Meet Erica
Three-time Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Speaker, and Workplace Strategist
but also, Mom, Professional Dot Connector, and sports fanatic
Erica Keswin is an internationally sought-after speaker, bestselling author, and workplace strategist who partners with some of the most well-known companies in the world on how to bring their human to work.
For the past two decades, Erica’s work has defined what it means to be a human leader. Erica’s Human Workplace Trilogy: Bring Your Human to Work, Rituals Roadmap, and The Retention Revolution was published by McGraw Hill and each book debuted as a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
When Erica isn’t writing books, she delivers keynotes, leads workshops, and coaches top-of-class companies and individuals to help them improve their performance by honoring relationships in today’s hybrid workplace.
Recent keynotes and workshops include L’Oréal, SXSW, TIAA, IBM, Microsoft, The New York Times, Wharton and her insights have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Good Morning America, NY Post, Forbes, O Magazine, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and Fast Company.
Erica is honored to be one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Top 100 Coaches and one of Business Insider’s most innovative coaches. She’s also the founder of the Spaghetti Project, a roving ritual devoted to sharing the science and stories of relationships at work.
When she's not busy changing the world, Erica can be found cheering on the Knicks and Rangers with her husband Jeff, three children, and her labradoodle Cruiser.
My Story
In 1998, my (then) fiancé asked me to join him on a business trip to Bermuda.
It sounded great, but I had limited vacation days in my job as an executive recruiter and I was saving them for our honeymoon, so I wasn’t sure I could swing it.
But then I remembered that I had just gotten this 5-inch, rectangular “device” called a Blackberry that would supposedly allow me to work from anywhere. Not convinced, but psyched to try it, I got the okay from my boss, and off we went.
I’ll never forget the feeling of liberation I felt, sitting on the white sandy beach. I had been schmoozing with Jeff’s clients at night, and then working on a chaise lounge by day…
I thought to myself: “This is the life!” I just couldn’t believe my luck.
Fast forward, 10 years and three kids later.
I had just gotten another shiny new device called an iPhone. I got it “for the apps,” but like many people, I also kept my Blackberry for emails and typing. So, now I was walking around with two phones bulging out of my pockets—not a great look.
I was totally sucked into the little red light of the Blackberry and the constant pings of my new phone while my husband and three kids were trying to get my attention.
One particularly ridiculous time when I was running in circles chasing texts, calls and emails on two phones while my kids chased me…
I thought to myself: “I can’t believe this is my life!” What a difference a decade makes.
Then, one day I found myself at a lecture with an MIT Professor who had just written a book called Alone Together.
It was then that I realized that, while this technology gave me freedom and flexibility, left to my own “devices,” (pun intended!) I wasn’t connecting—with others or myself.
That’s when I set out on a path to better understand the impact of technology—the good, the bad and the ugly—on how people connect at work. I came across a study out of Cornell that blew my mind. It found that the firefighters who eat together—those who are the most dedicated to the shared firehouse meal—perform better.
In other words they save more lives. In honor of those firefighters, I founded The Spaghetti Project, a roving ritual devoted to sharing the science and stories of relationships at work. The name is a nod to the firefighters’ traditional go-to meal of spaghetti!
