Podcast November 19, 2024

E323 | Curating Psychological Safety with Minette Norman

Summary

In this conversation, Minette Norman, a seasoned leader and author, explores psychological safety, leadership myths, and managers’ real impact on employee wellbeing. Minette shares her journey from technical writer to leading an enormous team of 3,500 engineers at Autodesk without learning any code.

Minette has a genius way of simplifying the complex. She shares insight from her two books, The Boldly Inclusive Leadership and The Psychological Safety Playbook, giving you tangible how-to’s. Minette successfully navigated resistance to collaboration in her long-held position in Silicon Valley. From book recommendations to actionable insights for creating safe and productive work environments, this episode is packed with wisdom for aspiring leaders and curious minds alike.

Takeaways

Debunking leadership myths and offering a model of vulnerability.
Psychological safety fosters an environment where team members can openly ask questions, make mistakes, and share ideas without fear.
Career pathway options for leaders and individual contributors.
Building an inclusive workplace with the tipping point percentage.
Offering the How-To guidance leaders are seeking.
The importance of having an open mind in business.

About Minette Norman

Minette Norman is an author, speaker, and leadership consultant who previously spent decades leading global technical teams in the software industry.

Minette has extensive experience leading internationally distributed teams and believes that when groups embrace diversity in all its forms, breakthroughs emerge, and innovation accelerates. Before starting her consultancy, her most recent position was as Vice President of Engineering Practice at Autodesk. Responsible for influencing more than 3,500 engineers around the globe, she focused on state-of-the-art engineering practices while nurturing a collaborative and inclusive culture.

Minette is a keynote speaker on inclusive leadership, psychological safety, collaborative teams, and empathy. Named in 2017 as one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times and as “Business Role Model of the Year” in the 2018 Women in IT/Silicon Valley Awards, Minette is a recognised leader with a unique perspective.

Minette is the author of The Boldly Inclusive Leader and the co-author of The Psychological Safety Playbook.

Minette holds degrees in Drama and French from Tufts University and studied at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.

Follow Minette Norman

Books by Minette Norman

Book Recommendations

Quick Questions with Minette Norman

Q: What drives you every day?

Minette Norman: I think what drives me every day is hoping with optimism that I am making a difference in some people’s lives, in the world of work, whether it’s the leader themselves getting better or the people who report to that leader are having a better experience. And that’s why, while many people thought I was going to Go off and retire. When I left my corporate career, I do this work every day, and I will do it for as long as I possibly can because I feel like it’s so important and so meaningful and it gets me up.

Q: What’s your genius?

Minette Norman: I think my genius, and this served me really well in the corporate world, and it serves me well today, is I can take complexity, complex information, and I can step back and simplify it and be able to communicate it in a way that pretty much anyone will understand. So I think it’s taking complex information, simplifying it, communicating it clearly, no matter if English is your first language or not, that I think is my genius.

Q: What unpopular opinion do you hold?

Minette Norman: I don’t know if it’s still unpopular. It certainly has been unpopular. I hold the opinion that being sensitive is a positive, not a negative, because I have been told in the past, oh, you’re too sensitive. And I think that’s a gift, not a weakness.

Q: What’s the most significant risk you’ve taken?

Minette Norman: Oh, I think it was stepping out of the corporate world, where I spent 30 years and I was comfortable and saying, I’m going to start my own business at age 60. That was a big risk. Risk and scary because I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing about running my own business, finding clients, marketing, all the stuff that I never had to do. And it’s been. I’m so glad I took that risk because I am so happy and feel like I am. I am doing important work.

Q: How do you measure success in life?

Minette Norman: That’s a really good question. I think success in life for me is having made a positive difference in as many people’s lives as I can. And it’s not just in the work world because I feel like one of the things that I do is I do volunteer work and I, for example, go grocery shopping for a homebound senior. And if I can do that and I can have a nice conversation with her and give her nourishing groceries, you know, that is success. As well as changing what leadership looks like in the corporate world, that’s also success. But it’s really about the people that I’ve impacted in a positive way.

Q: What have you recently learned or what recent skill have you acquired?

Minette Norman: I’m laughing because this is one I’ve so struggled with. So I am a word person, I’m a verbal person, and I’m a writer and I am not good with visuals and graphics. And yet here I am self employed and occasionally I work with a designer. But I have learned to use Canva and I have been able to create graphics of my own that I use for LinkedIn and Instagram. And it was a huge struggle because the whole paradigm of Canva didn’t make sense to me at first. Everyone said it’s so easy and I felt like a total idiot. And then one day I figured it out. So I feel very proud that I can now use Canva.

Q: What’s the worst business advice you’ve ever received?

Minette Norman: It actually goes back to something we talked about. I had a manager once who told me it is a sign of weakness to change your mind, so you have to still stick to your decisions no matter what they are. And I thought that was a terrible piece of advice because new information comes forward.

Q: What’s the biggest myth in business?

Minette Norman: I think it goes back to what it means to be a leader. I think the myth that leaders have to have all the answers, that they have to be the smartest person in the room. And I challenge that myth because first of all, no one has all the answers. And I think a strong leader is one who takes in input from many different people. And you don’t have to have the answers, but you have to be willing to ask for help. And so I think that myth of the all knowing, all powerful leader needs to be completely debunked.