326: How Curiosity and Psychological Safety Build Wisdom with Jeff Wetzler

Are you sure someone is underperforming, or are you missing what’s preventing them from doing their best? In this solo episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien explores the assumption that people are doing their best and what it changes for leaders. Rather than quickly labelling someone as lazy, difficult, unmotivated, or incapable, she encourages you to look more closely at capability, role fit, expectations, resources, psychological safety, workload, and your own contribution to the situation. In This Episode, You’ll Discover: Why assuming people are doing their best helps leaders look beyond quick judgments. The role of capability, including skills, knowledge, experience, strengths, and confidence. How a mismatch between someone’s strengths and their role can affect performance. The importance of clear expectations, appropriate autonomy, resources, support, and psychological safety.

In this bonus episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien shares her key takeaways from her insightful conversation with Kate Donovan on burnout. Drawing on Kate's upcoming book Mismatch, Aoife unpacks the idea that burnout isn't about needing a perfect fit at work, most of us just need a "good enough" match most of the time. When that match breaks down across areas like workload, autonomy, fairness, community, values, and reward, burnout can creep in. Here are some of the key takeaways: Mismatch, not perfection, is the goal.

How can you recognise burnout, understand its root causes, and create a better match between people and the workplace? In this episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien speaks with Cait Donovan, author of the upcoming book ‘Mismatch: Why Good People Burn Out in Good Organisations’, about the difference between chronic stress and burnout, the role of workplace mismatches, and why burnout is blameless. Cait explains that burnout is defined by a lack of recoverability, with recovery taking 12 to 18 months on average. In This Episode, You’ll Discover: The difference between chronic stress and burnout, and why recoverability is the key distinction. Why burnout can take 12 to 18 months to recover from. How childhood experiences and emotional neglect can affect interoception, agency, and the ability to notice stress signals. Why burnout is blameless, with contributing factors often found in both the individual and the workplace.

How do you know what your team is truly capable of? In this episode of the Happier at Work podcast, Aoife O'Brien explores why current performance, job titles, CVs, and manager perceptions don’t always reveal someone’s full capability. She shares her own experience of working in a role that didn’t fully use her strengths, and explains how limited opportunities, low confidence, a lack of psychological safety, or the wrong working conditions can hide valuable talent within an organisation. In This Episode, You’ll Discover: Why organisations often look externally for skills and capabilities that already exist internally. The difference between task-based skills and broader capabilities, including strengths, knowledge, experience, and confidence. How psychological safety affects people’s willingness to speak up, experiment, challenge, and fail. Why confidence can mask someone’s true capability at work.

Are you taking charge of your career, or leaving things to chance? In this bonus episode, Aoife shares her key takeaways from her conversation with Wanda Wallace, and offers some extra insights that didn't make it into the full interview. If you haven't listened to the full episode yet, make sure to go back and give it a listen. Here are some of the key insights from Aoife’s chat with Wanda: Careers are more like trees than ladders: