Podcasts about Psychological safety

“Managing emotions—yours and your audience's—is hard enough, but it's even harder when you're under pressure to respond."High-pressure communication doesn't have to derail your message. In this Think Fast, Talk Smart Ask Matt Anything episode, Matt Abrahams answers real-world questions from members of the Think Fast, Talk Smart Learning Community, sharing practical advice for communicating with confidence when the stakes are high. From managing cognitive load and regulating anxiety to leading uncertain conversations and running more engaging meetings, Matt offers actionable strategies for staying focused, connecting with your audience, and communicating with clarity under pressureKey Takeaways:Manage your emotions to manage your message. Reducing cognitive load through preparation and emotional regulation helps you think and communicate more clearly under pressure.Lead with your audience in mind. Whether navigating uncertainty or running meetings, acknowledging emotions, setting clear expectations, and tailoring your message helps people stay engaged and take action.Activity:Stress-test your message. Before your next high-stakes conversation or presentation, rehearse it once under mild pressure—set a timer, record yourself, or practice with a colleague. Notice where you lose clarity, then refine those moments before the real conversation.Episode Reference Links:Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (01:07) - Speaking Under Pressure (04:01) - Calming an Anxious Audience (07:45) - More Engaging Meetings (12:33) - Communicating Change Without Fear (16:30) - Conclusion

What does it take to break through leadership barriers in medicine without sacrificing your authenticity? In this inspiring episode, Dr. Andrea Austin welcomes Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant, as she shares her journey into executive leadership, the lessons she learned navigating spaces where women remain significantly underrepresented, and why visibility, not just hard work, is essential for career advancement. Together, Andrea and Shannon unpack the realities women physicians continue to face, from being mistaken for non-physician staff to balancing invisible labor at home while pursuing leadership opportunities. Rather than accepting these challenges as personal failures, they encourage physicians to recognize the systemic barriers that exist and develop intentional strategies to overcome them. Shannon introduces the concept of strategic visibility, explaining why saying "yes" to every opportunity isn't enough. She shares actionable advice on building relationships with decision-makers, leading high-impact initiatives, communicating accomplishments with confidence, and understanding the difference between mentorship and sponsorship. The conversation also explores psychological safety, creating healthy leadership cultures, and why diverse leadership ultimately leads to better healthcare decisions for patients. Whether you're considering your first leadership role or looking to expand your influence within medicine, this episode offers practical tools, encouragement, and a powerful reminder that authentic leadership creates lasting change—for physicians, healthcare systems, and the patients they serve. You'll Hear How They: Discuss why women remain significantly underrepresented in executive healthcare leadership despite representing the majority of today's medical graduates. Explain how strategic visibility helps physicians position themselves for leadership opportunities by intentionally building relationships with key decision-makers. Share practical techniques for communicating accomplishments confidently while remaining authentic and collaborative. Explore the critical difference between mentorship and sponsorship, and why sponsorship is often the missing ingredient in advancing women leaders. Reveal leadership practices that build psychological safety, encourage healthy disagreement, and strengthen team performance. Discuss why physician advocacy and participation in organized medicine are essential for creating meaningful healthcare reform and improving patient care. Encourage physicians to embrace leadership without compromising their values, identity, or authenticity. About the Guest "You don't have to change who you are to become an effective leader, you simply need to become visible for the impact you're already creating." — Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant is a pediatrician, leadership coach, and advocate for women in medicine. As President of California's largest medical association, she's a trailblazer for women in leadership. Through Physician Women Rising, she empowers women physicians to pursue executive roles, building visibility, presence, and influence. Her PWR Leadership Method drives meaningful change in healthcare."

"It's not an accent, it's an identity."The way we speak shapes more than how we're understood—it shapes how we're perceived. Peter Novak believes the goal of communication isn't to eliminate an accent, but to communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and authenticity. As a linguist, communication coach, and expert in accent bias, Novak helps multilingual professionals communicate more effectively while embracing the identity their voice represents. In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, he joins Matt Abrahams to explore how accent bias influences the workplace, why clarity matters more than sounding "native," and the practical techniques anyone can use to communicate with greater confidence and impact.Key Takeaways:Clarity matters more than sounding native. Effective communication comes from making your message easy to understand, not eliminating your accent.Your accent is part of your identity. Multilingual communicators bring unique perspectives and strengths that should be embraced, not hidden.Activity:Focus on clarity. Record yourself explaining a familiar topic for one minute. Listen back and identify three words or phrases to emphasize and two places to pause. Record it again, focusing on clarity rather than sounding perfect, and compare the difference.Episode Reference Links:Peter Novak82. It's Not About You: Why Effective Communicators Put Others F… Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (00:52) - Accent Bias (03:55) - Accent and Identity (05:55) - Processing Fluency (08:25) - Clarity Over Perfection (10:26) - The Power of Prosody (15:33) - Speaking with Confidence (17:56) - The Final Three Questions (22:13) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.To see what Scribe could look like for your organization, head to scribe.how/thinkfast and mention Think Fast for your first month of Scribe Capture free. 

What makes people feel safe enough to speak up, challenge ideas and admit mistakes at work?In this episode of the People Performance Podcast, Scott Morrison and Spencer Locker explore the concept of psychological safety and why it's become one of the most important ingredients of high-performing teams.Together, they discuss what psychological safety really means, how it influences innovation, collaboration and employee performance, and why trust is the foundation of creating an environment where people feel confident to contribute, learn and grow.They also explore how the T2 Trust Equation - credibility, reliability and rapport - helps leaders build stronger relationships and create cultures where people feel psychologically safe to perform at their best.To find out more about Psychological safety take a look at our Leading the Team workshop here: https://trans2performance.com/leading-the-team -----Follow The People Performance Podcast for leadership, culture, and high-performance insights:Instagram: @peopleperformancepodcastTikTok: @peopleperformancepod

How do we actually live out psychological safety, rather than just talking about it as some grand, academic theory? A couple of years ago, Minette Norman and Karolin Helbig came out with the Psychological Safety Playbook. I've been using her practical phrases in my own training sessions ever since (with full credit, of course!). But as any facilitator, parent, or human being knows, putting this stuff into practice is darn hard. You want to be the supportive expert, but then real-world pressures—like meeting targets, sudden organizational shifts, or just plain old fear of looking foolish—kick in. That's why I sat down with them to talk about their new follow-up book. They wrote it because change-makers kept coming to them on tour, saying, "Okay, we read the basics, but now we're hitting roadblocks. What next?" What I love about their approach is that it's completely "no fluff." They give us real, actionable strategies to bake inclusion right into the DNA of our everyday work life, even when things get a little messy. Key Themes from the Discussion Courage as Vulnerability, Not Heroics. True leadership in a psychologically safe environment isn't about having a flawless track record or acting like a superhero. It requires the humility to acknowledge that you don't have all the answers and to actively invite your team to fill in your blind spots. "It's not about the big heroic acts. It's really about the courage to be vulnerable, for example. Particularly as a leader, that's not easy to do..." — Karolin Helbig  The Intentional Practice of Listening. Listening is often treated as an obvious, baseline skill, but true listening requires a conscious commitment to sit with silence and process what is being said, rather than rushing to respond or dominate the room. "It sounds so obvious that we all know how to do it... and it is so darn hard, right? It really is. And we often think we're listening when we're not." — Minette Norman  Recognizing Personal Emotional Triggers. Building psychological safety is a slow process that can be shattered instantly by an unmanaged, defensive reaction. Developing self-awareness around your own physical stress signals helps create a vital pause between a trigger and your response. "Psychological safety is really slow to build and quick to break. And if you can avoid these breaks. By becoming more aware of your reactions and handling them more skillfully, then a lot is gained." — Karolin Helbig  Shifting the Narrative Around Failure. For teams to innovate, leaders must actively destigmatize mistakes. This means moving away from finger-pointing and instead treating unexpected outcomes as valuable learning experiments, a process that must be modeled from the top down. "If you're trying something new, and certainly if we're trying to innovate, there will be failure along the way. So the question is, how quickly can we learn from them and improve and move forward?" — Minette Norman  Designing for Inclusion via Rotating Roles. Inclusion doesn't happen by accident; it has to be deliberately engineered into team dynamics. Using a rotating role like an "Inclusion Booster" ensures that monitoring the health of a meeting becomes a shared team habit rather than solely the leader's responsibility. "Meetings by default are not inclusive. So we need to design them for inclusion. The idea of the inclusion booster is just to have a rotating role of somebody in facilitating the meeting and paying attention that we actually behave in the way we earlier defined." — Karolin Helbig  Actionable Takeaway for Listeners To move your team from theory to practice, introduce the "Inclusion Booster" role into your next recurring meeting. Rotate this responsibility among different team members each week, tasking them with observing meeting dynamics, ensuring equal airtime, and calling out interruptions using a lighthearted tool like the "ELMO" (Enough, Let's Move On) principle. Follow Karolin and Minette at https://thepsychologicalsafetyplaybook.com/

DAY 3 of **40 Days to PMP Exam Success 2026** focuses on one of the most important responsibilities of a project professional: **leading the project team**.Everything rises and falls on leadership. In today's session, we examine what effective leadership looks like across predictive, Agile, and hybrid project environments—and how these concepts may appear on the 2026 PMP exam.Today's breakdown covers the seven key enablers of leading the project team:✅ Establish expectations at the team level✅ Empower the team✅ Solve problems collaboratively✅ Represent the voice of the team✅ Support varied experiences, skills, and perspectives✅ Determine the appropriate leadership style✅ Establish clear roles and responsibilitiesYou will also learn:• How team charters, social contracts, and ground rules establish the operating culture• How to use RACI to clarify ownership and decision-making authority• The difference between an issue, problem, impediment, obstacle, and blocker• How to apply the DIGIVE problem-solving framework• Why leadership is based on influence—not merely position or authority• How leadership differs across predictive, Agile, and hybrid environments• The role of the project manager as the organizational bridge in hybrid projectsWe also break down several major leadership and motivation models, including:

