By 52, she'd launched three major ventures, navigated the US's largest merger, and left a trail of influential leaders behind her. Passionate about empowering others to recognize their worth, Jane now dedicates herself to mentoring, board service, and cherishing outdoor moments with her family. All proceeds from her book Worthy are committed to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America's Youth of the Year scholarships. She lives in Bellevue, WA. www.Janeboulware.com

In her honest and engaging debut memoir, Worthy: From Cornfields to Corner Office of Microsoft (January 23, 2024; paperback), former Microsoft executive, Jane Boulware, shares her story of growing up poor in the corn fields of rural Iowa where life was predictable and expectations were low...except for Jane. She knew that in order to change her circumstances and a life of government cheese and butter, it was going to take hard work and a determined spirit!

But Worthy is more than just a tale of personal triumph and achieving millionaire status by the age of 40. Blending humor, introspection, and grit, Jane confronts societal norms and the demands of corporate America once arriving at that level. Diving deep, she shares not only her successes but also her personal struggles and a season of life where she battled with bulimia. Jane also challenges the conventional belief of success as an end goal, proposing its true essence lies in how many we empower and uplift along the way.

Beyond sharing her unconventional path from poverty to success, Jane has a loftier goal. All proceeds from Worthy will be donated to the Boys & Girls Club of America's Youth of the Year scholarships!

Social media:

· https://www.janeboulware.com/

· https://www.linkedin.com/company/janeboulware/

· https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554463565081

· https://www.instagram.com/janeboulware4/