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Starting and running a business or managing one isn’t for the faint of heart. You’re balancing internal and external forces in a continually changing landscape. You’re building strategies, and banking on the future – no matter what it holds. This is where Cadence Bank’s In Good Companies comes in. We share our wealth of knowledge, and insights from noted industry experts, to guide you through the forces shaping business today.
We’re back for Season 6, and this time, we’re setting our sights on the future of work. We’re asking the big questions, like:
What will your career look like in 2030? Or 2050, even?
How is ESG shaping the future of companies?
And how can we leverage AI to our advantage?
We bring together experts from across the board, from Silicon Valley to multinationals like EY, to help you stay on the cutting edge of business. And we get to know those who are building the future of our companies; because at Cadence Bank, we want to hear the human side of every success story.
Hosting our stellar range of guests this season is our new host, Ari Marin. He is a Cadence Bank Senior Vice President and family enterprise advisor, whose specialty is consulting with family-owned and small businesses. Ari’s idea of “good company” is being around creative, insightful people with unique and inspirational stories. For Season 6, he brings in his curiosity and ambition to In Good Companies, to lead discussions with our guests, and bring listeners across the U.S. all the information they need, in one place, in under 30 minutes.
Ready to launch into the future? Then join us!
In Good Companies
Season 6 Episode 7 - VO Script
1. Intro
[00:00:00] Kathy Pike: For the future of work, addressing mental health and well being of the workforce will be essential to being competitive and being a desirable place to work data are eminently clear. It's good for businesses and it's become a strategic imperative.
[00:00:19]Ari Marin VO: Hey folks! How are you feeling today? No but, really?
That can be a tough question right? I mean, if someone on your team’s asking and you’re behind… It’s not easy to open up. Or to be honest, even confront an issue.
But in “good” companies… We should be able to speak our minds – we should strive for psychological safety.
And I know, I know – you’ve heard it all before. But if it seems like “psychological safety” is just a buzzword… Think again.
Kathy Pike: People often misunderstand the concept of psychological safety and think that it's an environment that is easy on employees, so to speak. And that is absolutely not what psychological safety means. Psychological safety is understanding that within the workplace, it is critical that team members feel safe to take risks, to share ideas, to express concerns, without the fear of negative consequences. It means that an organization has built a culture, in fact, where people are able to really lean in and are able to push for high performance without risk of negative consequences if it doesn't work, or if there's failure.
Ari Marin VO: Today’s guest is a fierce advocate for corporate mental health.
She is a Professor of Psychology, who once directed Columbia University’s World Health Organisation Center for Global Mental Health.
And she is on a mission: to make psychological safety a workplace essential. Not just a trend – no no! A whole new business philosophy.
[00:00:21] Kathy Pike: Hi, Kathy Pike. I am CEO of a nonprofit organization called One Mind at Work.
[00:00:27] Ari Marin VO: We’re big fans of Kathy.
For 30 years she has been advancing the science and practice of mental health… Both in academia, and in the private sector.
She’s worked with companies in the U.S. and beyond. She spent some time in Japan, saw Asian multinational corporations from the inside… She’s been in the field.
And somewhere along the way, she started to notice…
[00:00:29] Kathy Pike: As I was doing this work, there's a growing awareness around mental health and well-being in the workplace and there were increased number of tools to assess employee mental health, but there was very little to guide good decision-making for decision-makers, and that's how we have launched One Mind At Work.
[00:00:51] Ari Marin VO: One Mind at Work – or One Mind, for short – is a non-profit that connects a network of business leaders. All mental health ambassadors, who want to promote psychological safety. Because, well… There’s a lot to gain from that culture of well-being.
That’s what we’re going to get into today. How psychological safety makes us perform better… How to build it into our culture… What it means for the future of work...
But before we look further down the line… Let’s talk about what’s happening, right now, in our world of work.
2. Why mental health is growing.
[00:02:12] Ari Marin: So mental health, it's a hot business topic at the moment. Why do you think that is?
[00:02:17] Kathy Pike: So, to put this in context, about a decade ago, I was asked to speak at a large multinational corporation around mental health for their global workforce. And the catch was, the caveat was that they wanted me to speak about mental health to their workforce, but they didn't want me to use the term mental health or mental illness because it would be too alienating, pathologizing. Fast-forward 10 years; about a year ago, little bit less than a year ago.... I'm asked to go back to this company to give a talk again to their global workforce. This time on the door, big poster on the front door of the individual who is leading this webinar has a poster that says, "Feeling anxious, depressed, want to talk? I'm a mental health ambassador."