"The assumption of swift trust is really useful."Teams don't always need years to build trust—they need the right conditions to build it quickly. As a Stanford professor and expert in organizational design, Melissa Valentine studies how communication, team structure, and emerging technologies help people collaborate more effectively. In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Valentine joins Matt Abrahams to explore how leaders can foster swift trust, adapt communication as teams move from brainstorming to execution, and use storytelling to drive meaningful change. Together, they share practical strategies for building stronger teams and navigating collaboration in an AI-enabled workplace.Key Takeaways:Build trust from the start. High-performing teams assume competence, communicate openly, and address miscommunication quickly.Adapt your communication to the task. Encourage diverse thinking during brainstorming, then align your language as the team moves toward execution.Activity:Practice swift trust. In your next project with a new colleague or team, begin by assuming competence and shared intent. Delegate one meaningful responsibility early, communicate clear expectations, and reflect afterward on how starting from trust influenced the team's collaboration and results.Episode Reference Links:Melissa ValentineMelissa's Book: Flash TeamsEp.241 Team Spirit: How to Make Group Work WorkEp.268 Going Viral: How To Balance Authenticity and Spectacle Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (00:57) - What Makes a Flash Team? (03:01) - Building Swift Trust (04:54) - When Teams Need to Converge (07:17) - Repairing Miscommunication (09:18) - Stories That Drive Change (12:01) - Lessons for Every Team (13:47) - The Final Three Questions (16:41) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.Most Work Platforms Help People Communicate.  Some help you organize, but Zoom turns conversations into outcomes. Try Zoom Mate today

What if your culture isn't defined by your values, but by the behavior you're willing to tolerate? Steve Harris has spent decades helping organizations create environments where employees feel safe speaking up, leaders model the right behaviors, and ethics become part of everyday decision-making. As Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Lincoln Financial, Steve shares practical examples of how organizations can build trust, strengthen accountability, and help managers create psychological safety within their teams.  You'll hear how Lincoln reframed speaking up from a compliance obligation to a business imperative, why frontline managers have such a powerful influence on culture, and how one difficult experience early in Steve's career shaped his view of the difference between what is legal and what is ethical. His stories offer valuable lessons for any leader who wants values to guide behavior when decisions become difficult.  In his role as Senior Vice President and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer at Lincoln Financial, Steve leads the company's enterprise compliance and sustainability programs and helps shape a culture of ethical decision-making across more than 11,000 employees. Under Steve's leadership, Lincoln Financial has been recognized five times as one of Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies. Before joining Lincoln, Steve spent more than a decade at The Hartford, another long-time Ethisphere honoree, and he's built a reputation for helping organizations integrate ethics into business strategy, leadership, and culture. He's also a frequent speaker on ethics and compliance and serves on several industry and academic advisory boards.  You'll discover:Why speaking up drives business success How managers create psychological safety What trust looks like in practice Why listening builds stronger cultures The difference between law and ethicsConnect with Steve Harris on Social MediaLinkedIn Website Lincoln Financial Check out all the episodesLeave a review on Apple PodcastsConnect with Meredith on LinkedIn

AI is commoditizing specialization — and the move isn't to specialize harder. It's to elevate. AI is running the 250-year division of labor in reverse, collapsing roles that used to be separate into one.Since Adam Smith's pin factory in 1776, progress meant slicing work into ever-narrower specialties — Babbage extended it to cognitive work, Coase explained why firms hoard coordination to make it pay. Junior and Dr. Tim Clark argue AI has flipped the whole arc. When the cost of coordination falls toward zero and deep expertise gets commoditized by "computational cognition," labor stops dividing and starts converging. At LeaderFactor, three roles that once had nothing to do with each other are merging into one, and the org chart no longer looks conventional.So what do you actually do about it? The episode gives leaders and L&D a practical filter. Every task sorts into what AI can do autonomously, what needs a human in the loop, and what has to stay uniquely human. That maps onto two algorithms: the AI algorithm — process information, identify patterns, generate outputs — and the human algorithm — assign value, exercise judgment, bear responsibility. The instruction is direct: cede the AI algorithm's ground, elevate into the human one, and stop binding your identity to a role that's now perishable. The scarce trait is no longer domain expertise. It's high agency.Chapters00:00 — Is AI reversing the division of labor?01:36 — Adam Smith, the pin factory, and 250 years of specialization04:23 — Babbage brings the division of labor to cognitive work06:22 — Coase: why firms exist and what falling coordination costs change07:46 — When agents talk to agents, coordination cost goes to zero08:18 — The Grand Convergence: how LeaderFactor's org chart changed12:36 — Marginalization forces a choice: elevate or be displaced13:49 — Why "upskilling" is dead — it's access vs. motivation now15:26 — High agency beats domain expertise16:14 — The AI algorithm: process, pattern, generate18:49 — Don't trust the insulation: step changes are coming19:35 — The human algorithm: assign value, judge, bear responsibility20:11 — The practical move: objective → responsibilities → roles23:00 — Filtering roles: autonomous, augmented, uniquely human24:49 — The psychology of a role that keeps changing26:37 — Bind yourself to value creation, not a title28:19 — Recap and final thoughts29:29 — Read Leading Through AI + free skill previewsReady for more? Take a look at our resources below. 

Anika sits down with Dr. Mickey Fitch Collins to expose the leadership development trap most companies fall into, uncover the psychological safety crisis silently burning out middle managers, and reveal the counterintuitive secret to sustainable organizations: it's never about the strategy. It's about the people executing it—and whether they feel confident enough to show up as their whole selves.In This EpisodeBass fishing to breakout rooms: How 30 years of professional fishing taught her more about leadership than any MBA—and why early public speaking shaped her entire careerThe leadership development gap: Why companies wait until burnout is critical to invest in leaders, and the cost of reactive vs. proactive developmentMiddle manager isolation: The push-pull stress of serving two masters, losing peer relationships, and why leaders are abandoned once they "make it"Psychological safety as the foundation: Why you can't build better leaders without first creating spaces where people can be honest, vulnerable, and wholeThe burnout epidemic: How the WHO classifies burnout as a health concern, and why control-based work models are burning people outRemote work and trust: Why flexible work aligned with individual needs enhances motivation, and why monitoring software is the opposite of trustLearn It Lounge podcast: Building community among L&D professionals by sharing authentic problem-solving storiesThe giving phase: What's next for Mickey—coaching, speaking, and helping others grow while designing a life centered around familyTimestamps00:00 Introduction: From pro bass fisherman to leadership facilitator06:23 Why she left higher education after 20 years and a PhD08:00 The pandemic pivot: From C-suite to corporate learning and development16:00 The most common breakdown when companies scale: Delayed leadership investment20:20 Why outsiders and consultants bring objective credibility24:30 The push-pull of middle management and burnout30:31 Psychological safety as the antidote to burnout34:32 Work models and control vs. trust: Why flexible work beats surveillance38:26 How Learn It Lounge started and what's next for MickeyKey Insights & TakeawaysInsight 1: Leadership Is a Learnable Skill, Not Innate ExpertiseBeing a great founder, engineer, or visionary doesn't automatically make you a great people manager. Leadership—coaching, vision-casting, conflict resolution, delegation—is a skill set that must be built. The organizations that win are the ones that invest in emerging leaders before they're in crisis mode, not after.Insight 2: Proactive Development Beats Reactive InterventionCompanies that delay leadership investment until burnout, turnover, or conflict forces their hand end up spending 3-4x more on reactive solutions. The smartest organizations identify rising stars early and develop skill sets before people are drowning.Insight 3: Psychological Safety Is the Foundation of EverythingYou cannot build better leaders, improve communication, or increase engagement without psychological safety. When people can admit mistakes and be vulnerable without fear, they stop wearing masks and performing—and that's when real growth happens.Insight 4: Control-Based Work Models Are the Opposite of TrustStrict hours, in-office mandates, and monitoring software send one message: "I don't trust you." When organizations care for the whole human—flexible work, autonomy, trust—they get higher motivation, lower turnover, and higher profitability. The research is clear.Insight 5: Storytelling Creates Meaning Beyond DataWe make decisions with data, but we make meaning with stories. In the age of AI and critical thinking, storytelling and authentic presence are just as important as problem-solving skills.Resources & Links MentionedLearn Ithttps://www.learnit.com/Learn It Lounge Podcasthttps://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-learnit-lounge/id1817436348Conversations with L&D professionals sharing authentic problem-solving stories and best practicesAbout Dr. Mickey Fitch CollinsDr. Mickey Fitch Collins is a leadership facilitator and learning strategist at Learn It, specializing in leadership self-efficacy and building confident leaders. With a PhD in Leadership and Higher Education, a master's degree in Counseling and Student Personnel, and a bachelor's degree in Psychology, Mickey spent 20 years in higher education leadership before transitioning to corporate learning and development during the pandemic.Her unique origin story includes 30 years of professional bass fishing experience—competing at the national level with 30+ sponsors, speaking at expos and on radio and TV. This early experience shaped her public speaking confidence, marketing acumen, and deep understanding of leadership in male-dominated environments.Connect with Dr. Mickey Fitch CollinsLearn It Website: https://www.learnit.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeyfitchcollins/Open to: Coaching, speaking engagements, and mentoring emerging leadersSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Thriving in Intersectionality, Dr. Lola Adeyemo sits down with integrative physician, leadership advisor, and founder of The Mind Re-Mapping Company, Dr. Maiysha Clairborne, for a thoughtful conversation about identity, psychological safety, trauma-informed communication, and what it means to truly create environments where people feel seen, heard, respected, and valued.The conversation begins with an important reminder:Intersectionality includes many identities we don't immediately see.From neurodiversity and trauma experiences to generation, parenthood, education, and professional journeys, our lived experiences shape the way we communicate, lead, and move through the world.Drawing from more than two decades of experience in medicine, coaching, neuroscience, and leadership development, Dr. Maiysha shares how understanding the brain, behavior, and our communication filters can help individuals and organizations build trust, repair relationships, and create psychologically safe workplaces.Together, Dr. Lola and Dr. Maiysha explore how our stories shape us, why emotional intelligence is an essential leadership skill, and how community and vulnerability can become powerful tools for personal and organizational transformation.This conversation isn't only about communication.It's about understanding the invisible experiences people bring into every room—and what becomes possible when people feel safe enough to be fully human.In This Episode, We Discuss: The visible and invisible layers of intersectionality  Neurodiversity, trauma, and identity  How our lived experiences shape communication and leadership  Why psychological safety matters for individuals and organizations  The connection between emotional intelligence and trust  Understanding communication through the lens of the brain  Why emotions are data—not distractions  The importance of vulnerability and modeling humanity as a leader  Building communities of belonging in the workplace  How to lean into your differences as superpowers About the GuestDr. Maiysha Clairborne, MD, is an Integrative Physician, Consultant, Coach, Trainer, and Founder of The Mind Re-Mapping Company.Specializing in psychological safety and trauma-informed communication, she helps organizations create environments where employees feel seen, heard, respected, and valued.Drawing on expertise in medicine, neuroscience, coaching, and communication, Dr. Maiysha helps leaders and teams understand how stress, trauma, and unconscious patterns influence relationships, trust, and workplace culture.She is the creator of the R.E.M.A.P.™ Framework, author of The Wellness Blueprint, co-author of Conscious Anti-Racism, TEDx speaker, and host of the Behind Beliefs, Behaviors & The Brain Podcast.Learn more about her work:

