Karen Dillon Profile Photo

Karen Dillon

Keynote Speaker

Co-author of New York Times best-seller How Will You Measure Your Life? and The Microstress Effect; Frequent Contributor, Harvard Business Review

Karen Dillon is a warm and engaging speaker on issues of well-being, personalizing the themes of her books to make them actionable and relevant to each audience. A New York Times best-selling author, participants say her keynotes and workshops can be life-changing. Karen inspires her audience to live more intentional personal and professional lives. 

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Karen Dillon Profile Photo

Her work with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen changed Karen Dillon’s life. Though Christensen was widely considered to be one of the world’s most influential thinkers on innovation, it was their conversations about applying some of Christensen’s business theories to our personal lives that caused her to rethink her own. They talked about how a company’s strategy is formed through hundreds of everyday resource allocation decisions and how they so often go wrong in their quest to grow. Her subsequent decade of work with Christensen helped shape her own ideas about living a life of purpose – and sharing those ideas with others.

Now a senior fellow at the Christensen Institute, a faculty member at the Intermountain Leadership Institute, a contributing editor to Harvard Business Review, and a columnist for Inc. magazine, Karen’s current work through writing, talks, and workshops focuses on well-being and helping others ask and answer important questions about their own personal and professional lives.

Featured Videos

Karen Dillon Profile Photo
Karen Dillon

Karen Dillon- Do You Have a Strategy for Your Life?

Karen Dillon Profile Photo
Karen Dillon

Karen Dillon on Managing Microstress

Karen Dillon Profile Photo
Karen Dillon

Karen Dillon on Unintentional Stress Triggers

Karen Dillon’s Speech Topics

  • How Will You Measure Your Life? – Keynote

    Why is it that so many high achievers end up unhappy in their careers, and worse, in their lives? Karen’s work with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen helps answer that question. After collaborating with Christensen on what would become one of the most popular articles ever to appear on HBR’s website, Dillon walked away from her coveted job to re-prioritize her life. So, what can a business school professor say that is powerful enough to trigger such a response? The answer explains why it is that high achievers are hard-wired to make the very choices that can lead to a life of personal and professional unhappiness.

  • The Microstress Effect – Interactive Workshop

    Ever find yourself flopping into bed exhausted without remembering exactly what happened that day to make you so tired? Is your team struggling to do their best work under the pressures of everyday work and life? Dillon’s research on high performers may explain what’s going on. Through her work with Babson professor Rob Cross, she identifies an invisible, but insidious, form of stress. It’s so subtle that you might not even know you’re facing it, but it’s affecting you (and your team’s) performance at work and in everyday life. In this interactive workshop or keynote, Karen will walk your team through the causes and very real physiological impact of “microstress” and, more importantly, what to do about it.

  • How Will You Measure Your Life? – Interactive Workshop

    Why do so many high achievers end up unhappy in both their work and their lives? Because they are hard-wired to make the very choices that can unintentionally lead to that outcome. What can you do to course-correct? In this interactive workshop based on her work with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, participants will learn how proven business theories can be powerful decision-making tools. With interactive exercises and group discussions throughout, it helps participants understand the long-term impact of the everyday choices they are making.


    We will then use those theories to help answer three essential questions:

    • Question 1: Happiness in your career
    • Question 2: Happiness in your personal life
    • Question 3: Staying out of jail! 

    With interactive exercises and group discussions throughout, we will help participants understand what they most value and the long-term impact of the everyday choices they are making now so they can begin to answer the question: How Will You Measure Your Life?

What other organizations say about Karen Dillon

I was thrilled to invite Karen to speak to our staff and faculty about her research on microstress and how people can realistically minimize it. Preparing for the talk was seamless, and her delivery was exceptional. Karen helped participants shift the lens through which they view their stressors and what is within their control. The tools Karen designed and integrated into her presentation are user-friendly and relevant to all adults. If you work with Karen, expect a unique blend of warmth and vulnerability with an innate understanding of individual and organizational challenges and solutions.

Universities & Colleges

What other organizations say about Karen Dillon

Karen seamlessly tied together the two biggest ways many of us will measure ourselves – personal lives and career success. And she provided tools and tactics for how to think about the impact each has on the other, as well as the false notions many of us chase when we put title, salary, and prestige ahead of purpose, respect, and growth… I’m relieved we had the barrier of virtualness to keep the crying jags at bay.

Office Equipment

What other organizations say about Karen Dillon

Karen Dillon’s popular and impactful workshop, ‘How Will You Measure Your Life,’ is a key part of our company…In a highly immersive and interactive learning environment, participants explore timeless leadership principles that help them further develop leadership attributes such as vision, courage, integrity, resilience, emotional intelligence, stakeholder alignment, and creating a belonging culture, to name a few. It is the combination of competence and character that makes great leaders and great organizations.

Executive Development/Coaching

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