[00:03:16] Kathy Pike: So, times have really changed and in those intervening years, there are several things that have contributed. One is that we had the pandemic and the pandemic was a catalytic event for pulling the curtain back on mental health and well-being in communities and in workforces. In addition, we have generations that are coming into the workforce, cohorts that have grown up talking about mental health and well-being with expectations of addressing mental health and well-being. And when we look at the younger professionals today, the younger individuals who are entering the workforce today, they have a vocabulary talking about mental health and well-being, they have expectations and it's having a huge impact on the workforce culture in terms of integrating mental health and well-being. In addition to recognizing that addressing mental health and well-being is good for the people, individuals, the data are eminently clear it's good for businesses and it's become a strategic imperative for the future of work for leaders and organizations to recognize that addressing mental health and well-being of the workforce will be essential to being competitive and being a desirable place to work going forward.
[00:04:20] Ari Marin VO: Because the next generation champions mental health… Psychological safety is not going anywhere.
Or rather – it’s going places. You’re going to keep hearing about it. So if you’re not tuned in yet, it’s time!
Plus, you know, there are benefits too. The stats are pretty clear…
[00:04:24] Kathy Pike: In addition to recognizing that addressing mental health and wellbeing is good for the people, individuals, the data are eminently clear. It's good for businesses and it's become a strategic imperative for the future of work, for, for leaders and organizations to recognize that addressing mental health and well being of the workforce will be essential to being competitive and being a desirable place to work going forward.
3. What we're working against
[00:04:59] Ari Marin: So, it sounds like there seems to be a lot to gain establishing a culture of openness and candid communication without fear of reprisals, but it seems like that would just kind of be common sense that any organization would want.
[00:05:12] Kathy Pike: It is common sense, right? But most workplaces, their mission is not mental health, right? In organizations that have cultures not characterized as being psychologically safe, maybe a high-performing, high-pressure workplace where it's not safe to say something because you're going to not be supported by your manager or not be supported by your team, or you're going to be seen as getting in the way of the drive of the team, there's not a intentional practice of psychological safety. The idea is that in a high-performing organization, you need to get the work done and you need to get it done at a high level of quality and standard, right? So, if you don't do it right the first time, it's going to take more time to get it done right.
[00:06:13] Kathy Pike: But actually, those are cultures where there's a lot of bullying, where there's berating people who don't move fast enough or who make mistakes, and when that happens, then people stop taking risks. People stop sharing ideas, people stop speaking up.
[00:06:30] Ari Marin: One of my favorite expressions is from the Navy SEALs and they say, "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast."
[00:06:34] Kathy Pike: Exactly.
[00:06:36] 4. What we stand to gain
[00:06:36] Ari Marin: So, let's talk about some of those benefits. Can you explain how psychological safety impacts team performance, innovation? What's in it for leaders?
[00:06:44] Kathy Pike: So, what's in it for leaders is that they will have a team that is much more effective in their communication skills, that is more willing to creatively share ideas, that is prepared to have difficult conversations, and they'll have a team that is therefore higher performing and more engaged, having a greater sense of morale and connection to their workplace. So, it operationally has a positive impact overall on competitiveness and sustainability.
[00:07:27] SFX: Music Bed In
[00:07:27] Ari Marin VO: When you give your team more freedom to express their ideas, test things out… Experiment without fear… You give them power. And you make them care about the work.
[00:07:31] Kathy Pike: When individuals in a workplace feel seen and heard and recognize that their contributions are being taken up and integrated into work plans, it has a tremendously positive in impact in terms of people feeling like they've got a stake in the operation.
[00:07:57] Ari Marin VO: And to start building psychological safety… You’ll need to take a hard look at your organisation.
5. How to get started
[00:08:04] Kathy Pike: It's really important for decision makers and organizational leaders to first understand their organization. So, at One Mind at Work, we strongly recommend a thoughtful and careful evaluation of what is it that they're doing across critical dimensions of work performance. We've built out the mental health at work index, which looks across protection, promotion, and provision, what we call a three Ps framework.
[00:08:39] SFX: music bed fade out under Ari’s next VO
[00:08:39] Ari Marin VO: Pay attention here -- this is important. The three P's Kathy is referring to: they mean different things.