Leadership development is not about checking boxes. It is about building the awareness, communication, trust, and consistency required to help people grow, perform, and feel safe enough to do meaningful work. LaTonya Wilkins brings a powerful conversation on what it really means to lead below the surface. From psychological safety and culture to coaching, delegation, community, and connection across differences, this master class challenges leaders to stop treating leadership like a static skillset and start looking at how leadership is actually experienced by the people they serve. Learn how to honestly rate your leadership by asking better questions: • How clear is your communication? • How do people experience you in meetings, emails, and difficult conversations? • Are you giving people the guardrails they need without making them too tight? • Are you creating hope, trust, compassion, and stability? • Are you developing people, or just expecting them to perform? • Are burnout, churn, poor delegation, and low trust signs of a deeper leadership problem? This conversation also explores why many leadership development programs fail because they rely on outdated models, performative culture work, and initiatives that were never truly embedded into the organization. Real culture cannot be reduced to perks, titles, slogans, or temporary programs. It has to show up in how leaders communicate, make decisions, build teams, manage change, and create belonging. LaTonya also brings a needed perspective on coaching and community in a noisy market where too many people sell quick fixes without doing the real work. Strong leadership, real coaching, and healthy culture are all relationship businesses. They require trust, self-awareness, accountability, and the right people around you at every stage. For executives, founders, HR leaders, coaches, consultants, people managers, and anyone responsible for leading others, this conversation is a reminder that real leadership still wins when it is rooted in trust, development, culture, coaching, and community. Beyond The Episode Gems: Learn More About Leading Below The Surface Book Buy LaTonya's Book, Leading Below The Surface Learn more about LaTonya's offerings for executive coaching ChangeCoaches.io Connect with LaTonya on LinkedIn Explore Change Coaches Relational Coach Training Buy Troy's Book, Strategize Up: The Blueprint To Scale Your Business StrategizeUpBook.com Discover All Podcasts On The HubSpot Podcast Network Get Free HubSpot Marketing Tools To Help You Grow Your Business Grow Your Business Faster Using HubSpot's CRM Platform Support The Podcast & Connect With Troy:  Rate & Review iDigress: iDigress.fm/Reviews Follow Troy's Socials @FindTroy: LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads, TikTok Subscribe to Troy's YouTube Channel For Strategy Videos & See Masterclass Episodes Need Growth Strategy, A Keynote Speaker, Or Want To Sponsor The Podcast? Go To FindTroy.com

What happens when the pressure is on, and the stakes are high? In this recording from a live Sporting Edge coaching webinar, Jeremy Snape explores the science and practice of psychological safety, drawing on insights from world-class experts including Owen Eastwood, Baroness Sue Campbell, and Dr Dehra Harris. From building belonging and accelerating learning to managing constructive conflict and setting clear team guardrails, this episode delivers a practical blueprint for leaders who want to unlock genuine high performance in their teams. Learn more about Sporting Edge's Winning Mindset for Leaders Programme here Winning Mindset for Leaders Programme - Sporting Edge Connect with Jeremy Contact hello@sportingedge.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremysnape/ Website https://www.sportingedge.com/

You've been fitting in for so long, you've started to wonder if the full version of you was ever real. That is not a character flaw. It is a code, running underneath everything you do, protecting you from a threat that no longer exists in the room you are actually in. This is the fifth episode of season two of The Polymathic Perspective. There is a moment in this episode where a man sits across from Dov. Head down. Jaw tight. He is trying to find the words to admit he used to be a neo-Nazi recruiter. A true believer. A man who had stood in front of cameras advocating for the removal of Jews from the world.  He does not know yet that Dov is Jewish.  He looks up. And Dov is smiling. That moment is what genuine belonging looks like. Not agreement. Not forgiveness handed across a desk. A room where the worst of you is already on the table, and the other person is still there.  Most of us have never had that kind of room.  So we learned to fit in instead. And the code kept running.  The same code crushes three entirely different things in three entirely different kinds of people. It crushes the ADHD mind, which spent its life in environments designed for a system it does not have, and learned to edit its own operating system into something the room could accommodate.  It crushes nuance, in the tribally loyal person for whom exclusion registers as existential danger, and in every conversation flattened into a loyalty test at the moment nuance was needed most. It crushes paradoxical thinking, in the mind that can hold two truths simultaneously as a genuine cognitive achievement, and that learned early this complexity was too much for the room. Different neurologies. Different histories. Same code underneath. Same ask unmade.IN THIS EPISODE Oppenheimer at Trinity, at the peak, alone What the last four episodes were mapping Welcome to The Polymathic Perspective Five lenses on fitting in versus belonging Why belonging is not the problem The question this episode is built around The thesis, three minds, one code How the code runs through ADHD, loyalty, and paradox Which of the three landed in your body Personal scale, the ask that requires the unedited self Nokia's touchscreen prototype and the culture that could not receive it Intelligence, flattening, and the rooms that need clear eyes What happens to a person after years of fitting in Contextual adjustment is not the same as fitting in Tony McAleer and the impossible moment of belonging What actually helps, in this order Oppenheimer at the peak of his fitting in What to carry into your week Did he ever know who he actually was? THIS SERIES What We Want But Refuse To Accept is a ten-episode arc. Episodes one through three mapped the phenomenon and the cage. Episode four named the operating system. Episode five shows what the system crushes in three different kinds of minds. Next episode: Luck, Merit, and the Stories We Tell About Deserving.

Efficiency and cost savings aren't what makes operational excellence last. People are.The leaders who create enduring, high-performing organizations are after something beyond business results. They want a company where people end the day more capable, more confident, more energized than when it began. That's the difference between a workplace that wears people down and one that builds powerful people.Gary Peterson spent more than 30 years building that kind of culture of continuous improvement at OC Tanner. But the hardest part wasn't creating the systems or processes to get better outcomes. It was his own transformation — coming to see how, without meaning to, he'd become the leader getting in his people's way.Put people first, and the results follow. And the deepest transformation you'll ever lead is your own.You'll Learn:Why operational excellence only lasts when leaders focus on building people, not just cutting costs and eliminating wasteWhy the best leaders make an identity shift from being the expert with every answer to creating the conditions for others to solve problemsWhat it takes to move managers from enforcers to coaches and make continuous improvement something your team never fears, even as roles and headcount shiftHow to influence real organizational change when you have no authority to make anyone followWhy so many leaders give up on culture change too soon, and how long it really takesABOUT MY GUEST:Gary Peterson spent more than 30 years at OC Tanner, where he held leadership roles across manufacturing, marketing, and operations, most recently as Executive Vice President of Supply Chain and Manufacturing. He led the people-first transformation that earned OC Tanner the Shingo Prize and made it one of the few companies Toyota holds up as a global showcase for its system outside automotive. Gary is an Association for Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame inductee.IMPORTANT LINKS:Full episode show notes: ChainOfLearning.com/79 Connect with Gary Peterson: linkedin.com/in/garypeterson Follow me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson Subscribe to my newsletter: kbjanderson.com/newsletter Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com Join me on the Japan Leadership Experience: KBJAnderson.com/japantripTIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:03:44 Why Toyota saw something different at OC Tanner05:02 The real purpose of operational excellence07:19 How Gary knew the culture was changing09:00 Creating people who change the world12:13 The outcome every leader should want13:07 Two pillars that shaped the journey14:26 Breaking a culture of fear and control15:35 The five-minute habit that changed everything17:15 Redefining what it means to be a manager19:12 Why transformation takes longer than you think20:05 What to do when leaders don't support the change22:26 The experiment that almost got shut down24:19 Helping managers make the coaching shift25:23 When people outgrow their leaders28:28 Why improvement should never threaten jobs30:23 The manager who couldn't stop yelling32:23 The leadership habit that destroys ownership35:35 Becoming the leader you never wanted to be37:00 The habit that was holding people back38:01 The executive behavior that shuts people down40:07 Proving your worth vs. creating conditions45:37 Showing results isn't the same as showing people49:53 Where transformation really begins51:16 The question every leader should ask about their people53:34 When helping starts limiting growth55:14 The shift that made everything else possible

In this episode from the archives, Tammy is joined by Nimesh Mehta. Nimesh is the Chief Information and Strategy Officer at National Life Group and is passionate about creating human experiences with AI — music to our ears! Tammy and Nimesh discuss how to implement digital transformations with empathy and purpose. Nimesh also shares his thoughts on why psychological safety is so important at organizations working at the forefront of technological change, because disruption can't happen in the presence of fear.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATA.Links:The Trusted Advisor Learn more about Launch by NTT DATAThis podcast is presented by Catalyst, the opinions and views expressed are those of the host and participants and do not necessarily reflect National Life Group's views on the topics discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy a security in any state where such offer or solicitation would be illegal. Any unauthorized use is prohibited. National Life Group is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company (NLIC), Montpelier, VT and its affiliates. This podcast was recorded on 2/21/2025. TC7784363(0325)3See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of The Mental Training Lab, I sit down with sport psychologist and three-time national champion Dr. Kate Bennett, founder of Full Send Consulting, to explore one of the most powerful and often misunderstood drivers of performance: genuine human connection.Kate's work sits at the intersection of athlete well-being, mental performance, and transformational coaching. Heavily influenced by Jerry Lynch's Way of Champions and Brené Brown's research on shame, scarcity, and vulnerability, Kate helps athletes, teams, and coaches build cultures where people feel seen, valued, and loved for who they are. We talk about why connection and mattering are more than “soft extras.” They are core performance drivers. We explore how listening without immediately fixing can create real transformation, why psychological safety makes courageous risk-taking possible, and how love in high-performance environments often looks like accountability, honest conversations, and a willingness to go into hard places together.If you're a coach, practitioner, athlete, or leader trying to build a culture where people can perform at a high level without burning out, this episode offers practical “marching orders”: listen more deeply, model vulnerability, create safety, recognize people for how they show up, and build the kind of belonging that helps excellence emerge.Learn about Kate's work at fullsendconsulting.co.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Learn more about The Mental Training LabConnect with Pete on Instagram | LinkedIn | WebsiteSubscribe to the podcast on Apple | SpotifyThis show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.  

