Hey y'all, I'm Kristin!
A former university professor, generational researcher, professional speaker, and proud GenX-er with a Southern accent and very little patience for workplace nonsense.
My Southern accent is undeniable, my wanderlust is insatiable, and my sense of humor has been described as wicked. I’ve spent more than 20 years asking WHY people work, communicate, lead, and generally drive each other crazy. Now I use what I’ve learned to help people understand each other and work better together.
Around here, we skip the stereotypes, dig into the research, laugh at ourselves, and figure out what actually works in today's workforce.
How Does a College Professor Turn Into a Professional Speaker?
When I started teaching Communication at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, I thought I had a brilliant plan. I was just going to make all of my college students LOVE me, and if they loved me, they would work really hard. But that wasn't what was happening at all. In fact, my incoming Millennial students were skipping my class to do work for (the somewhat strict) Boomer in our department. So, I started researching, purely selfishly at the time, but because I wanted to figure out how to get my students to maximum capacity.
What I discovered was that this was much bigger than me, or even my confusion about my students.. Different generations had grown up with very different experiences that shaped what they expected from authority, communication, feedback, technology, and work itself. Suddenly, I wasn't just interested in what each generation did differently. I was obsessed with understanding WHY they did it.
That question became the foundation of my research for the next 17 years and eventually, the foundation of genWHY.
The more I researched, the more convinced I became that the stereotypes weren't particularly helpful. Knowing what generations do differently is interesting. Understanding WHY they do it gives us a chance to actually do something about it.
Eventually, organizations started inviting me outside the classroom to talk about what I was finding. One presentation led to another, and somewhere along the way, this college professor became a professional speaker. Today, that work has taken me to hundreds of organizations across 48 states and 3 countries.
I still teach for a living. The classroom just got a hell of a lot bigger (and older)!
I
This GenX-er has:
48 STATES + 3 COUNTRIES
where I've spoken, trained, and probably gotten lost in an airport.
450+ ORGANIZATIONS
from Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to associations
and nonprofits.
250+ CONFERENCES
helping audiences understand the WHY behind how we work.
20+ YEARS
researching generations, communication, leadership, and workplace behavior.
17 YEARS IN THE CLASSROOM
before trading college students for slightly older students.
Yes, There's Research Behind the Humor!
I love a good laugh. I've even been told that my Southern accent gives me the unfair advantage to "take a tough nut and coat it in chocolate", but I take the research behind my work seriously. For more than 20 years, I've studied how the experiences that shape each generation show up in the way we communicate, lead, learn, work, and respond to change.
My research and publications dig deeper into the WHY behind today's workforce—without requiring you to read a 47-page academic journal article to understand it.
Explore Research & Publications →
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When I'm not speaking...
I'm still traveling because it's my FAVORITE thing to do!
Occasionally, I even let Hubby George and our four kids, ranging from 13 to 24, come along, but I have one firm rule: NO COMPLAINING ALLOWED!
When we're home, we love living in Huntsville, Alabama, watching our kids play sports and spending time together as a family.
We recently bought an apartment in Sicily as part of our retirement plan, but don't ask me about it unless you're prepared for me to talk your head off for a couple of hours.
