‘Imperfectly Perfect to me means being able to show up as yourself unapologetically. It also means just calling it out loud. Speaking it into the room. When you are feeling that you are not yourself or something is out of alignment. What happens and I learnt this in a very real way. When I got to the end of that medical journey that I had mentioned that I was telling you about earlier in the podcast, I decided for the first time in my life that I was going to take holiday for two weeks and do no work. The unintended benefit and the lesson I learnt from that is when I returned to work, I’ll never forget a comment from one woman on my team. She said, ‘I’m so glad you finally trusted us enough to leave us here in charge and to take a break’ and I though Oh My Goodness, in trying to show up as perfect and do it all, I had unintentionally set a very damaging expectation with my team, that they needed to be perfect to. I started showing up differently with that team. We got to break through results that would not have been possible because for me it was like, they know I’m not perfect and they know I need a break, because we are human.’
Karen is not only an incredible advocate with whom we are truly grateful for her getting behind the IPC & sharing her story, but an internationally-recognized thought leader whose TEDx appearance, keynotes, blogs and books reach hundreds of thousands of business leaders each year. She is the author of Working from Home: Making the New Normal Work for You, Listen UP! How to Tune Into Customers and Turn Down the Noise and also Success With Less.
A prolific blogger and sought-after media interview, she has been featured in Forbes and regularly contributes to Thrive Global and ZDNet.
As Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, she engages current and future customers around the world. She serves on the company’s Work from Home Taskforce, where she is helping the company’s 50,000+ worldwide employees to better adapt to a work-from-home environment.
Passionate about diversity and inclusion, she also serves on the company’s Racial Equality and Justice Taskforce.