AI didn't just change how we work — it raised everyone's vulnerability at the same time. In this episode, Junior and Dr. Tim Clark introduce "universal vulnerability": the reason psychological safety is surging back onto the executive agenda in 2026.Six years after The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, organizations are coming back with a different problem statement. AI isn't a niche disruption that hits one industry at a time — it touches every role, unpredictably, all at once. And the deepest threat isn't technical, it's about identity: "Who am I now that machines can think?"Junior and Tim break down why psychological safety is the cultural precondition for AI adoption, why most organizations skip straight to workflow and miss the human impact, and how leaders can respond using the AI Readiness Hierarchy and the LIVE model. Even executive teams aren't immune — no one is.If you lead people through change, this is the conversation your AI strategy is missing.Chapters00:00 The "RIF culture" and a new wave of change00:53 Six years since The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety02:32 What "universal vulnerability" actually means03:19 Psychological safety as an individual journey03:50 How AI adds a universal layer of vulnerability04:56 Why every role gets touched — and why it's unpredictable08:26 The real threat: identity disruption, not technical disruption10:00 The AI Readiness Hierarchy (from Chapter 5)11:09 Measuring vulnerability with the PS Index12:50 Psychological safety: the cultural precondition for AI adoption13:22 The "leapfrog to workflow" mistake14:12 The LIVE model: Look, Identify, Validate, Encourage15:18 Why the sequence matters18:26 Why executive teams aren't immune either19:41 Naming the exhaustion — and giving people permission to feel it20:22 Where to go next: the book and course previewsResources

to follow Noble: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noblegibbens

What stops talented leaders from truly hearing honest feedback? This episode tackles that question head-on, drawing from both leading research and lived experience. While most articles, books, and workshops focus on how to give feedback, this discussion targets how to receive it. I explore why so many feedback conversations break down and how leaders can do better.Core themes include the impact of our gut reactions to critical feedback, how quickly we discount advice based on source or style, and why challenges to our identity produce the fiercest resistance. Listeners will be guided through practical, evidence-informed strategies to become better feedback recipients, creating environments where candid conversations thrive.This episode offers a refreshing, evidence-based approach for anyone committed to their own growth and eager to lead with greater effectiveness and humility.What You'll Learn- The roots of our genuine hesitation surrounding feedback conversations.- How our reactions can prevent or derail future feedback.- Although not all feedback will be delivered perfectly, you can still find value.- Don't let your relationship with the feedback-giver cloud your judgment- Feedback stings most when it challenges our identity. Podcast Timestamps(00:02) – Setting the Stagek(01:12) – The Personal Challenge of Receiving Feedback(05:17) – Truth Triggers: Dismissing Feedback Based on Tone and Delivery(08:38) – Beware of Absolutes(10:18) – Source Triggers: Who Delivers the Feedback(12:41) – Difficult Feedback from Difficult People(13:52) – Identity Triggers: When Feedback Challenges Self-Image(17:17) – Personal Reflection: My Own Struggle with Feedback that Challenged My Identity(20:01) - Strategies for Curiosity and Constructive Engagement(23:40) - Bringing it Together: Commitment to Feedback ReceptionKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Feedback, Receiving Feedback, Giving Feedback, Leadership Growth, Psychological Safety, Critical Feedback, Defensiveness, Feedback Triggers, Doug Stone, Sheila Heen, Zenger Folkman, 360 feedback, Radical Candor, Feedback Accuracy, Feedback Source, Identity and Feedback, Evidence-Based Leadership, Coaching, Blind Spots, Core Values, Curiosity, CEO SuccessSource: Why (Senior) Leaders Struggle to Get Feedback and How to Change That - Do Good To Lead Well with Craig Dowden | Podcast on Spotifyhttps://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/why-senior-leaders-struggle-to-get-feedback-and-how/id1634491338?i=1000764642523

Most professionals who make the leap from clinical therapy to the corporate world stumble on the same obstacle: they speak the wrong language. They know the science cold. They understand what's happening beneath the surface in any dysfunctional team, toxic culture, or burned-out leadership group. But if they can't connect those insights to the metrics that actually keep executives up at night — retention, productivity, profitability — they get dismissed as well-meaning outsiders. Melissa Doman figured this out the hard way, and built a thriving practice on the other side of that realization. In this episode, Melissa — organizational psychologist, former clinical therapist, LinkedIn Top Voice, and author of Cornered Office: Why We Need to Talk About Leadership Mental Health — traces the winding path from her 2013 exit from clinical practice to becoming one of the most recognizable voices in workplace mental health. She was doing this work before the pandemic made it fashionable, before the term "psychological safety" softened the room, and before companies started putting mental health line items in their budgets. Peter and Melissa dig into the mechanics of what actually made her thought leadership land: not a grand strategy, but a relentless commitment to sharing what she knew to be true, in language her audience could use. When a mental health workshop she designed for 12 people drew 100, she took notice. When the pandemic hit, she was already positioned — right message, right moment. The conversation gets sharp when they examine the difference between a like button and a buy button, how COVID created a temporary bonanza that threatened to make her work feel like a trend, and why she's still thriving six years in. Melissa also unpacks how she learned to meet business leaders where they are — speaking to "the emotional toll of leadership" instead of "leadership mental health" depending on the room — and why social proof matters more than pressure in closing a sale. If you're a practitioner trying to turn expertise into a real business, or a thought leader wondering how to sustain relevance after the hype dies down, this episode is the blueprint. Three Key Takeaways: • A like button is not a buy button. Organic content traction and market validation are not the same thing. Melissa's true signal came when a 12-person workshop jumped to 100 attendees — proof the market was ready, not just scrolling. • Language is the bridge between expertise and income. Clinical, academic, or technical vocabulary can shut doors in a corporate setting. Melissa describes intentionally switching from "leadership mental health" to "the emotional toll of leadership" depending on her audience — same idea, radically different reception. • Evergreen topics still require timely delivery. Mental health, communication, and team dynamics will always be relevant, but staying in demand means talking about them in ways that match what organizations are actually experiencing right now. Evergreen content plus contextual fluency is the long-term monetization formula. If this conversation sparked something for you, there's a natural next step. In our episode with Minette Norman, we go deep on psychological safety — the organizational conditions that make honest mental health conversations possible in the first place. Melissa Doman showed you how to have the conversation; Minette shows you why some teams can and others can't. Together, these two episodes give you both sides of the equation. Don't miss The Power of Psychological Safety with Minette Norman.

Recorded live at SocialWest 2026 in Calgary, Jessica Lortie, Head of Marketing at Toast, joins host Lindsay Smith to dig into one of the most persistent and underreported gaps in the Canadian tech and marketing industries.Toast is a tech HR firm dedicated to closing gender gaps in the sector, working with organizations to diversify their hiring pipelines and running a community platform that gives women in tech the belonging, sponsorship, and psychological safety that workplaces often fail to provide.Jessica shares the data behind a pay gap that tripled between 2016 and 2024, why masculine-coded job titles are quietly filtering women out before they even apply, how Toast's Champions Program is training men to advocate for women in the workplace, and why community might be the most underrated career acceleration tool available to women in tech right now.The gap is real. The data is clear. And the playbook for closing it is already being written.

What does it really mean to lead… not by mimicking the person above you, but from the fullness of who you actually are? In this conversation, Melanie sits down with leadership coach and author Tami Chapek for a rich, honest exploration of whatit looks like to stop forcing alignment and start living from it. Tami shares the burnout, the misalignment, the "big down" that eventually cracked something open in her and the path that led her to redefine not just her career, but her entire understanding of what leadership is meant to be.Together, they talk about the difference between good leadership and great leadership, why organizations that develop people outperform organizations that only develop products, and what happens when you stop should-ing yourself and start honoring the strengths that are genuinely yours. This conversation is warm, grounded, and full of wisdom for anyone navigating their own crossroads in work, in leadership, or in life.Chapters 00:00 Welcome Back: Catching Up with Tami01:34 Leadership Redefined: What Defying the Ordinary Really Means03:31 From Marketing to Coaching: The Journey to WeInspireWe05:50 The Midlife Crisis That Changed Everything07:37 Set Up to Fail: When Assumptions Replace Support10:54 Psychological Safety and the Cost of Silence12:22 Pain as a Signal, Not a Sentence15:32 Life Gets Easier When You're in Alignment17:22 Going Against the Grain vs. Riding the Wave17:58 The Mixed Bag of Starting Over20:26 When Coaching Took Over Her Soul21:44 Leading People First, Watching the Business Grow23:46 The Bad Boss Epidemic and Breaking the Cycle of Mimicry32:36 The Three Principles: Effective, Influential, Inspiring34:54 Your Special Sauce: What Moves You from Good to Great31:16 Goals Are a Direction, Not a Destination37:33 The Ripple Effect of One Empowered Person39:09 Gratitude for the Journey and the People Who Helped Write the Book40:02 How to Choose Joy Every Day41:12 Connect with Tami + ClosingMore about Tami ChapekTami Chapek is the Founder and Head Coach of WeInspireWe, an award-winning, woman-owned leadership development firm committed to reDEFYning what leadership looks and feels like. A certified coach through the ICF and iPEC with nearly 25 years of corporate and coaching experience, Tami began her career in marketing and advertising before a pivotal season of burnout and misalignment led her to completely reimagine her path. That journey is now the heart of her work.Through her proprietary Leadership reDEFYned framework, she guides individuals and teams to step into their strengths, shatter limiting beliefs, and lead with the kind of authenticity that actually creates change. She has worked with leaders at organizations including Google, Delta, Novartis, and Uber, and her insights have been featured in Forbes and Thrive Global. She is also the author of her debut book, Leadership reDEFYned: DEFY the Ordinary to Unleash Your PotentialConnect with Tami: Website: Book: Book Tami for SpeakingConnect with Melanie: Work with Melanie: Download How to Consciously Create a Life of JoyRadical Love Book

