TLA Meeting - July

TLA July 27th Meeting Announcement

Technology Leaders Association (TLA) was established to help senior level IT executives develop and manage their careers. As part of this effort, we hold monthly meetings to network, share ideas, and learn from featured guest speakers in the career management field.

This month, Dr. Michael Thompson (www.interludecoaching.com) will present an overview of Emotional Intelligence. See below for a topic overview.

Date: Friday, July 27th
Where: Acxiom, located at 3333 Finley Road in Downers Grove
Cost: No charge

Special thanks to TLA member and Acxiom employee Paul Koziel for hosting us this month.

As a special facilities note, all TLA members must be escorted throughout the Acxiom facility. Please do not leave the conference room without an escort.

For reservations, (1) Please sign up online on the TLA website (www.techleaders.net) under ‘Events’ – or, if you don’t have access to the website,
(2) Please reply to Patrick.Moroney@gmail.com with your name and telephone number.

For location information: Contact Jim Anfield at jdanfield@illinoisalumni.org.

Reservations must be made before noon on Thursday, July 26th with the first 80 reservations accepted. No walk-ins please.

Directions
Acxiom is located near the intersection of I-355 and I-88 in Downers Grove. Get off the Butterfield Road exit of I-355 and go east to Finley Road. Go south on Finley Road for about a half-mile and Acxiom is located on the east side of Finley. Go to the main entrance of the eight-story building for check-in. Do not go to the other four-story Acxiom building. Parking is available just west of the eight-story building in the parking lot.

Agenda
7:00am – 7:15am Check-in and coffee
7:15am – 8:30am Structured networking – two table rounds
8:30am – 8:40am Announcements
8:40am – 9:30am Michael Thompson
9:30am Adjourn

Structured Networking
Structured networking is a technique used at most major executive transition groups. It is meant to be a powerful method of generating ideas that might help each of our searches. During this process, we will quickly brainstorm potential job lead ideas, gain networking contacts at desired companies, and generate advice from the members by sharing our backgrounds as well as our career objectives. It is designed to generate ideas, but given the time constraints, not get into immediate detailed discussions. You should plan on following up with anybody who may have had an interesting idea or a good contact.
Please bring business cards, handbills (career overview) or resumes (plain paper is fine) to pass around if you have them. Figure on about 20 copies of the resumes/handbills and 50 business cards.
We will run our networking, dividing the room into small tables of a maximum of 8 people and doing 2 table rotations before our speaker begins. At each rotation, you will have 90 seconds for your pitch and about 90 seconds for Q&A. Spend no more than 1/3 summarizing your past (this is not the time to rehash your resume), then spend about 1/3 on what you are looking for and 1/3 on what we can do to help (such as target contacts) or ask for advice on an issue.

Topic - ‘How Mastery of Emotional Intelligence Skills Can Impact Your Career’
Emotional Intelligence refers to the capacity to deal effectively with one’s own and others emotions. When applied to the workplace, emotional intelligence is about thinking intelligently with emotions; perceiving, expressing, understanding and managing emotions in a professional and effective manner at work. For example, research has shown that EI accounts for as much as 36% of the variance in leadership success.

Business leaders who maintain that emotions are best kept out of the work environment do so at their organization's peril. Best-selling author Daniel Goleman's theories on emotional intelligence (EI) have radically altered common understanding of what ‘being smart’ entails.

Dr. Thompson will be leading a discussion on some of the following topics or ideas:

• Overview of Emotional Intelligence
• How to use EI to help you improve as a leader
• How to cultivate EI in your organization
• Examples (case studies) of how EI helped individuals and organizations

Speaker Background - Michael Thompson, Ph.D., CEC, CEIC
Dr. Thompson has demonstrated the ability to effectively guide, mentor and focus individuals and organizations as they examine their Mission and Vision for the future. He is particularly successful at helping them understand their interdependence and relationships.

Dr. Thompson graduated with honors from several academic institutions. His diversified background in business, nonprofit associations and venture capital funded start-up medical devices companies brings a powerful insight into the needs of 21st century businesses.

Current activities include:

• Doctorate in Clinical Psychology
• Certified as an Empowerment Coach and certified in the use of Emotional Intelligence Assessments
• Adjunct Faculty - Leadership Learning Forum - De Paul University and the Illinois Institute of Art in Career Development
• Coach/mentor in EI at Kellogg School of Management
• Guest lecturer at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. - Emotional Intelligence in Organizational Development
• Volunteer Coaching at the Career Transition Center related to Old St. Pat’s Catholic Church in Chicago
• Business coaching for several start-up companies and private clients