Connector

Mamie Kanfer Stewart

Mamie Kanfer Stewart is the author of Momentum: Creating Effective, Engaging and Enjoyable Meetings and host of The Modern Manager podcast. Through her coaching and training company, Meeteor, Mamie helps managers build healthy, high performing teams with a special emphasis on productive meetings. Mamie received an MBA from Stern Graduate School of Business at New York University and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. Mamie is a current board member of Luria Academy of Brooklyn, Brooklyn Community Foundation, and board chair of Bend the Arc. She serves on two family foundation boards: Lippman Kanfer Family Foundation and Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. Mamie’s creative spirit leads her to be an enthusiastic hobbyist. You may find her trapezing, puzzeling, knitting, baking unusual cakes, singing karaoke, or playing piano (or ukulele) for group sing-alongs. Mamie, her husband, and two children live in Brooklyn, NY.

Describe the Impact of a Project you’re focused on.

One critical aspect of my work is to elevate the importance of and capability of managers. Very little emphasis is put on managers and the critical role they plan in a team or organization's success. As a culture, we shine a spotlight on leaders, yet its the day-to-day managers that impact the lives of millions of workers. I am on a mission to transform how society views people management (not leadership or business management) and to enable managers to unleash the potential of their team by cultivating a healthy dynamic in which they and their colleagues thrive. In other words, the place where most of us spend most of our time (work / the office), will become a place / time / space where we get to be our best selves because we are embraced as a full person, invested in to become even better, challenged appropriately, provided adequate feedback and praise, etc.

What results do you hope for when the impact is amplified?

More organizations will see employee flourishing as critical to their own success and therefore invest in growing the capability of managers to lead their teams as a collective and as individuals. Flexible work from anywhere policies, unlimited paid time off, write your own job description and other attempts to support greater engagement and work-life balance are critical, but without the human skills to support them, they'll either flounder or never be fully utilized.

What do you have to offer as a connector? What can you give as expertise to others?

1) I can help you better understand your own management style / preferences, and identify strategies to help you work more effectively with your team members. 2) My network is broad. Always happy to help make appropriate introductions.