Provision -- that’s providing for people; offering the support and mental health services they need.
Meanwhile – Promotion – it’s making sure that we know what we’re entitled to. Communicating that mental health matters.
And Protection – that should come before anything else. It’s doing the work before mental health is an issue for performance. It’s answering our team’s needs.
When you look at these criteria, you can answer a key question:
[00:08:53] Kathy Pike: Kathy Pike:
What are the benefits that we offer to our people? The issues around workforce mental health and well-being that are largely under addressed and where enormous value can be unlocked is upstream, but you need to assess how you're doing. So how are we doing as an organization in terms of our programs, policies and practices? So, getting a good thoughtful assessment, completing the mental health at work index gives decision makers and business leaders a very thorough report on where are they in terms of their maturity as an organization in addressing the mental health and well-being of their workforce.
6. The difference between "saying" and "doing"
[00:09:40] Ari Marin VO: Kathy’s method sets a standard for what a good support programme looks like. It helps leaders make scientifically-informed decisions. Or you could say: straight up, better choices.
[00:09:49] Kathy Pike: What we see over and over again are business leaders who with every good intention of improving the mental health and well-being of their workforce, have a largely ad hoc, not integrated group of benefits that don't really add up. And the big risk there, if you don't have the impact, then over time the mistaken conclusion would be there's nothing we can do about improving mental health and well-being of our workforce. When in fact, if you take a very comprehensive integrated approach across this continuum, you can have tremendous benefits and spend your resources wisely and effectively.
[00:10:37] Ari Marin: So, I like how you mentioned that it's almost like for those that are at least minded of the importance of mental health, it's not only having a return on investment for the measures they have taken, but at least having some kind of measuring tool through the assessment.
[00:10:52] Kathy Pike: That's right. That's right.
[00:10:54] Ari Marin: So, then you can prove that, hey, this had some kind of benefit.
[00:10:57] Kathy Pike: That's right. And it's also really critical because within a workplace, you've got to demonstrate that the way we're spending our resources is having a real impact and having the impact that we hope that it will have. So, this measurement piece, which is almost always missing when it comes to mental health and well-being in the workplace is actually critical because without it, when budgets get tight, if you can't demonstrate that what you're doing matters, you're going to be at the front of the line for the chopping block.
[00:11:32] Ari Marin: Yeah. Does it help with the turnover? I imagine a lot of employers are having turnover issues and then start to look and assess maybe at the happiness of their workforce.
[00:11:40] Kathy Pike: That's right. So, what we know is that when you build a culture characterized by psychological safety, when you build an organization that has a comprehensive approach to mental health and well-being of the workforce, that we see positive benefits in terms of recruitment, retention, and reputation. All three of those are really important, always. They're especially important right now as we see increasingly competitive environments for talent.
[00:12:15] Ari Marin VO: Ok, there was a lot in that passage. But here’s what you should know:
If we want to make mental health a part of our day-to-day… We have to treat it like any other aspect of business. We need ways to measure and evaluate how we’re doing.
When we hack that – mental health yields results. And we can say to future talent and stakeholders: “Hey, we’ve got a healthy thing going on. People are well, they want to stay; we’re building something together. Come on board.”
But you know what it takes to get there? Good leadership.
7. Leadership: psychological safety via example
[00:12:27] Ari Marin: Could you share some examples of company initiatives that you've come across that promote psychological safety?
[00:12:32] Kathy Pike: Sure, I would say first we need to have leadership that supports the mental health and well-being of the workforce. So, one major example of psychological safety I can share from a recent engagement with a leader at a major bank was his participation in a webinar around World Mental Health Day where he shared his own journey, his own mental health journey. By doing so, leaders create a model for the workforce that it's safe to talk about these issues and the issues around mental health and well-being are relevant to everyone in an organization. So, one strategy is right at the top with leaders and the way that they communicate. The second is another member of ours, a large multinational corporation, has a very active employee resource group creating the opportunities for people to come together to talk about mental health so that there's communication up to leadership as well as coming from leadership.
[00:13:52] Ari Marin: Let's talk a little bit about an organization's culture. How does it influence psychological safety?
