Maureen “Mo” McKenna is a management consultant and an energy catalyst who empowers individuals, organizations and communities to harness human energy to fuel transformational change.
She is the founder of Return On Energy, she believes that her job is to help her clients learn how to hold the often polarizing priorities of achieving business goals AND creating a safe work climate for employees. As a management consultant, she works with her clients to focus on their business goals through bringing innovation into their everyday interactions. As an Energy Catalyst, she helps her clients focus on ways to create a safe and healthy work climate where innovation can flourish.
As critical as it is for humans to change the way we “fuel” and renew energy to our physical world, it is also critical that we change the way we “fuel” our human interactions. To do so we must change the way we interact with others in our personal and professional lives. At a time when there is a growing need to draw upon people to be innovative and creative, there is a shortage of human energy to fuel this growing need.
A dynamic and innovative facilitator, learning partner, speaker and learning partner, she helps others develop the skills and techniques to change mindsets and behaviours (starting with their own) to create a healthy community and corporate climates with strong adaptive capacity. She channels relational human energy through the use of dialogic processes using appreciative inquiry, positive psychology, and positive deviance, and draws upon research from neuroscience and positive psychology.
As an energy catalyst, Mo helps clients tap into positive, renewable human energy sources that fuels innovation and creativity to build solutions to create healthy climates in which people are energized, empowered, and engaged. This approach enables them, their communities and their organizations to flourish, in measurable, demonstrable ways.
Mo began her consulting practice in 1998 in response to the growing need for organizations to engage their volunteers and employees, build commitment, inspire action, improve performance, and achieve results. Since that time, she has become a leader in strengths-based approaches to strategic planning, change leadership, community and employee engagement, organizational development, executive coaching, training design and delivery, and customer loyalty.
Before she began her practice, Maureen held management roles in manufacturing, service, distribution, marketing, quality, and human resources at Xerox Canada, and brings a wealth of practical experience to her work with clients. Well respected for her ability to challenge mental models, Mo helps clients re-frame and move away from traditional problem-solving approaches by focusing on their strengths to create innovative and sustainable solutions. As a “learning partner” to clients and fellow consultants, she works with them to achieve extraordinary results.
A leader in Canada in the field of Appreciative Inquiry (AI), Mo is a Certified Management Consultant and a graduate of the Adler International Learning coaching program. She has applied and taught Appreciative Inquiry since 2000.
A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Mo came to Canada when she was 19 and is proud to be Scottish and Canadian. She also loves travelling, learning, jazz, and being spontaneous – “playing with the mess”, if you will.
While Toronto is her home, her extensive travels, warm demeanor and inquisitive nature help her feel at home wherever she hangs her hat.
To observe Mo in action … watch her sky-diving video
Mindful MOments 