You and your team do important work.
But everyone can benefit from new strategies for improving the communication that advances that important work. Kendra can help you achieve new goals to…
Advance your mission. Thrive as a team. Communicate your best.
Hello, and thank you for visiting. A little about what I’m working on right now: I currently teach communication studies at the University of Maine and College of the Atlantic, and I’ve been teaching communication and media writing in higher education for more than twenty years. I also work with state and federal agencies and nonprofits, advising in
team dynamics and workplace communication
strategies for group engagement, advocacy & persuasion, and conflict management
public speaking projects and major presentations
group facilitation for decision-making, strategic planning, complex meetings, and event moderation
writing, editing, and outreach communications
What are you working on? I’d be delighted to hear.
For new strategies in teamwork and outreach communication, schedule your team’s next professional development workshop:
Adventures in Team Communication: Your Guide to Getting Along, Getting More Done, and Thriving at Work
Here’s what I hear from business and organizational leaders lately:
Retaining our employees is important to us. What can we do to help foster a positive workplace culture and sense of collegiality here?
Our team has been experiencing misunderstandings and tensions across personal communication styles and generational or other social differences. How can we help with this?
How do I tell my colleagues… to respect personal and workplace boundaries? to avoid gossip? to talk to each other directly? that we aren’t managing our own or each other’s time well?
Participants of the Adventures in Team Communication workshops complete the series with answers to these questions and more. They also gain relevant practice in applying everyday communication skills that lead to meaningful culture shifts including new ways of understanding emotions at work, empathy, civility, feedback, better practices with email, and creating a work culture of learning, belonging, and thriving. Sometimes, the most popular part of this workshop is the section titled, “We Don’t Like Each Other…Now What?” where participants practice new strategies for communicating across differences, managing workplace conflict, and building trust.
Whether your team already gets along well or quickly slides into drama, all workplaces benefit from investing in a healthy workplace climate. Robert Waldinger and Marc Schultz, authors of The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (2023, Simon & Schuster), remind us that the most important thing we can do to create a more meaningful and satisfying life is to tend to our relationships—including our relationships at work. As Waldinger and Schultz say, “Positive relationships at work lead to lower stress levels, healthier workers, and fewer days when we come home upset. They also, simply, make us happier.” Many of us spend a lot of time at work. This workshop offers practical resources for thriving there.
Disclaimer: NO forced disclosures or cheezy trust-fall activities. Just bring an open mind about communication and a sense of adventure!
See what participants of this recent sold-out workshop in partnership with the Maine Association of Nonprofits said about Adventures in Team Communication here.
Harnessing the Butterflies: Your Guide to Public Speaking with Clarity & Confidence
Participants complete this workshop with renewed confidence in the entire public speaking process: from audience analysis and speech construction to the final applause and audience feedback. A portion of this workshop addresses virtual presentations as well. Whether you’re a seasoned public speaker, or you’re completely terrified of addressing a large audience, Kendra’s strategies for speech prep can transform your whole experience—complete with measurable results from your audience. Start by considering these frameworks: (1) your butterflies are your friends, not your nemeses, and (2) public speaking should be approached much like the process of giving a thoughtful gift to someone you care about.
When you harness your own unique power to deliver an important message, and you have your audience’s best interest at heart, you have incredible capacity for generosity and social change. This workshop or individual coaching will arm you with all the resources and practice necessary to make such change and generosity real while also enjoying the process.
Graceful Grammar & Punchy Punctuation: Your Guide to Better Everyday Writing
From e-mails and reports to memos and minutes, our writing constitutes some of our most important and tangible work products. Whether you write for internal or external communication purposes, your command of clarity, grammar, and punctuation can make all the difference in your overall productivity, profit, and public reputation. This dynamic class session is packed with quick and memorable tips for achieving message clarity, mastering grammar and punctuation guidelines, managing email, and committing to thoughtfulness in the tasks of daily written communication. No snoozy sentence diagrams here; this is a fast, dare we say fun, approach to reader-centered writing and editing. Bring your latest written project for some immediate feedback, too.
One Graceful Grammar participant reported, “I really didn’t know what to expect from this class. It covered way more than I expected. [Kendra is] a very fun instructor and kept it interesting on a topic that can be boring.” See more testimonials about Kendra’s workshops and services here.
Illustrations by Allison Maurais