Psychological safety is one of those terms everyone has heard, and most people misunderstand. It’s not about being nice. It’s not about avoiding conflict. And it’s certainly not about lowering the bar. In this episode, Mehmet Baha breaks down what psychological safety actually means, why the data behind it is hard to ignore, and what gets in the way of building it in most organisations. The conversation also moves into AI territory: what happens when employees don’t feel safe admitting they don’t understand the tools they’re expected to use, why transparency around AI use matters, and what responsible AI adoption looks like in practice. A practical, grounded conversation for anyone leading a team in today’s workplace. Our Guest: Mehmet Baha His surname is Baha and everyone calls him Baha. From Amsterdam to Singapore, Washington DC to Dubai, Baha delivers inspiring keynote talks. He has given talks at the world’s leading business summits where TED speakers and New York Times bestselling authors were also speakers. After obtaining a scholarship from Fulbright, he finished his master's in the USA on the topic of Conflict Resolution. He has lived and worked in Germany, Turkey, Ireland, Guatemala, and the USA with more than 24 years of work experience. Baha was one of the first employees of Facebook in Europe. So far, he has delivered training and given talks in more than 28 countries across 5 continents. Recently, he completed Harvard Business School's Online Executive Education Programme “Organizational Leadership”. He is fluent in English, Spanish, Turkish, and German. In his free time, he loves to play percussion, travel with his family, and play basketball with his 9-year-old daughter. “Playbook for Engaged Employees“ is his first book. In September 2024, his second book “Creating Psychological Safety at Work“ was published. Daniel Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author, describes it as a “timely book filled with fascinating case studies, robust research, and practical tools for driving change.” References: Mehmet Baha LinkedIn profile Creating Psychological Safety at Work: The Essential Guide to Boosting Team Performance Listen to the next Episode All Podcast Episodes

Building a high-performing team isn't about being the smartest person in the room, it's about making everyone feel seen enough to speak up. When you build a culture around psychological safety, you aren't just protecting feelings; you're scaling excellence. In this episode, host Sharlee Dixon speaks with with MichaelAaron Flicker. MichaelAaron is an entrepreneur, behavioral science strategist, founder of the Consumer Behavior Lab and CEO of XenoPsi Ventures, a brand incubator powering some of America's fastest-growing companies. MichaelAaron partners with CEOs and executive teams to apply behavioral science to leadership, culture, and growth, helping organizations unlock performance by better understanding human behavior. A co-author of “Hacking the Human Mind”, MichaelAaron's work has been featured in Fast Company and other leading publications, and has earned recognition including NJBIZ's “40 Under 40” and multiple appearances on the Inc. 5000 list. MichaelAaron also hosts The Behavioral Science for Brands podcast, exploring how science and leadership intersect to build stronger teams and organizations. We're excited to have MichaelAaron with us today, where we'll explore how psychological safety can become central to a management philosophy, and the leadership behaviors that build trust, accountability, and high-performing teams, especially during times of change, uncertainty, and growth.   For more information about “Hacking the Human Mind” by Co-authored by MichaelAaron Flicker, please visit: https://www.hackingthehumanmind.com For more information about MichaelAaron Flicker and the Consumer Behavior Lab, please visit: https://theconsumerbehaviorlab.com Listen to The Behavior Science for Brands Podcast at: https://theconsumerbehaviorlab.com/podcast-overview.php If you're interested in Consumer Behavior Lab Consulting and Training, please visit: https://theconsumerbehaviorlab.com/work-with-us.php For more information about the Hacking The Human Miind Masterclass, please visit: https://theconsumerbehaviorlab.com/masterclass.php

Why Your Team Stops Telling You the Truth As companies grow, leaders often face an invisible challenge: they hear less of what's really happening. This isn't because employees are dishonest. It's because people naturally filter information when speaking to someone who holds authority over their career, compensation, and future opportunities. In this episode, Allison explores: How growth changes a leader's information environment Why teams begin filtering information The role power plays in workplace communication How leadership blind spots are created Why people stop raising concerns The hidden cost of operating on incomplete information Why asking for honesty isn't enough How to create psychological safety inside organizations The importance of trusted peers outside your business Key Question: When your team gives you an update, do you believe you're getting the full picture? If not, what have you done to make honesty truly safe? Resources: Think First: Stop Being the Bottleneck, Start Building Thinkers Deliberate Directions Leadership Development & Executive Coaching Think First

What You'll Learn in This Episode:In this episode of the Lean Solutions Podcast, Catherine McDonald sits down with Kathy Miller to explore why successful transformations are driven by people, not just processes.You'll learn how trust, meaningful work, optimism, and strong relationships create lasting cultural change, why consistency is essential for leaders, and how simple daily leadership habits can increase engagement and continuous improvement across any organization.Whether you're leading a Lean transformation, managing a manufacturing team, or looking to build a stronger workplace culture, this episode offers practical insights for creating lasting change through people-first leadership.Key Takeaways:1. Great transformations begin with trust2. People need purpose—not just processes3. Culture changes through consistent leadership4. Positive psychology strengthens LeanLinks:https://more4leaders.com/linkedin.com/in/kathy-miller-mapp-mba-acchttps://www.findleansolutions.com/https://www.findleansolutions.com/lean-summit/

When Dr. Timothy R. Clark sat down with executive teams of the Fortune 500, he didn't expect them to resonate with these 4 principles. What he assumed was basic fact actually became organizational phenomena that changed how these leaders thought about the business. 

Most leaders think psychological safety means everyone gets along. This week, a Father's Day pickleball game with players aged 9 to 96 sparked a different idea: what if more conflict — not less — is actually the sign you're doing it right? Bernadette digs into what psychological safety really looks like, why silence on your team should worry you more than disagreement, and what leaders can do this week to make room for the real thing. Takeaways: Silence is not safety. When your team never disagrees, they haven't found common ground — they've learned it's not safe to speak. The stakes are higher at work. Low-stakes conflict on a pickleball court is easy. Real psychological safety means people trust that disagreement won't cost them something they can't afford to lose. Your team is watching, not listening. They don't believe your open-door policy. They believe what happens the moment someone actually pushes back. Being wrong out loud is the practice. The moment you genuinely change your mind because of something a team member said — that's when psychological safety becomes real. Connect with Me The Newsletter: This week in the newsletter, I wrote about Japan's first-ever LGBTQIA+ education program, Nepal's historic equal marriage ruling, Delaware's new parentage protections for LGBTQ+ families, a tech startup helping 70 million Americans clear criminal records, and the Obama Presidential Center's community-first model on Chicago's South Side. Subscribe to the 5 Things Newsletter here. Work with Me: Let's talk.Watch 5 Things on YouTube. Join thousands of readers by subscribing to the 5 Things newsletter. Enjoy some good vibes every Saturday morning. https://5thingsdei.com/

In this episode of Innovation Meets Leadership, host Natalie Born continues the Set It On Fire: The Art of Innovation series by diving into Chapter 7: Failure: Innovation's Training Ground. Joined by Moriah Hidden, Natalie explores why failure is not the opposite of innovation, but a necessary part of the process.Together, they unpack the difference between failures and mistakes, the role of psychological safety in innovative cultures, how leaders can create environments where experimentation thrives, and why learning faster is often more valuable than being perfect. This conversation offers practical insights for leaders looking to build resilient teams that embrace risk, learn quickly, and continue moving innovation forward.[00:00 – 04:12] Why Failure Is Essential to InnovationWhy innovation naturally involves risk and uncertaintyHow failure provides valuable data, insights, and learningShifting the focus from perfection to learning velocityWhy organizations must stop treating failure as a personal flaw[04:13 – 08:59] Psychological Safety & Learning from SetbacksThe connection between psychological safety and innovationHow fear-based cultures prevent honest conversationsSigns your team may be afraid to speak up or take initiativeWhy leaders must create environments where mistakes can be discussed openly[09:00 – 15:08] Failures vs. Mistakes: Understanding the DifferenceDefining the difference between a failure and a mistakeWhy leaders should respond differently to eachThe role of accountability, coaching, and learningHow SOPs and clear expectations reduce preventable mistakes[15:09 – 17:21] Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, Fail OftenWhat “fail fast, fail cheap, fail often” really meansCreating guardrails that encourage experimentationUsing scorecards, decision frameworks, and spending limitsAvoiding costly innovation projects that lack validation[17:22 – 20:51] Staying Connected to CustomersWhy organizations build products customers don't actually wantThe importance of validating ideas early and oftenListening for customer signals and feedbackRemoving internal bias during the innovation process[20:52 – 26:20] Building Resilient Teams That Keep InnovatingWhy leaders should model vulnerability and share their own failuresCelebrating learning—not just successful outcomesConducting lessons-learned reviews and after-action discussionsCreating a culture that rewards thoughtful risk-taking and growthKey Quotes“Failure is only a waste if we don't learn from it.” – Natalie Born“If a leader treats a failure as a mistake, innovation will disappear in the organization.” – Natalie Born“Failure is not the opposite of innovation; it's part of the process that makes innovation possible.” – Natalie BornResources & LinksInnovation Meets Leadership Website: iml.howSet It On Fire Frameworks & Resources: setitonfire.coNatalie Born LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieborn/If this episode encouraged you, share it with a leader, entrepreneur, or innovator who wants to build a culture where learning, experimentation, and resilience drive long-term success.Be sure to subscribe to Innovation Meets Leadership for more conversations on leadership, innovation, culture, and growth.

