Karen Dillon

Why is it that so many high achievers end up unhappy in their careers -- and their lives? That's the question that Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen set out to answer. The late Christensen was one of the world's most respected academics -- his book, The Innovator's Dilemma, was the only business book Steve Jobs kept on his bookshelf and Amazon's Jeff Bezos recently noted that it's one of the three books he expects all his top executives to read. Being in Christensen's class had become so coveted among his HBS students that Karen Dillon, then-editor of Harvard Business Review, asked Christensen if they could turn his final class of the semester into an article for her magazine. It was meant to be an easy article to fill a hole in the magazine lineup, but what Dillon discussed that day with Christensen would change her life. After that conversation, Dillon walked away from the top job on one of the world's most respected magazines so she could completely recalibrate her life.  So what can a business school professor say that it's powerful enough to trigger that response? The answer explains why so many high-achievers are hard-wired to make the very choices that can lead to lives of personal and professional unhappiness. And more importantly, how to avoid that fate.

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Karen Dillon is a former editor of Harvard Business Review magazine and co-author of the three best-selling books with Clayton Christensen, including the New York Times best-seller, How Will You Measure Your Life? Her latest book, The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems – and What to Do About It. Karen was named by Ashoka as one of the world's most influential and inspiring women. She is currently a contributing editor to Harvard Business Review and Editorial Director of BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors.

Authority on well-being, personal and professional quality of life, leadership, and innovation, Faculty member at Intermountain Healthcare Leadership Institute; Co-Author with the late Clayton Christensen of Bestsellers “How Will You Measure Your Life?,” “Competing Against Luck” and “The Prosperity Paradox” (2019); Co-Author, “The Microstress Effect” (2023); Former Harvard Business Review Editor; accomplished interviewer and moderator.