THRIVE with Arianna Huffington at #AWNewYork

THRIVE Town Hall

Speakers:

Arianna Huffington, Co-founder of The Huffington Post and CEO of Thrive Global

Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur and Investor on Shark Tank

Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer at Accenture

Carolyn Everson, VP of Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook

Lori Lee, Senior Executive Vice President and Global Marketing Officer at AT&T

Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer at Hearst

Bethenny Frankel, CEO & Founder of SKINNYGIRL

Reflecting on Advertising Week NYC 2016, I’m so happy that my first experience participating in this four-day event was one of the best years yet. As a volunteer, I was fortunate to receive access to all the daytime events and hear musings from the sharpest minds in marketing, tech, media and the arts. Among the most popular panelists were leaders such as DDB North America’s CEO Wendy Clark, actor Jesse Williams, NFL CMO Dawn Hudson and marketing virtuoso Seth Godin. The panel that really caught my attention was moderated by Arianna Huffington, the media maven behind The Huffington Post.   

THRIVE with Arianna Huffington was a Town Hall event that focused on maintaining productivity and wellness in an age of constant distraction and chaos. There’s a clear correlation between constant cellular usage and decreased attention span and productivity, and Huffington was eager to dig at the root of this growing problem and find a solution.  

THRIVE began with a one-on-one chat with Huffington and Mark Cuban of Shark Tank. After an amusing anecdote about his experience attending the first Presidential Debate, Cuban stressed the importance of creating personal time in one’s schedule for doing the things that brings joy to one’s self. Even with a packed schedule that involves hundreds of calls, meetings and television shoots, Cuban finds peace of mind through spending quality time with his family. While Huffington found this arrangement very endearing, she still had one question that needed to be answered: How does Mark Cuban THRIVE? He maintains a positive attitude and embraces change, particularly when change is an offset of personal fears. “The fear of failure holds people back,” he said. He went on to state that despite being a very successful entrepreneur, he wouldn’t be where he is today had it not been for the many failures he has experienced. “No matter how many times you fail, you only have to be right once!” he said as his session came to an end.

The heart of the THRIVE panel began when Huffington introduced a panel of female business leaders that are leading the cultural shift in their respective industries. With speakers from Facebook to the reality television industry, it was sure to be an engaging panel. Huffington started up conversation with a bang by passionately stating that women are leading disruption in terms of how men designed the workplace structure decades ago. Companies are beginning to realize that shifting focus off of enforcing shortsighted business goals and giving more attention to the quality of life of employees creates a stronger organizational structure. As Joanna Coles of Hearts said, “happy employees results in quality work!” All the panelists agreed that bringing health and wellness to the forefront of business creates a unified work environment, hence, a strong company culture is set in place.

How can business leaders enact this shift? Carolyn Everson of Facebook suggested, “Help employees be happy and well-rounded; invest in their goals outside of work.” Engage with employees and find out what their interests and hobbies are. What do they love to do? What would they love to bring to the workplace? Make personal contact with employees and let them know that they are valued stakeholders in the organization. Of course, driving employee engagement is no easy task, but Lori Lee of AT&T offered some advice. “People like to work together, so focus on enacting team-building activities like community service,” she said.

While listening to the panel and learning about the ways in which company cultures are changing for the benefit of employees, lessons from my Internal Communications class floated through my head. Employee engagement and satisfaction is truly integral to an organization’s growth because employees are involved with the organization at a deeply intimate level. When a crisis or change happens with a business, it often affects employees the hardest. Employees truly are an organization’s most valuable assets, and hearing that Arianna Huffington and other influential business leaders are leading this change in corporations is very reassuring to know.

Key Takeaways:

-Good business relies on good people. Companies need to consider the physical and mental well-being of their employees in order to create a productive work environment.

-Creating a company culture focused on uniting the personal goals of employees and the mission of the company is key to long-term business success.

-Don’t fear failure, rather, it should be embraced and used a catalyst for personal growth.

Best Quotes:

“Companies need to consider people their best assets.” - Carolyn Everson, Facebook

“Get employees to feel comfortable. Demonstrate the changes from the top to the bottom.”- Lori Lee, AT&T

“Women are leading the disruption that men created in the workplace decades ago”- Arianna Huffington

“No balls, no babies!”- Mark Cuban