Why do so many Lean implementations struggle or fail to stick? Thomas Cox and Andre DeMerchant join me to work through that question using a verbal A3. Thomas Cox is a management bench builder, co-founder of the Transformative Leadership Lab, and a certified Harada Method coach trainer. Andre DeMerchant is president of DeMerchant Healthcare Solutions and a former Toyota team member who started as a forklift driver at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and rose to manufacturing manager. He's also a returning guest from episode 307. The core idea: Lean asks people to surface problems, admit mistakes, and stop the line without fear. That requires psychological safety, and psychological safety has to exist before Lean gets rolled out. It can't be created by the rollout itself. Drawing on Chris Argyris, Thomas frames the problem as Model 1 behavior (controlling, self-protective, blame-oriented, closed off) versus Model 2 (calm, curious, empathic, non-defensive). Under pressure, most leaders default to Model 1, which is the opposite of what Lean needs. Along the way we get into Andre's contrast between meat-packing management meetings (where having no problems was the goal) and Toyota meetings (where showing up without a problem marked you as the person who didn't understand the work). We also talk about Alan Mulally banning sarcasm at Ford, Mark Fields reporting red and getting applause instead of fired, the carrot-and-stick fallacy, McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y, and the uncomfortable question of whether consultants succeed because of method or because they cherry-pick clients. Thomas and Andre have published their A3 as a living document and built an assessment for gauging how close a C-suite is to the preconditions Lean needs. Links in the show notes. Episode page with links and more  Companies and people referenced: Toyota, Ford, General Motors, Kimberly-Clark, Salem Health, W. Edwards Deming, Chris Argyris, Douglas McGregor, Peter Senge, John Shook, Norman Bodek, Jim Prinzing.

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Scott Mitchell and Dr. Aidin Brown explore what it really means to flourish at work and why thriving is less about chasing outcomes and more about building the conditions for healthy growth. We connect personal purpose to team dynamics and organizational culture, then get practical about trust, belonging, and the kind of leadership that strengthens people instead of draining them. You'll here about:• defining flourishing as holistic thriving and purposeful living • separating success and achievement from the ongoing process of flourishing • using pruning as a model for growth through hard seasons • building conditions for flourishing through psychological safety and trust • spotting “not flourishing” through micromanagement and low safety • distinguishing flourishing teams through belonging and high-quality interactions • moving from compliance to commitment as a sign of healthy culture • recognizing organizational markers like collaboration, tone at the top, and clear accountability • treating employee development plans as real growth paths, not box-checking Visit Scott @ breakthroughcoaching.life, or on LinkedIn. GS Mitchell-N P O B T. You can find Dr. Aidin Brown @  www.monhars.us, and on LinkedIn.Support the showUntil next time, keep doing great things!

In this episode, George is joined by Alex Sarama, Founder of Transforming Basketball, to share his insights from his coaching journey with the Portland Fire. Alex shares insights to the Principles of Play he is using with the Fire. Alex also talks about what he learned in Cleveland with the Cavaliers and how he is combining it all together in his role as the head coach of the Fire. He discusses why coaches must fully commit to modern learning principles, how psychological safety accelerates growth, and practical ways to create environments where players thrive both on and off the court.   Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction & Portland Fire's Early Success 03:30 – Establishing a Clear Team Identity as an Expansion Team 04:00 – Why Set Plays Still Matter in Modern Basketball 07:00 – Training Cover Solutions and Offensive Decision-Making 08:30 – Adapting Offensive Principles for the WNBA 12:00 – Optimizing Shooters Through Weak-Side Actions 13:00 – Baseline Drives, Corner Cuts, and Shot Quality 15:30 – Lessons from Vincent Collet and Team France 16:30 – Winning the Possession Game with Pressure and Turnovers 19:00 – Bringing CLA to the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers 20:30 – Lessons Learned from Kenny Atkinson 21:30 – Transitioning from Assistant Coach to Head Coach 23:30 – Hiring Coaches for Growth Mindset and Character 24:30 – Educating and Developing Coaching Staff and Coach Development and Continuous Learning 26:00 – Common Misconceptions About the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) 28:30 – Learning Skills in Context Instead of Isolation 30:00 – Teaching CLA Without a Copy-and-Paste Approach 31:00 – Growing the Game Through Better Coaching and Culture 32:00 – Psychological Safety and Building High-Performance Environments 33:00 – Transformative Tip      Level up your coaching with our Amazon Best Selling Book: https://amzn.to/3vO1Tc7 Access tons more of evidence-based coaching resources: https://transformingbball.com/products/    Links: Website: http://transformingbball.app/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/transformbball Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/transformingbasketball/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@transformingbasketball Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/transformingbasketball/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@transforming.basketball  

Have you poured months into a strategy your team couldn't bring to life? Or watched capable people work harder than ever, and still struggle to pull together as a team?High performance isn't about a better strategy, more talent, or longer hours. It's about how your team works together, every single day.Karina Mangu-Ward, author of Teams That Meet the Moment, has spent more than a decade helping complex organizations redesign the messy day-to-day of how people actually get things done together. Her belief: good everyday teaming habits are both good for people and good for results. You don't have to choose between them.Making this real doesn't require a reinvention. You just need the right structure and the intention to show up differently. In this episode, Karina shares simple, tangible practices you can use in your very next meeting or strategic project.You'll Learn:The three lies leaders tell themselves about teamwork, and why believing them holds your team backHow the framework of the "Even Over" ends the swirl when your team is stuck choosing between two competing optionsWhy creating a "Safe to Try" process gets a team unstuck when you're chasing consensus and certaintyWhat a steady team cadence unlocks when everything around you feels like an emergencyThe instinct nearly every high performer has to unlearn before they can build a team that thrivesABOUT MY GUEST:Karina Mangu-Ward is a partner at August Public, an organizational change consultancy that helps large, complex organizations build more human-centered ways of working, whose clients include PepsiCo, Planned Parenthood, and Sundance. She's the author of Teams That Meet the Moment: 9 Practices for Unlocking Performance and Growth in Uncertain Times. Karina's passion is helping groups navigate complexity, gain insight, and unlock highly complex challenges.IMPORTANT LINKS:Full episode show notes: ChainOfLearning.com/78 Connect with Karina: linkedin.com/in/karina-mangu-ward Purchase a copy of Karina's book: Teams That Meet the MomentLearn more about Karina's company: aug.co Take the Team assessment: assessment.aug.co Follow me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kbjanderson Subscribe to my newsletter: kbjanderson.com/newsletter Check out my website for resources and working together: KBJAnderson.com Join us on the Japan Leadership Experience: KBJAnderson.com/japantrip TIMESTAMPS FOR THIS EPISODE:03:01 Why great strategy still fails04:13 The hustle culture myth that's burning teams out05:20 Everyday habits drive extraordinary teams07:11 Meeting the moment in uncertain times09:13 The "Safe to Try" mindset that breaks gridlock11:18 Setting guardrails without limiting innovation12:06 Why small bets outperform big risks13:29 Unlearning the need to have the answer15:17 Why sticky practices beat complicated frameworks17:16 Simple retrospectives that strengthen learning20:19 The surprising cost of treating everything like an emergency22:09 Using "Even Over" to make better trade-offs25:28 Intention over reaction in decision-making30:32 When perfection becomes procrastination31:53 Why working in public accelerates learning34:22 The power of stories over instruction37:08 Intention + practice = better leadership39:14 What trade-off do you need to make?

Six months into her first management job, Anu Bharadwaj got the feedback no leader wants to hear: she was too intense, she pushed her team too hard. She was stunned. She was only asking them to do what she would do herself.Anu Bharadwaj began at Microsoft building video games, then made a bold leap to Atlassian in 2014, where she rose from product lead on Jira to COO and then President. Along the way she shaped Team Anywhere, led one of the company's hardest cloud transformations, and kept returning to a single question: how do teams actually work better together?I came to this conversation as someone who made the same early mistake she did. In my first years at Microsoft I was known as Mr Plus, always asking for more, always raising the bar, until coaching taught me the difference between driving people and leading them. Anu and I share a Microsoft DNA, and most of this episode felt like comparing notes.In our conversation, we explore: → Why leading people is never about you, and the manager feedback that taught her the hard way → How a values exercise she runs with every team becomes the real source of psychological safety → Energy management over time management, and why self-care is not selfish → Why an AI rollout fails when leaders treat it as a tools problem instead of a human fear → What an AI-native company actually looks like, and why judgment stays human"When you lead people, it is not about you. It is about them. You want to understand what they want, and take them to a place they want to go." Anu Bharadwaj, former President of AtlassianIf you have ever pushed a team toward your finish line and wondered why they were not following, this conversation will stay with you.RELATED EPISODESPete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks head coach (2021), Learning to "always compete": https://www.buzzsprout.com/1798971/episodes/9268299Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft Chief People Officer (2022), Empowering people to achieve more: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1798971/episodes/10382268 Ranjay Gulati (2023), Creating purpose-driven teams: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1798971/episodes/12903145New here? Subscribe to Positive Leadership & You for one edition a month, written for leaders who want to build companies and communities people thrive in. https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/positive-leadership-you-6970390170017669121/Want to go deeper? Listen to the Positive Leadership Podcast on your favourite platform. 130+ conversations with the leaders, founders and thinkers shaping a more human future of work.

