Brent Kenneway: Meaningful Work

Описание: In this episode of Gratitude Through Hard Times, Chris Schembra sits down with Brent Kenneway, National Group VP of Sales at UKG, for a conversation about the kind of relationships that aren’t transactional, the kind that actually nourish the soul.

Brent opens with the gratitude question and doesn’t hesitate: he gives credit to his wife, Jenny, the person he says made his life and career possible by “holding down the fort” while he built his leadership path. From there, the conversation expands into parenting, identity, and leadership, especially Brent’s lived experience of managing “multiple personalities” at home with four kids and at work with diverse teams. The thread that ties it together is intentionality: Brent wants to be more present when he comes home, more human at work, and more consistent about building culture one interaction at a time.

Chris and Brent then go deep on a core leadership shift: moving from blame to radical accountability, and from problem-obsession to solution-finding. They talk about debriefing as a life skill (“What went well? What could have gone better? What will we do differently next time?”), and they challenge the cultural reflex to fix what’s wrong without first helping what’s already right go more right. Brent adds a key leadership balance: culture without systems breaks, and systems without culture underperform, you need both.

Finally, they tackle the future: AI, change, and uncertainty. Brent argues for People-First AI—AI as augmentation, not replacement, using the story of the handheld calculator as a reminder that tools can free humans to do more meaningful work. The takeaway is clear: the companies (and families) that win won’t be the ones that move fastest alone; they’ll be the ones who pair speed with depth—building trust, presence, and gratitude at scale.