Davida Lindsay-Bell, Chief People Officer at Hanna Andersson, joined us on The Modern People Leader.
We talked about why AI transformation needs to start with people, how Hanna Andersson operationalized psychological safety, and why trust, learning, and intelligent failure are the foundation for lasting change.
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(18:58) Why AI Transformations Are Struggling Right Now
(20:10) Why Organizations Need to Start With the Why Before AI
(21:14) Building AI With Trust, Experimentation and Learning Out Loud
(21:53) Why Cultural Readiness Must Come Before Technical Readiness
(22:30) Making Psychological Safety a Priority 35 Days Into the Role
(23:03) What Davida Noticed During Her Listening Tour
(24:23) Infusing Psychological Safety Into Values and Leadership Expectations
(25:17) Shifting From a Nice Organization to a Kind Organization
(28:16) Inclusion, Learner, Contributor and Challenger Safety
(29:07) Making Culture Measurable Through Calibration Rubrics
(30:23) Creating Clarity With Bain’s RAPID Decision-Making Framework
(33:00) Why the CEO Relationship and Air Cover Matter First
(35:00) Davida’s LORA Framework: Listen, Absorb, Respond, Act
(38:41) Why Strategy and Culture Are Not Separate Tracks
(39:26) Cultivate Excellence as Hanna Andersson’s Strategic People Pillar
(42:25) Amy Edmondson’s The Right Kind of Wrong and the Permission to Fail
(45:05) Preventable Failures vs. Intelligent Failures
(47:05) Hanna Andersson’s Three-Pronged AI Journey
(49:20) How Psychological Safety Supports AI Adoption
(52:08) Hanna Andersson’s AI Philosophy: Augmenting Human Judgment to Unleash Creativity
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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.