When you want to lead your team through change, it takes more than information and individual willpower. Take a look at the system around people -- the processes, incentives and metrics -- to ensure they're reinforcing the change you want. And: increase the psychological safety to learn and try new things...Microsoft's 2026 Work Trend Index Annual Reporthttps://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/agents-human-agency-and-the-opportunity-for-every-organization..Amy C. Edmondson (she literally wrote the book on psychological safety!)https://amycedmondson.com/..After the EpisodeIn June, use promo code SUMMER50 for mid-year savings on Communication Strategies for Managers:https://maven.com/kimnicol/communication-strategies~Free download: Make Feedback Meaningfulhttps://maven.com/p/e36395/make-feedback-meaningful-print-fold-zine~Follow me on LinkedIn:⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimnicol/⁠⁠~Visit my website:https://kimnicol.com/~Want private coaching for your personal growth and professional goals? Let's talk:https://calendly.com/kimnicol/discovery-call

For years, I called myself an ally. But any time there was a Black Lives Matter rally or a benefit for an inner-city school, I'd quietly bow out. "I have my thing. I do the gay thing." I stayed in my comfortable, cozy gay lane. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized I didn't even know the full story of Juneteenth — after nearly two decades of doing inclusion work. This episode is about what staying in your lane actually costs you, and the surprisingly simple thing that gets you out of it. What you'll take away: The real cost of staying in your lane — it's not just missed connection. It's a lonelier world of your own making. Why you're overthinking it — you don't need a script, a certification, or expertise in every identity. You just need curiosity. The ARC Method in action — Ask. Respect. Connect. Three words that work in any conversation, any lane, any moment of not knowing what to say. A question to sit with — Where are you staying comfortable right now and calling it something else? Connect with Me The Newsletter: This week I've got stories about restoring erased history in national parks, El Paso keeping Pride visible, women leading on the World Cup pitch, and more. Subscribe to the 5 Things Newsletter here. Work with Me: Let's talk. Watch 5 Things on YouTube. Join thousands of readers by subscribing to the 5 Things newsletter. Enjoy some good vibes every Saturday morning. https://5thingsdei.com/

"Survival mode leadership is reactive. It's not intentional. Decisions are made through urgency, scarcity, and fear of failure instead of bringing together the mission, the values, and the people around you." High-risk pregnancy physician specialist, Air Force veteran, and author Dr. Luissa Kiprono joins host Josh Seldin to explore what it truly means to lead beyond survival mode. Dr. Kiprono draws on her incredible journey—from surviving communist Romania to overcoming personal trauma—to dissect the underlying neuroscience of how fear paralyzes modern workplace cultures. Josh and Dr. Kiprono break down why the primitive "monkey brain" defaults to fight-or-flight reactions during high-stakes corporate pressure, and how conscious leaders can train themselves to find the space between action and reaction. They discuss the deep systemic cost of suffocating, toxic workplace environments—such as the "glorified suffering" and malignant blame cultures historically found in medical residencies—and contrast them with thriving organizations built on vulnerable communication, mutual trust, and robust succession planning. From learning how to defuse your own internal projection traps to empowering the "schedulers" and frontline technicians in your organization, this episode offers a vital, trauma-informed blueprint for building a resilient, psychologically safe culture. Key Takeaways: ✅ The Primitive Brain Trap: Understanding the neuroscience of why your "monkey brain" defaults to reactionary, fear-based decisions under pressure rather than leveraging the prefrontal cortex. ✅ Pausing the Reflex: Practical, learned behaviors—like taking a tactical timeout or sleeping on a hot email—to create space between a high-stakes trigger and a civilized reply. ✅ The Palpable Room Temperature: Recognizing how hypervigilance, workplace gossip, and fear of punishment destroy team engagement and cause employees to wait for the other shoe to drop. ✅ Dethroning the Rite of Passage: Why thriving organizations must shift away from historical "malignant environments" that glorify past suffering as a prerequisite for current success. ✅ Eradicating the Word "Just": How top-tier leaders build deep trust and uncover the hidden risks below the surface by eliminating self-diminishing language from frontline staff. ✅ Thriving Through Adversity: Shifting the leadership paradigm to realize that a healthy culture isn't defined by the absence of challenges, but by the presence of collaborative resilience when things break down. Connect with Dr. Luissa Kiprono: Websites: www.drluissak.com www.telemedmfm.com HQ Hub: https://linktr.ee/drluissak Book: Special Ed (Signed + Bookmark): https://drluissak.com/book-us/ Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/... trauma-triumph-and-the-making/id1734426832 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0EOlEcb... LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-luissa-k-mfm-author-leader Facebook: www.facebook.com/luissa.kip Instagram: www.instagram.com/drluissak/ Contact Josh: leadinquarters@gmail.com Follow Leadership in Quarters: @leadinquarters on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok Artwork: Adam Powell Music: Bensound License code: CACCELOIJIRNMRRT Artist: : Benjamin Tissot #LeadershipInQuarters #DrLuissaKiprono #LeadingBeyondSurvival #PsychologicalSafety #NeuroscienceOfLeadership #TraumaInformedLeadership #CorporateCulture #ExecutiveCoaching #VulnerableLeadership #JoshSeldin #YourGrowthAscent

Summary In this episode, Andy sits down with Cornelia Choe, leadership advisor and founder of global CEO peer groups, author of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently, co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith. Cornelia's core idea is that the "mental maps" we form early in life quietly shape how we lead today, and that our decisions are only as good as the world we're actually able to see. Andy and Cornelia explore why so many new executives fail within their first 18 months, what she calls a visibility problem rather than an execution problem. They dig into practical tools: microtranslations for sharing ideas others can absorb, optimistic fear that lets us move forward without ignoring real risk, and the balcony-and-dance-floor balance of perspective and proximity. Cornelia also shares how getting up close to stakeholders, and even to her own kids, opens up options we couldn't see before. If you're looking for practical ways to see more clearly and make better decisions in an uncertain world, this episode is for you! Sound Bites "And the truth is, sometimes the problem is not that we lack data, it's that we're not seeing broadly enough." "And if you truly believe something, stick with it, keep it on your map, and have the courage to go through with it." "But the problem is it's no longer enough to be right in today's world, and having an incomplete picture is just as dangerous as getting it wrong." "Optimistic fear is the ability to keep the risks and the danger in mind, yet to still go forward and to use our fear to fuel our momentum going forward." "We don't need to have everything solved, but just getting up close can reward us with a lot of options." "I mean, in some ways you could argue that our brain's autopilot is not a bug, it's a feature." "You don't have to accept everything you hear or everything your stakeholders tell you, but we do need to think about it and, in a thoughtful way, choose to accept it or not." "And in a world that's constantly changing, this is going to be an even more crucial skill because your decisions are only as good as the world you see, and the most successful leaders learn to see more in today's world." "It's just a good reminder to me that a smart, well-intentioned person can see situations quite differently." "Our identity is created by the people around us, the people who share their perspectives with, and the perspectives that we allow to become part of our mental maps." "I heard someone once say that we're all driven by just a few lines of code that run in the background, and as a former software developer, I can relate to that." Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:48 Start of Interview 02:00 How Early Life Experiences Shape Our Maps 07:50 Why New Executives Fail in the First 18 Months 12:20 Microtranslations 16:01 Optimistic Fear vs. Pessimistic Fear 21:53 Keeping Curiosity Alive and Getting Off Autopilot 25:59 How We React When Our Map Is Challenged 29:25 The Balcony and the Dance Floor 34:41 How Our Circles Shape and Narrow Our Maps 38:33 Panoramic Leadership at Home 41:20 End of Interview 41:57 Andy Comments After the Interview 45:00 Outtakes Learn More You can learn more about Cornelia and her work at substack.com/@corneliachoe. For more learning on this topic, check out: Episode 489 with Marty Dubin. It's a book about blind spots and how they can easily derail us, an excellent complement to this discussion. Episode 318 with John Stepper. He's the author of Working Out Loud, and his approach to developing people has a lot of similarities to the leader circles that Cornelia runs. Episode 54 with Roger L. Martin. Roger is often in the top 10 of the Thinkers50, and we talk about how you can hold opposing ideas at the same time, very aligned with this book. Chat with PMeLa You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her. Pass the PMP Exam If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start. Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year! Join Us for LEAD52 I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks! Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Power Skills Topics: Leadership, Decision-Making, Mental Models, Stakeholder Engagement, Perspective, Curiosity, Self-Awareness, Change, Psychological Safety, Executive Effectiveness, Project Management The following music was used for this episode: Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

 According to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, employees at high-trust organizations are 50% more productive and report 106% more energy at work compared to those in low-trust workplaces. • Meanwhile, the science of human connection continues to reveal how deeply our conversations shape our biology. Researchers at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute explain that love, trust, attachment, and social bonding are driven by intricate interactions between neurotransmitters, hormones, and neural pathways that influence how we think, feel, collaborate, and lead. Today's guest, Keith Greer, has spent more than four decades helping individuals, families, leaders, and organizations better understand the power of conversation and connection. As an Executive Coach, Family Therapist, Trainer, Speaker, and Podcast Host, Keith brings together neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and leadership development to help organizations create cultures rooted in trust, safety, inclusion, and authentic communication. Holding a Professional Certified Coach (P.C.C.) designation through the International Coach Federation, Keith works across corporate, nonprofit, and family-owned business sectors, helping leaders develop conversational strategies that strengthen relationships, increase engagement, and inspire meaningful performance. His “Conversationally Intelligent Leadership Process” integrates evidence-based practices from Conversational Intelligence®, Psychological Safety, Positive Psychology, Motivational Interviewing, and Family Systems Theory. The result is a leadership framework that empowers individuals and teams to communicate with greater empathy, clarity, trust, and authenticity. Keith's work focuses on helping leaders understand that conversations are not simply exchanges of information. They are biological and emotional experiences that can either trigger fear and defensiveness or create safety, collaboration, creativity, and human connection. Through intentional communication practices, organizations can unlock deeper loyalty, stronger cultures, healthier teams, and higher productivity. As the host of The Helping Conversation podcast, Keith continues to share practical tools and neuroscience-based insights designed to help people create safer and more trusting relationships, one conversation at a time.     For more information: https://www.keithgreercoaching.com/ Email: keith@keithgreercoaching.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this spirited episode, the challenges and paradoxes of modern leadership are brought to the forefront, grounded in the world of philanthropy. My guest this week, Glen Galaich, author of the provocative book Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short and CEO of the Stupski Foundation, invites listeners to reconsider the myths surrounding control, generosity, and decision-making. He makes the compelling case about how organizational norms, incentives, and personal ego can unintentionally limit positive impact, even in the most purpose-driven organizations.During out discussion, we reflect on tough questions: What's the real difference between intentions and measurable outcomes? How do process, relationships, and results shape lasting change? Through first-hand stories and data, this episode reveals how well-meaning leaders too often mistake intention for impact and how letting go of control, building clear processes, and inviting feedback can dramatically enhance outcomes.For executives, nonprofit leaders, and anyone invested in meaningful change, this episode offers actionable advice: embrace self-awareness, question inherited processes, and trust the people closest to the work. It's a call to action for listeners to examine their own patterns and to move beyond good intentions to do good by leading well.What You'll Learn- The importance of letting go of control for greater impact.- Rethinking thoughtful giving.- Process, results, relationships: The leadership triad.- The temptation of control when doing good.- The power of systems, incentives, and leadership norms.- Lead with empathy across difference.- The critical role of self-awareness: Feedback as a gift.Podcast Timestamps(00:00) – Welcome to the Show and Guest Introduction(00:03:13) - The Motivation Behind "Control"(00:10:00) - Control, Psychological Safety, and Power in Leadership(00:14:29) - Process, Results, Relationships: The Leadership Triad(00:17:38) - Misconceptions and Accountability in Leadership(00:22:04) - The Temptation of Control When Doing Good(00:30:02) - Leading with Empathy Across Differences(00:34:14) - Systems, Incentives, and Leadership Norms(00:38:16) - The Critical Role of Self-Awareness(00:42:59) - Leading Through Uncertainty(00:47:33) - Key Mindset Shifts: Moving from Intention to ImpactKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Philanthropy, Thoughtful Giving, Community Engagement, Control Mindset, Process in Organizations, Psychological Safety, Accountability, Feedback, Ego in Leadership, Power Dynamics, Self Awareness, Organizational Culture, Social Impact, Norms and Incentives, Empathy, Letting Go, Impact versus Intention, CEO Success

