Leslie Gutierrez-MacEachern
Lead VP of Human Resources - Global Business Services
Capital Group
Episode 360
The HR Secret: How Psychological Safety Drives Innovation and Resilience
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJanuary 3, 2025 · 7:57
Thesis
“Organizations foster innovation, resilience, and adaptability by actively encouraging psychological safety, allowing for intellectual failure, and cultivating an environment where associates are comfortable asking questions and embracing continuous change.”
Show notes
Leslie Gutierrez-MacEachern has a term for a specific kind of organizational failure: intellectual failure. Not the productive kind — not experiments that don't work — but the kind that happens when organizations spend significant resources on programs their own employees don't understand, or communicate in acronyms that resonate with nobody, or deploy initiatives that have no visible connection to what people actually care about. That misalignment, she argues, is where most change efforts quietly fall apart, long before anyone admits they've failed.
Her antidote is psychological safety — specifically the kind that enables intellectual curiosity. When people feel genuinely safe asking "why are we doing this?" and "what does this mean for me?" they engage with change differently. They stop waiting for information to be pushed at them and start asking for it. That shift — from passive recipients of change to active participants in it — is what produces the organizational adaptability and resilience that most executive teams claim to want but few have actually built.
With nearly 20 years of HR experience across industries, Leslie's parting counsel is direct: get close to the business. Understand its deliverables, its future state, and the people across every level who are making it run. The HR leaders who earn genuine influence do so because they're genuinely curious — and they demonstrate that curiosity every day.
- Intellectual failure as an organizational risk — how programs without clear purpose or employee resonance create expensive drag
- Psychological safety as the foundation of organizational adaptability — why judgment-free environments produce more resilient teams
- Intellectual curiosity as the first step toward safety — why asking good questions precedes the willingness to embrace change
- Failing forward and failing fast — building cultures where smart risk-taking doesn't carry existential professional consequences
- HR leaders as students of the business — why seeking to understand business deliverables and future state is a core part of the people function's job
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What you'll take away
- 1Foster a culture of psychological safety where intellectual failure is accepted as a part of innovation, enabling teams to 'fail forward' and 'fail fast'.
- 2Encourage leaders to create judgment-free environments that empower employees to ask questions, be bold, and experiment without fear of repercussions.
- 3Build organizational resilience by embedding a 'change-forward' mindset, treating change as a constant and opportunity for growth.
- 4Cultivate intellectual curiosity as a foundational step toward psychological safety, leading to greater adaptability and resilience within the workforce.
- 5HR leaders should consistently seek to understand the core business deliverables, its future state, and learn from diverse perspectives across all organizational levels.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Emphasizing 'intellectual failure' as a necessary and even desirable component of innovation, rather than something to be avoided, challenges conventional corporate wisdom that often punishes mistakes.
- •Advocating for a culture where associates are expected to have 'change in the constant forefront of their minds' pushes back against the common organizational resistance to change, framing it as an intrinsic part of the daily DNA.
In Leslie's words
“I personally believe that the more, from an HR perspective, we encourage leaders to, to allow safety in their environments so that associates are asking questions, so they're thinking out of the box, they're being bold and trying something new and different, that when it doesn't work out, it's okay. And that's where I believe an organization can move towards, um, failing forward and failing fast.”
Clearly articulates the connection between leadership, psychological safety, and the ability to 'fail fast' for organizational innovation.
“The question of how to build resiliency, I think, depends on the culture and the makeup of any given organization. It is one that is not easy to build, but I believe that when we can really learn from our mistakes and create environments that are judgment-free, that allows for resiliency and adaptability.”
Emphasizes the cultural dependence and difficulty of building resilience, linking it to learning from mistakes in a judgment-free environment.
“If we establish safety, a psychologically safe environment for associates to ask any and all questions without judgment, then they will more often than not ensure that they are comfortable asking those intellectually curious questions and therefore be open to change, be open to that adaptability and resiliency. So, I truly believe intellectual curiosity is a first step.”
Connects psychological safety, intellectual curiosity, and an openness to change, highlighting a foundational aspect of a dynamic workforce.
“Using acronyms that really don't resonate, spending so much money on a program that your own associates don't really understand its purpose and its value, I think is what I consider intellectual failure and the opportunity for organizations to pivot in their approach.”
Provides a concrete example of 'intellectual failure' in large programs due to poor communication and lack of associate understanding.
“Frankly, ask questions. Seek to understand, especially from an HR perspective, what are the key deliverables of being in business? What is the future state of that business? How do we learn from one another? I genuinely believe I can learn from every associate in my company.”
Her parting advice, emphasizing the critical role of continuous questioning and understanding for HR leaders to foster learning and success.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Organizations struggle to cultivate a culture where leaders and employees feel genuinely safe making mistakes and learning from 'intellectual failure', hindering innovation.
- •Companies face challenges in developing robust organizational resilience and adaptability, particularly in the aftermath of failures, indicating a need for effective frameworks and practices.
- •Large-scale HR programs with significant financial investments often fail to achieve their intended impact because associates do not understand their purpose or value, often due to poor communication.
- •The absence of psychological safety impedes creative thinking, risk-taking, and open dialogue among employees, limiting an organization's agility and problem-solving capabilities.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
You have almost 20 years of HR experience across various industries
The Journey of HR Professionals
Capital Group creates culture where leaders and employees feel safe making mistakes
How to Build a Culture of Intellectual Failure
Psychological safety allows people to ask questions without fear of repercussions
What Role Does Psychological Safety Play in an Associate's Attitude?
Can you share an example where embracing failure led to unexpected growth or success
In the Elevator: Intellectual Failure
Leslie, thank you so much for joining us on Built by People podcast
Leslie Brennan on Built by People
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
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