Team building often feels like a necessary evil. Leaders know it matters, but too often it feels awkward, forced, or disconnected from real work.

In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Mina Seetharaman speaks with Ben Swire, co-founder of Make Believe Works and author of Safe Danger, about what actually builds trust, psychological safety, and creative collaboration on teams.

Ben introduces the concept of “safe danger”—the emotional sweet spot between comfort and fear—where teams feel secure enough to take risks, practice vulnerability, and grow together. He explains why most team building fails, why psychological safety is not the same as comfort, and why risk-taking is a muscle that teams need to practice before the stakes are high.

If you’re a leader who wants to encourage better ideas, stronger trust, and an innovation culture, this episode offers practical tools and mindset shifts you can use immediately.

To go deeper, explore IDEO U’s course and subscribe to the Creative Confidence Podcast for more conversations with today’s most thoughtful creative leaders.

Related resources:

Safe Danger, by Ben Swire

Make Believe Works – Unique team building that actually makes an impact.

Cultivating Creative Collaboration online course with IDEO U, taught by IDEO CEO Mike Peng

Read the episode recap on the IDEO U blog: ideou.com/blog

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

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How do leaders apply playful thinking at work when time is short and the stakes are high?

In this Q&A episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, host Mina Seetharaman is joined by play designer and author Cas Holman and IDEO Partner Michelle Lee to explore how a playful mindset holds up under real-world constraints.

Building on their earlier conversation about why play matters at work, this episode focuses on what it looks like in practice: navigating tight timelines, creating psychological safety quickly, collaborating without losing your competitive edge, and leading in high-stakes environments like policy and healthcare.

Through real stories and answers to listener questions, Cas and Michelle share practical ways leaders can make values-aligned decisions under pressure, design safety through structure, use constraints to fuel creativity, and model vulnerability to unlock better thinking. 

Related resources:

Playful by Cas Holman

Creative Thinking for Complex Problem Solving online course with IDEO U, taught by Michelle Lee

Full episode recap on the IDEO U blog

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Play isn’t the opposite of serious work. Iit’s a leadership mindset that helps teams stay curious, creative, and effective under pressure.

In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, host Mina Seetharaman is joined by Cas Holman, play designer and author of Playful, and Michelle Lee, IDEO Partner and Executive Co-Managing Director, to explore how play supports better questions, psychological safety, and innovation at work.

Drawing on Cas’s work designing open-ended play systems and Michelle’s experience leading teams at IDEO, they share practical examples of how playful thinking shows up in real organizations and why it leads to better outcomes.

Related resources:

Playful by Cas Holman

Creative Thinking for Complex Problem Solving online course with IDEO U, taught by Michelle Lee

Full episode recap on the IDEO U blog

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IDEO CEO Mike Peng returns to the Creative Confidence Podcast to answer questions from listeners about modern creative leadership. Building on his previous episode, Mike goes deeper on how to lead creative teams when organizations resist change, how to reduce fear and build trust, what failure has taught him about leadership, and how to stay inspired in a fast-moving world.

If you’re a leader trying to foster creativity, guide teams through complexity, or rethink what creative excellence looks like today, this listener-driven episode offers grounded advice, real stories, and clear perspective you can apply right away.

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The creative leadership advice continues. In Part 2, creative leaders including IDEO partners, alumni, and IDEO U instructors share hard-won lessons on relationships, reflection, and staying human as we move into 2026. Host Mina Seetharaman and IDEO Partner Ilya Prokopoff share reactions and builds on each leader's advice.

Many of the leaders featured on this episode have been guests on the podcast. Find links to their episodes at ideou.com/blogs/inspiration.

Guests on this episode:

Grace Hwang — Design Leader; Former IDEO Associate Partner; Co-Founder, Upturn Health

Michelle Lee — Partner and Executive Managing Director, IDEO; IDEO U Instructor: Creative Thinking for Complex Problem Solving

Sara Kalick — Founder, The Possible: IDEO U Instructor: From Superpowers to Great Teams

Jenn Maer — Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Knitted; IDEO U Instructor: Storytelling for Influence

Jennifer Riel — Adjunct Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; Former Head of Global Strategy, IDEO; IDEO U Instructor: Designing Strategy & Activating Strategy

Susie Wise — Designer, Design for Emergence; Author, Design for Belonging

Takashi Wickes — Founding Designer, Open Studio; IDEO U Instructor: Prototyping for AI

YC Sun — Senior Design Director, Healthcare and Wellbeing, IDEO

Dabney Hailey — Founder and Principal, Hailey Group; Lecturer, MIT Sloan

Amy Bonsall — Founder, Light Actions at Collective; IDEO U Instructor: Designing a Business

Frederik Pferdt — Former Chief Innovation Evangelist, Google; author of What’s Next is Now

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a Creative Confidence Podcast replay. In celebration of 20 years of the Stanford d.school, we’re revisiting our conversation with David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, on the core abilities of the most successful creative problem-solvers. David also shares personal stories and learnings from his friendships with several of today’s most innovative CEOs and leaders.

At a moment when creativity is increasingly essential to leadership, this episode offers a chance to revisit the fundamentals of creative problem-solving and hear them directly from one of the people who helped define the field.

Many of the ideas David shares in this episode align with his Creative Essentials, a roundup of the best advice he's collected across his long career. Read about David Kelley’s Creative Essentials here:

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/how-to-be-creative

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the year winds down, we asked 20 friends of IDEO including IDEO U instructors, Creative Confidence Podcast guests, and partners of IDEO to share honest leadership advice for leaders heading into 2026. In part one, hear reflections on uncertainty, creativity, and momentum. Host Mina Seetharaman and IDEO Partner Ilya Prokopoff share reactions and builds on each leader's advice.

Find more episodes of the Creative Confidence Podcast at ideou.com/podcast. Take online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Many of the leaders featured on this episode have been guests on the podcast. Find links to their episodes at ideou.com/blogs/inspiration.

Guests on this episode:

Michael Hendrix - Managing Director, Invisible Notes; former IDEO Partner

Kate Schnippering - Polar Expedition Crew Member, IDEO U Instructor: Creative Thinking for Complex Problem Solving

Catherine Connors - Co-founder, StoryQuo

Jennifer Lo - Futurist in Residence and Senior Director of Organizational Design, IDEO

Suzanne Gibbs Howard - Founder, IDEO U; Leadership and Learning Advisor; IDEO U Instructor: Unlocking Creativity

Wardah Malik - CEO, BEworks

Kim Scott - Author & Founder, Radical Candor

Mollie West Duffy - Co-author, No Hard Feelings; Big Feelings

Bonnie Wan - Author & Founder, The Life Brief

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Mina Seetharaman chats with IDEO CEO Mike Peng about what creative excellence means today and how leaders can cultivate it on their teams. Mike shares three favorite leadership philosophies, stories from his global career, and practical ways to spark creativity, build healthy friction, and stay inspired.

Sign up for invitations to live podcast recordings at ideou.com/podcast.

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Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn how interaction designer Takashi Wickes uses AI to prototype ideas with more creativity, intention, and humanity. In this conversation with host Mina Seetharaman, Takashi shares mindsets, stories, and practical methods from IDEO U’s Prototyping with AI online course to help you stay curious, embrace friction, and keep humans at the center of AI-powered design.

Sign up for invitations to live podcast recordings at ideou.com/podcast.

__________

Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

__________

Get episode recaps and register for free live podcast events at ideou.com/podcast.

Build your creative problem-solving skills with IDEO U's online courses in human-centered design, AI, leadership, and more at ideou.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.