[00:13:56] Kathy Pike: Psychological safety is a defining feature of an organization's culture, and that culture gets set in multiple ways, by leadership, by managers, by the ways in which problems are addressed. All good leaders are going to say that they want to promote feedback and want to hear from their people, right? The challenge is that if it's not something that is intentionally practiced, if the organization doesn't build that muscle day in and day out, then when the organization meets difficult times, when the system is under stress, then the experience of support, the ways that people talk to each other, the ways in which work is assigned can fall away. It's as if all of the things that are critical to a culture of psychological safety were just a veneer. And when it can be peeled off under difficult times, you're in trouble because that's when you need it.
[00:15:18] Ari Marin VO: One way to recognise a healthy culture is by asking some critical questions:
[00:15:26] Kathy Pike: When you think about leadership across the organization, are there opportunities for leaders to take risks? Are there opportunities to provide feedback for continuing growth and development for training around mental health and Well-being around psychological safety?
Every piece of that is going to be colored by how safe people feel in the environment in which they work. And so leaders need to be intentional and focused on cultivating and nurturing a community where people have the experience of psychological safety day in and day out so that when the storm comes, it's in the DNA of the organization and people are much better prepared to lean into the challenging times without losing track of what keeps everyone engaged in a healthy and safe way.
8. Kathy's Leadership Inspirations
[00:16:31] Ari Marin: I think sometimes it's easier to help convey something if there's somebody they can emulate, like a leader. Do you have any role models or people out there when it comes to that mold of what makes an effective or good leader?
[00:16:46] Kathy Pike: At Columbia University, my first mentor was a psychiatrist who really focused on a mission first approach and respected what our work was about and how everyone could contribute. Highly open to input from everyone on the team, and also very clear that he was in charge. And this colleague, this mentor of mine, Dr. Tim Walsh, he also understood that we were people and that we had lives that required energy and attention. When you understand in a workplace that people come to work with all kinds of other people and concerns in their lives and can respect that and also inspire the employee to connect to the mission of the work, it's very powerful and Tim was an especially effective mentor in that regard.
[00:17:52] Ari Marin VO: Another figure that influenced Kathy is Bonnie Hayden Chang. She’s a Dr. in Organizational Behaviour and Resource Management.
[00:18:00] Kathy Pike: On leadership, I'd like to highlight the work that Bonnie Hayden Cheng has done. She's written a book recently that was published called The Return on Kindness: How Kind Leadership Wins Talent, Earns Loyalty, And Builds Successful Companies. And one of the things that she highlights that I think is really, really important is the distinction between being nice and being kind because nice leaders are conflict avoidant and aren't prepared to have difficult conversations, aren't prepared to provide constructive feedback, avoid the challenges where there actually could be really great opportunities for growth. Kind leaders develop the skills that are principles of leaning in to transparent communication, honest, kind communication that gives feedback that doesn't shy away from difficult conversations but is very constructive in its nature. It's the message to the team that we are able to do this work, we're able to do hard work well because we have a level of trust and a level of safety, and that's going to make us all better.
9. A word on diversity
[00:19:33] Ari Marin VO: I love that thought… It’s something I’ve thought about often. You can’t grow and learn if you don’t say what needs to change.
And another thing that goes with that: you need different voices around the table. Otherwise, it’s not a conversation. Everyone needs to feel empowered to speak up.
[00:19:39] Kathy Pike: There's no question that the business landscape is changing. And so I think we're going to continue to see evolution and shift around how we do the work of work as these younger individuals who have just entered the workforce continue to grow in their engagement, in their role and their leadership roles in their workplaces.
[00:20:13] Kathy Pike: There's no question that the business landscape is changing. And so I think we're going to continue to see evolution and shift around how we do the work of work as these younger individuals who have just entered the workforce continue to grow in their engagement, in their role and their leadership roles in their workplaces.
So, I think there's a generational shift that's occurring. There's also a significant shift that's occurring in terms of the diversity of our workforce and respecting the diversity of our workforce, whether it is around gender, around sexual orientation, around race, around religion, the data on diversity in a workforce and the benefits of engaging a diverse workforce for overall success are pretty clear. So, with increasing diversity, increasing focus on the role of the benefits of diversity in the workplace, linking that to increased awareness around mental health is creating a synergy of impact that I think will have tremendous ultimately positive benefit. So I really think we're going to see continued growth understanding that healthy organizations depend on healthy individuals.
[00:21:14] Ari Marin VO: Another big shift in the landscape is the hybrid work set up. We’ve talked about this before on this podcast – more and more people share their working hours between their home and the office. That’s going to interact with mental health too.
