E323 | Curating Psychological Safety with Minette Norman

·50 min·5 clips

A non-coder who led 3,500 engineers reveals how she broke down silos where architects gave sales pitches instead of collaborating.

Dominic Monkhouse hosts Minette Norman, a leadership consultant and former head of engineering at Autodesk, on the Scale To Win podcast. Norman started her career as a technical writer at Adobe, authoring the Photoshop 1.0 tutorial, and rose to manage 3,500 engineers globally despite not being a coder. She explains that her role focused on transforming engineering culture, breaking down silos formed through acquisitions, and getting teams to collaborate. Norman describes forums where software architects gave competitive sales pitches instead of learning from each other. To address this, she assembled a council of engineering leaders, implemented turn-taking in meetings, and used techniques like pre-reads and sticky notes to include quieter voices. She co-authored 'The Psychological Safety Playbook' to provide how-to guidance, defining psychological safety as a belief that one can ask questions, make mistakes, and take risks without punishment. Norman links this to increased performance, innovation, and employee wellbeing. She shares a personal story where publicly admitting and correcting a decision error built team respect. In her new book, 'The Boldly Inclusive Leader', she argues that leaders must be bold in DEI efforts, citing an anecdote where men confided they avoid one-on-ones with women due to fear of harassment accusations. The discussion touches on affinity bias, the tipping point of 30% representation for normalization, and the impact of toxic work environments. Norman also answers quick-fire questions, revealing her genius as simplifying complex information and her unpopular opinion that sensitivity is a positive trait.

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A grounded review of how managers influence psychological safety, engagement, and life beyond work.

Psychological safety is framed here as a management duty, not a workplace nicety. Dominic Monkhouse and Minette Norman connect the way people are led at work with the lives they take home, using Jim Harter's point about team leaders and managers driving much of employee…

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Want to understand why a manager's day-to-day impact can follow people home? Start here.

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