Tamara Erickson
Founder & CEO | Tammy Erickson Associates
Carlisle, MA, UNITED STATES
Top 50 global business thinker, award-winning author, and expert on organizations, the changing workforce, and generations at work
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Biography
My career has revolved around building and managing successful, innovative organizations.
My most recent work has focused on the changing workforce, demographic trends and how corporations can most effectively "engage" these employees - capture hearts and minds. That work lead to several years of research into generational differences, and the important clues they provide to understanding what we each want from work.
I've always loved technology and how it changes the way we work and live. Today, the interplay between what new technologies allow and what individuals prefer is dramatically re-shaping our organizations. As the economy continues to evolve toward more knowledge-based work, the challenge of creating truly intelligent organizations continues to grow.
Early in my career, I was fascinated by the challenge of developing strategy when R&D success determined a firm's strategic options. This lead to my first co-authored book on linking R&D investments to strategy and many years of helping organizations become more innovative, including a deep dive into systems thinking and organizational learning. Recently I partnered with a team at London Business School to conduct what I'm told is one of the largest and most rigorous studies of collaborative team behavior within organizations and how it supports innovation. With this, my work comes full circle, back to exploring the forces capturing people's passions, allowing organizations to become more collaborative and innovative.
My goal is to help organizations and individuals develop a compelling view of the future, to discern and describe interesting trends, and provide actionable counsel. My work is based on extensive research, well-grounded and academically rigorous, and fundamentally optimistic.
Many groups are looking for a way to bring the latest trends and issues affecting talent, innovation and intelligent organizations into focus – and to gain confidence and consensus for action.
My speeches and workshops are designed to do just that. With humor – and a clear discussion of the interplay among shifting attitudes, new technologies, changing demographics, and the latest understanding of engagement, collaboration and innovation – I help you “turn on the light bulb” within your group and, at the appropriate time, work through the ideas and approaches best suited to meet your organization’s shifting needs.
Industry Expertise (10)
Management Consulting
Market Research
Corporate Training
Professional Training and Coaching
Corporate Leadership
Public Relations and Communications
Training and Development
Human Resources
Research
Information Services
Areas of Expertise (10)
Leadership Education
Strategic Planning
Management Consulting
Organizational Change
Employee Branding
Corporate Culture
Organization Transformation
Innovation and Future Trends
Executive Development
Organizational Leadership
Accomplishments (2)
Recipient - Thinkers50 (professional)
Thinkers50 is the definitive global ranking of management thinkers is published every two years. The ranking is based on voting at the Thinkers50 website and input from a team of advisers. The Thinkers50 has ten established criteria by which thinkers are evaluated -- originality of ideas; practicality of ideas; presentation style; written communication; loyalty of followers; business sense; international outlook; rigor of research; impact of ideas and the elusive guru factor.
Recipient - McKinsey Award (professional)
Tamara won the McKinsey Award in 2004 for “It’s Time to Retire Retirement.” Since 1959, McKinsey & Company and Harvard Business Review have presented annual awards recognizing the best articles published each year in the magazine.
Education (2)
University of Chicago: Bachelor of Arts, Biological Sciences 1976
Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration: MBA 1978
Tamara was the recipient of the James Thomas Chirurg Fellowship
Links (4)
Event Appearances (3)
Managing Across Generations
World Business Forum 2011 New York City
2011-10-06
KEYNOTE SPEECH
HR Technology Conference & Expo Chicago, Illinois
2010-09-29
KEYNOTE SPEECH
Enterprise 2.0 Conference San Francisco, California
2009-09-21
Sample Talks (5)
Global Generations
Geography significantly influences the formation of generational beliefs and behavior. Each country’s unique social, political, and economic events shape specific views and attitudes among today’s adults. Understanding these country-to-country differences is critical to creating employment deals that attract and retain the best employees in each geographic area. Western generational models cannot be applied broadly to a global workforce.
Building Collaborative Organizations
New technologies are making their way into the workplace, offering improvements in generating, capturing, and sharing knowledge, finding helpful colleagues and information, and tapping into new sources of innovation and expertise. Over time, these collaborative technologies will change the way work is done and the way organizations function. They will shift the way we interact with people, find external expertise when it’s needed, and share ideas and observations more broadly.
Innovation in the Intelligent Economy: Bringing People and Ideas Togethe
The heart of innovation is the combination of two previously unrelated ideas. Creating the capacity for innovation in your organization means encouraging collaboration: namely, sharing knowledge and working together to create new ideas. The paradox: many of the best ways to encourage collaboration work against innovation! How can you balance both?
Leading a Multi-Generational Workforce
Four generations are working together in today’s workplace—and a fifth is on the way. Each brings unique assumptions to the job. As a result, events in the workplace are often interpreted differently by individuals in different generations. What may seem like good news to a Boomer might well be an unsettling and unwelcome development to a member of Generation X. Things that members of Gen Y love often seem unappealing or frivolous to those in older generations.
Four Keys to Social Media Adoption
Today most leaders are sold on the tremendous potential new collaborative technologies present to change the way work gets done: increasing productivity, stimulating innovation, and enhancing employee engagement. But realizing the benefits is proving to be a frustrating challenge for many.
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