10. Flexibility & the future of the workplace
[00:21:15] Ari Marin: The future of work is going to be defined by this sort of hybrid flexible work combination. Some studies have found that this flexibility brings in some loneliness as well. Can you explain why that is?
[00:21:28] Kathy Pike: We're going to see an ever evolving and dynamic next chapter around how we do the work of work in terms of where we do the work of work. So, there's not a single solution to what the structure of the work day should be, whether it should be fully remote or hybrid or fully in office. That will depend a lot on the work that you're doing, on the culture of your organization and on the individuals. The technologies available today have made it possible for us to have these remote options, but as you say, there are potential risks associated with that, and there are also huge benefits associated with that. I do think that the discussion around loneliness is a complex one for individuals who are working remotely. The risk of feeling socially isolated and disconnected is very real. And workplaces, when we are together, humans are pack animals, and there's something about being physically in the presence of other people that can have very positive health benefits.
[00:22:54] Ari Marin VO: What Kathy is saying here is: wherever you’re based, socialising is a big part of our “work” lives. So let’s get creative with that!
[00:23:08] Kathy Pike: There potentially are opportunities, for example, for new ways of thinking about maybe even new businesses, new workplaces that are focused on bringing people together in some new ways. It's a huge opportunity. So, I don't know what that idea is exactly, but I live in New York and there are these social clubs that people belong to, and the general age of membership in those social clubs is very high, right?
[00:23:38] It's populated by very senior members of our society. But it says something. It says, there was a time when people joined these communities and they socialized in these places together. And I think there's some opportunity. Those spaces are beautiful. The next generation is going to figure out some way to use those spaces, or some entrepreneurs are going to think about some creative ways of bringing people together because the default for some people is not going to be the workplace. And we're seeing that, for example, in urban settings, if you consider Soho House for example, these are places that bring people together around shared interest. So, over the next decade, we're going to see some evolution around workplaces evolving and opportunities for workplaces to create social connection.
[00:24:47] Ari Marin VO: Interesting thought, right?
The workplace in 2030, it could be a shared office space, with other people in your industry. Or a community space in your local area… Anything’s possible.
But beyond our world of imagination, here’s what we need to lead the way...
[00:25:10] Kathy Pike: And the immediate term organizational leaders need to be thinking about what are the social connection opportunities no matter what the work setting is.
So, if your employees are fully remote, how do you create social connection that makes sense given your remote workforce? If your workforce is hybrid, how do you create opportunities for people to gather in a way that's meaningful in person on those days when people are in the office together, where you do things that you can't do when you're all on your screens in your remote offices? And if you have a workplace where people are in person, how do you fully leverage that opportunity of connection and how do you potentially expand on it and even reach beyond the immediate workforce that is working together to engage with the community, for example, or community members that are more socially isolated?
11. Conclusion
[00:26:18] Ari Marin VO: Psychological Safety is an opportunity for connection.
Whoever we are… Leaders, employees, self-made entrepreneurs… We’re people. We’ve got our highs and lows… We make mistakes… So let’s make room for that humanity.
That starts with a clear message, for everyone: mental health matters here. We need to be clear on what that means.
So just as a reminder: corporate well-being means feeling comfortable to speak up. To take risks. Or have hard conversations. It means – trusting that nothing bad is going to happen if you don’t get it right.
To make sure we all feel that way we need real services. Let’s offer support. Open the door for change. That means re-evaluating what you’ve been doing. Changing our operations.
We need to think about psychological safety as a strategy for success. It’s another tool for business so… Let’s budget for it, and roll it out. Let’s embed it in our leadership. And soon, it will yield results.
We’ll attract new talent – and hear from the people on our teams who were quiet before. Because that’s the real lesson here:
[00:26:18] Kathy Pike: Psychological safety can help us drive performance because people feel ready to share ideas, people are able to have difficult conversations, people are able to be creative. We have to put an end to the myth that paying attention to our people is in opposition to paying attention to our business success. Paying attention to our people is at the heart of our greatest success as an organization.
[00:27:34] Ari Marin VO: My deepest thanks to Kathy Pike, from One Mind at Work, for being with us on this episode. Today was only the start of this conversation, but we know… Kathy will continue to break the mental health myths, and promote psychological safety wherever she goes.
As for us, we’ll speak next week – for another episode of In Good Companies.