In this episode of the St Emlyn's Podcast, Iain Beardsell speaks with Anna Dobbie, consultant in emergency medicine and pre-hospital care, and Clinical Lead for London HEMS. Recorded at Trauma 2030 at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, the conversation explores what it means to lead exceptional teams in one of the most high-pressure areas of emergency medicine. Anna reflects on six years as Clinical Lead for London HEMS, sharing lessons on leadership, culture, psychological safety, difficult conversations, managing strong personalities, and supporting clinicians to do their best work. The discussion also touches on the unique nature of pre-hospital care, where teams move rapidly between downtime and high-intensity clinical decision-making, and where trust, openness and mutual respect are essential. Anna describes the importance of making sure all voices are heard, not just the loudest, and explains why leaders need to be consistent, approachable and willing to have honest conversations when things do not go as well as they should. Anna also reflects on learning leadership on the job, the value of formal leadership training, the challenge of maintaining boundaries when you care deeply about a service, and the relationship between London's Air Ambulance and its supporting charity. Finally, Iain and Anna look ahead to the future of trauma care and pre-hospital medicine, including research, ECMO, marginal gains, quality improvement, and the continuing ambition to reduce preventable deaths from trauma. Learning from podcasts? If podcasts form part of your CPD, you can log your listening time across all podcasts on MedPod Learn — not just St Emlyn's — and generate structured reflection. The app is free to download, includes a one-month free trial, and offers globally adjusted pricing. Trauma 2030 TRAUMA 2030 united experts and innovators to shape the future of trauma care. Over two days, it explored breakthroughs in science, systems, and frontline practice, fostering collaboration across disciplines. The symposium aimed to inspire research, inform policy, and build a bold roadmap for trauma care worldwide.

Donatella Caggiano was living in a Best Western while her flooded apartment got fixed when she watched a SWAT team raid a neighbouring house to catch a fugitive. She caught herself rooting for the person running and then realised she was the person running. Donatella accepted the hint her body and the universe were giving then drove to her office that morning and quit.The job she walked away from was a corporate role she had stayed in through a merger and acquisition that kept her and her team in the dark, and left everyone working in an unfinished office surrounded by moving boxes for months. The message was clear long before the layoffs: stop investing. Stop expecting. Just wait.The hotel window was Donatella's accidental third space — the room outside both home and work where she could finally see herself. She now designs that room intentionally, for teams. She helps organisations have conversations the office wasn't built for, to rebuild belonging in places where gratitude is demanded and silence is rewarded.We talked about why grief gets skipped when organisations change, what happens to a team when a leader hands back agency instead of holding the line, and what four haircuts taught her about leading through change.Links to learn more about Donatella Caggiano:WebsiteLinkedInNewsletterSubstackPodcastAny thoughts? Share them with us!Support the show✨✨✨If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin is joined by Julie Beckerdite, director of education for the Departments of Pathology and Psychiatry, and Carrie Racsumberger, fellowship program manager in the Department of Pathology - both at Mass General Brigham. Together, they share insights from their work on the ACGME Coordinator Advisory Group in a practical conversation on the relationships that shape the program coordinator role in graduate medical education (GME). Drawing on their experience, Beckerdite and Racsumberger discuss how interactions with residents, fellows, faculty members, and program leaders can be both a major source of satisfaction and a source of ongoing challenge. They share strategies for setting expectations early, communicating effectively, and addressing common issues like delayed responses, professionalism concerns, and recurring administrative demands. They also emphasize the importance of establishing clear boundaries with the support of leadership while maintaining a respectful, collaborative approach that promotes accountability and teamwork. The conversation highlights the meaningful connections coordinators build with residents/fellows, and the important role they play in supporting professional development and fostering psychological safety within programs. Throughout the discussion, Beckerdite and Racsumberger emphasize perspective-taking, consistency, and the value of strong relationships in navigating difficult situations. Listeners will gain practical insights into how intentional communication and clear role definition can strengthen team culture and enhance the coordinator experience in GME. Podcast Chapters (00:00) – Intro and Guest Introduction (00:45) – Focus on Coordinator Well-Being and Relationships (02:10) – Managing Task Completion and Setting Expectations (04:41) – Using Leadership Support and Accountability (06:45) – Coordinator Role in Professionalism and Recruitment (09:20) – Setting Boundaries and Defining the Coordinator Role (11:45) – Finding Satisfaction in Resident Relationships (13:25) – Managing Difficult Interactions and Perspective (15:52) – Growth, Meaning, and Supporting Trainees (16:26) – Psychological Safety and Connection (17:23) – Coordinators as Leaders (18:20) – Closing and Resources

In this episode, Robyn Harris, well-being mentor and founder of WILD Wellbeing, joins us to talk about redefining safety, breaking free from burnout, and learning to listen to our bodies. Reflecting on her childhood in Belfast during the height of the Troubles and living with a volatile father, Robyn shares how she spent decades wearing a mask and trying to remain invisible—a pattern that eventually manifested physically, culminating in an ME diagnosis that left her temporarily in a wheelchair. She introduces her signature WILD acronym framework: Wonder, Intuition, Loving ourselves, and Dance. Robyn discusses the concept of being "response-able" to reclaim personal agency, digs into what psychological safety actually feels like in our everyday environments, and shares insights from her book, Take a Walk on the Wild Side, offering listeners a compassionate, step-by-step companion guide to shifting from a survival mindset to a life of fluid harmony. LEARN MORE AND CONNECT WITH ROBYN HARRIS Website: https://w-i-l-d.uk Email: robyn@w-i-l-d.uk Substack: https://wildrobyn.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynharris-wildwellbeing Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robyn.harris.wild.wellbeing/ YouTube (W-I-L-D-TV): https://www.youtube.com/@W-I-L-D-TV YouTube (VIG-Podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@VIG-Podcast

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Here’s a clear, structured summary of the Sean Ilenrey interview with Rushion McDonald from Money Making Conversations Masterclass, including its purpose, key takeaways, and notable quotes.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Here’s a clear, structured summary of the Sean Ilenrey interview with Rushion McDonald from Money Making Conversations Masterclass, including its purpose, key takeaways, and notable quotes.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Here’s a clear, structured summary of the Sean Ilenrey interview with Rushion McDonald from Money Making Conversations Masterclass, including its purpose, key takeaways, and notable quotes.

My guest for episode 546 is Gary Peterson, who recently retired from O.C. Tanner after helping lead the continuous improvement work that earned the company the Shingo Prize in 1999. Gary is an AME Hall of Fame inductee, and he now serves as an executive in residence at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, working with their Master of Business Operational Excellence (MBOE) program. Gary started this work almost 40 years ago, before the word Lean was in common use. A change in how O.C. Tanner went to market shrank order sizes from thousands down to one or two, and a factory built for big batches started bleeding cost and quality. Gary stepped into a role called facilitator of change. He pulled departments apart, built one-piece flow, and asked frontline people to solve problems in a culture that had taught them it wasn't safe to speak up. We spend a good part of the conversation on psychological safety and autonomy, and why Gary thinks neither one does much without the other. He also tells what he calls the hardest story in his repertoire. An employee stopped him on a stairwell to tell him his system wasn't working. She was right. He talked circles around her until she cried. What he did next, and what two people did a few hours later, became a turning point for him and for the company. Topics we get into: Why a real business problem made the change easier to sustain than a "we read a book" mandate Leading change from the middle without support from the top Cutting a 1,800-person workforce roughly in half through attrition, with no layoffs, while raising the bar on what it meant to work there Momentum, entropy, and the 30 to 40 systems that quietly stopped during COVID Building succession so the culture didn't depend on Gary's energy alone Sincere, specific, timely praise, and why he coached frontline teams differently than VPs Link to the episode and full transcript. What would it take for you to tell a room full of people that you don't know what you're doing?

What it takes to lead as a communicator and communicate as a leader.Leadership isn't just about making decisions — it's about how you communicate them. As Matt Abrahams puts it, “Communication is operationalized leadership.”At a recent Me2We event, in connection with Stanford GSB's Executive Education LEAD program, Abrahams held a live discussion with four of the podcast's most popular guests: Celine Teoh, facilitator of the GSB's famous Interpersonal Dynamics course; Huggy Rao, organizational behavior professor and co-author of The Friction Project; legendary Stanford basketball coach Tara VanDerveer; and Dave Dodson, lecturer and author of The Manager's Handbook.In this special live episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the panel shares frameworks and lessons for leading and communicating more effectively. From Teoh's five A's for inviting dissent to Rao's warning against “jargon monoxide,” from VanDerveer's relationship-first approach to Dodson's case for leading like a teacher, this conversation explores what it takes to communicate as a leader — and lead as a communicator.Episode Reference Links:Celine TeohTara VanDerveerHuggy RaoHuggy's Book: The Friction ProjectDavid DodsonDavid's Book: The Manager's HandbookEp.194 Live Lessons in Levity and Leadership: Me2We 2025 Part 1 Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedIn Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction (04:18) - Encouraging Dissent (06:40) - The Addition Bias (09:57) - Coaching Through Encouragement (12:12) - Leadership in the AI Era (16:24) - Teaching vs. Managing (17:46) - Making People Feel Appreciated (19:06) - Slowing Down Decisions (21:24) - Listening More (24:24) - Avoiding Jargon (26:31) - Giving Better Feedback (28:53) - Preparing for Communication (29:44) - Using Communication Frameworks (31:15) - Skills for Future Leaders (37:47) - Conclusion