ABOUT ME
Dr. Tawana L. Wiggins
The outcome matters. But so do people.
I have spent almost 30 years of my life in roles where outcomes and people both matter. I’ve had the privilege of serving as a teacher, principal, district leader, and advisor while also being a parent. Across all of those roles, I’ve had to get clear about the goal, make decisions, build support, and produce meaningful results.
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I have been successful in producing significant results, but I also know the numbers do not tell the whole story. How people experience the process, what support they have, what is expected of them, and what the system around them is producing all shape the result. How we care for people in the middle of the work matters too.
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Behavior is information. I believe there is usually more to understand. So I teach people to look again, challenge what they assume, and consider what else may be true. That is often where the gap becomes clearer.
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I want people to do well. And I care about whether the people, systems, and support around them are actually making that possible.
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My faith is at the center of that. I care about people remaining connected while still being able to address what is not working. Truth matters. Accountability matters. Growth matters. And so does how we treat one another while we get there.
What’s your goal? Because what we believe is happening shapes what we do next.
When the goal and the actions don’t line up, the behavior we see may be responding to that gap. If we only address the behavior, we can miss that our own response, support, or system may be helping produce the outcome we’re trying to change.
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Understanding the gap helps us change the right thing to meet the right goal.
LIVED EXPERIENCE
The goal was support.
But I was building for compliance.
I grew up understanding punishment as discipline. If a child misbehaved, you punished the behavior.
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Parenting a daughter with ADHD made me question that understanding in a much deeper way.
When my youngest was diagnosed, there were times I felt like I did not know what I was doing. I am a teacher, so part of me thought I could teach it out of her. If I explained it better, corrected it enough, or gave her the right tools, maybe she would just do what I knew she was capable of doing.
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But she was struggling, and so was I. I did not know much about ADHD. And in the process of learning what I needed to do to support my daughter, I learned that my two adult children also live with ADHD.
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What I began to understand was that my goal and my response were not always aligned. I wanted my daughter to feel supported, but some of what I was doing was designed to produce compliance.
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That realization sharpened something that had already been part of how I parented, taught, led, and worked with people: before I decide what needs to change, I need to understand what is actually happening.
Behavior is information.
Understanding helps us respond to the right thing.
IN THE ROOM
Sometimes the room needs a message.
Sometimes it needs more time with the message.
Every room gathers for a reason. What’s your goal? A keynote can interrupt an assumption, put language around what people are experiencing, and help them see what may be creating the gap between the goal and the outcome. Sometimes that shift is enough to change the next conversation, decision, or response.
Other rooms need more time with the idea, more space to work through it, and more room to apply it to what is actually happening. That is where workshops create the space to go deeper and identify what needs to change.
SPEAKING
Perspective with practical application people can carry beyond the room.
WORKSHOPS
More time to work through what is happening and what needs to change.
What's your goal?
What needs to change to get closer to it?
Every room gathers for a reason. Maybe the goal is stronger communication, better participation, more effective support, clearer leadership, or a system that works without constant reminders and rescue.
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When the outcome is not matching the goal, the work is getting clear about what is creating the gap and what needs to change.
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If that is what your room needs, let’s start there.
