Meet the BuildHERs: Karri Kennedy
Meet Karri Kennedy: Karri knows brave conversations aren’t always easy. Early in her career, she was so worried about hurting people’s feelings that “I’d ramble and overexplain when trying to soften a blow or sandwich things between compliments.” The experience taught her that “kindness and being nice are two different things.”
Today, she challenges the idea that you need a certain title before you can speak up. “Leadership is not just top-down; it’s up, sideways,” she says. “You can challenge a colleague and not be bossy, you can manage up and not be insubordinate.”
And yes, she rehearses difficult conversations in the car. Her advice? “You can’t rehearse both sides.” Instead, she focuses on how she’ll open the conversation and the main point she needs to deliver. Then leaves room for the unexpected.
After the conversation is over, it’s time for recovery. “Music regulates my emotions 100%,” says Karri, whose playlist spans ’60s soul, Florence and the Machine and plenty of yacht rock. She even wears a captain’s hat to Yacht Rock Revue every year and has “recruited about ten of my friends to love Yacht Rock as much as I do.”
Hear more from Karri during The Art of the Brave Conversation at BuildHER on Nov. 13.