E34 Roger Haskett with Engagement Unlimited and Jessica Kuhn with Make a Wish
We can all make a difference and in this episode we hear Jessica and Roger share insights on how to do just that. Jessica Kuhn shares that working for Make-A-Wish has tremendous meaning and we hear her story to get an inside peak at how project management factors into that. Roger Haskett shares that engagement and playfulness combined with meaning and purpose leads to results. Roger isn’t a project manager, but often works to teach PMs about engagement and the impact on teams. We learn about the power of play and how teams improve performance when members are actively engagement. He also shares the story of his first book, “The me you want to be, Roger’s rules for a bigger, better, more powerful you.”
An actor, author, speaker and leader, Roger provides perspective and experiences that PMs often overlook, but can find benefit from when we implement. With our inside look at Make-A-Wish, Jessica shares great insight on creativity, meaning, change management and team motivation. She describes ADKAR and the benefits of using a consistent approach for change. We learn about working in a federated organizational model and non-profit organization. We also get to hear the story behind Taco Gary!
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The team at Engagement Unlimited creates more productive, happy, and engaged people through award-winning team building, education, and entertainment programs. Their speciality is transforming live events (workshops, meetings, conferences, events, activities) into potent engagement experiences which magnify the benefits to the participants and the organizations they belong to. 
Active Participation, Internal Power, The Power of Play, Magnetic Communication Skills… are all outcomes of our sessions and the process we use as well.
Roger Haskett is an award-winning keynote speaker, author and President of Engagement Unlimited. His thought-provoking keynotes ignite positive transformational change in individuals and organizations across North America and beyond. Roger’s experience, knowledge and highly contagious positive energy have garnered him countless 10/10 audience rankings “best of conference” survey results and hundreds of return clients.
Roger has a B.A. in History and a B.F.A. in Acting (he’s been in over 100 TV Shows, films, and commercials), and an M.A. in Education. He has lived the last 25 years as an entrepreneur. He lives in Vancouver, Canada, with his amazing partner, three incredible kids and two persnickety cats. He spends part of each day wondering how he is so blessed.
Connect with Roger on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and follow Engagement Unlimited on Instagram.
Make-A-Wish® creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. We are on a quest to bring every eligible child’s wish to life, because a wish is an integral part of a child’s treatment journey. Research shows children who have wishes granted build the physical and emotional strength they need to fight a critical illness.
Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Make-A-Wish is the world’s leading children’s wish-granting organization, serving children in every community in the United States and in 50 countries worldwide. Together, generous donors, supporters, staff and 33,000 volunteers across the U.S., grant a wish every 34 minutes, on average, somewhere in the country. Since 1980, Make-A-Wish has granted more than 285,000 wishes to children in the U.S. and its territories; more than 15,300 in 2016 alone.
Jessica Kuhn was born in San Diego, California to a family of technologists, gamers, and artists. After receiving her degree in English/Writing at the University of California – San Diego, her innate desire to demystify complexity, to understand and be understood, and to unite “the why” with “the how” led her into a career as a business analyst, project manager and operational strategist.
Over the last 18 years, Jessica has supported the launch and development of startups in the fitness and video game spaces, and led teams within Fortune 500 companies like Sony Network Entertainment in seeking clarity in chaos without compromising flexibility. Today, she serves as the Director of IT Governance and Compliance at Make-A-Wish America, supporting IT teams in bringing technical innovation to life and enabling chapters in their mission to grant the wish of every eligible child.
Jessica resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, Bryan and her two dogs, Taco Gary and Atlas.
Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn.
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