The "Elephant in the Org" podcast is a daring dive into the unspoken challenges and opportunities in organizational development, particularly in the realm of employee experience. Hosted by the team at The Fearless PX, we tackle the "elephants" in the room—those taboo or ignored topics—that are critical for creating psychologically safe and highly effective workplaces.
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Neurodiversity in the Workplace — Stop Fixing People, Start Fixing Work with Paula Brockwell
Neurodiversity in the workplace isn’t an accommodation issue.
It’s a design issue.
Paula Brockwell returns to The Elephant in the Org — following her Season 1 appearance, which remains one of our most downloaded episodes — to go deeper into the structural realities of neurodiversity at work.
In this conversation, we move beyond awareness and compliance to examine workplace architecture itself.
If your neurodivergent employees are masking, burning out, or underperforming, the issue is rarely capability.
It’s rigid processes. It’s behavioural conformity. It’s systems optimised for predictability instead of outcomes.
We explore:
• Why “reasonable adjustments” are tolerance — not enablement • How workplace systems unintentionally create disability • The cost of masking for neurodivergent employees • Why outcome-based management improves psychological safety • How inclusive workplace design drives retention and performance
This episode is a practical, systems-level conversation about neurodiversity in the workplace, inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and employee experience.
If you lead teams or design organisational systems, this conversation will stretch you.
—
About Paula Brockwell
Paula Brockwell is an organisational psychologist and founder of The Employee Experience Project, where she helps organisations redesign work to support neurodiversity, psychological safety, and high performance.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
Your team isn’t maybe neurodivergent. It already is.
In this episode, we’re joined by Tara May, CEO of Aspiritech, to explore what it actually looks like to design workplaces that are welcoming by default—not just compliant when someone asks for help.
Tara leads a tech services company where more than 90% of the workforce is autistic, and she brings a deeply practical perspective on psychological safety, workplace design, return-to-office policies, and the real ROI of kindness.
This is not a conversation about awareness. It’s about systems, trust, choice, and why most organisations are already behind the reality of their workforce.
If your organisation is redesigning offices, mandating returns, or struggling with retention and engagement—this episode matters.
Key takeaway: Neurodivergence isn’t an edge case. It’s a design reality.
👤 About Our Guest
Tara May is CEO of Aspiritech, a mission-driven tech services company creating meaningful employment for autistic adults while delivering high-quality QA testing, accessibility testing, and data services. She is a recognised leader in the neurodiversity-at-work movement, serving as Co-Director of Neurowrx and on the strategic committee for HAAPE, advocating for neurodiversity and employment nationally and internationally.
With more than two decades of experience leading large-scale digital and cultural transformations across media and technology, Tara brings a rare combination of business rigour and human-centred leadership. She is also a parent of an autistic child and a vocal champion of the belief that when people thrive, business growth follows.
We say we want innovation. We reward compliance. And then we wonder why nothing changes.
In this episode of The Elephant in the Org, we dig into a quiet but damaging contradiction inside modern organisations: the employees leaders like most are often the least innovative.
Our guest, Mark Murphy—New York Times bestselling author, Forbes senior contributor, and founder of Leadership IQ—shares research showing how “dependable,” low-friction behaviour gets mistaken for high performance, while challenge, dissent, and original thinking are subtly discouraged.
This conversation isn’t about bad managers or difficult employees. It’s about systems, incentives, and the unintended consequences of prioritising harmony over progress.
We explore:
Why compliance often gets rewarded as “performance”
How toxic harmony quietly shuts down innovation
The structural pressure middle managers face around risk
Why psychological safety doesn’t happen by accident
How meeting design determines who gets heard—and who doesn’t
Practical ways leaders can surface better thinking without chaos
If your organisation talks a big game about innovation but struggles to hear uncomfortable ideas, this episode will hit close to home.
About Our Guest
Mark Murphy is a New York Times bestselling author, Forbes senior contributor, and founder of Leadership IQ. His research on leadership, performance, and team dynamics has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek, and The Washington Post. Mark has advised organisations ranging from Harvard Business School to the United Nations and is the author of Team Players, Hiring for Attitude, Hundred Percenters, and HARD Goals.
🔗 Leadership IQ: 🔗 LinkedIn:
Cute Survey. What Are You Going to Do About It? with Jeffrey Fermin
BONUS EPISODE — and somehow, our 75th. Your main event today is our conversation with Radhika Dutt, so if you only have time for one episode, go listen to her burn OKRs to the ground first. This bonus drop is the after-party.
Now… for everyone still emotionally recovering from HR in 2025, here’s our annual debrief: Battery Hens, Bullshit & Burnout — HR’s 2025 “You’ve Got to Be F*cking Kidding Me” Year in Review.
Danny, Marion, and Cacha look back at the most unhinged year HR has seen in decades — the RTO theatre, the DEI backlash, the AI delusion spiral, productivity cosplay, surveillance creep, and burnout so widespread it probably deserves its own ICD medical code.
We also celebrate the 23 incredible guests who joined us across The Elephant in the Org and RethinkAbility — a full-on stampede of elephants whose honesty, humour, and humanity kept us going.
If you’ve ever stared at a performance management template and thought, “I’m one KPI away from moving to the forest", this episode is your emotional support beverage.
Happy Holidays! We will see you again in the new year!
What if the problem isn’t how you set goals… but the fact you’re using goals at all?
In this episode of The Elephant in the Org, we declare 2025 the year we fire OKRs — and we’ve brought exactly the right arsonist. Author, entrepreneur, and product leader Radhika Dutt joins Danny, Marion, and Cacha to explain why traditional goal-setting, targets, and OKRs were built for 1940s assembly lines, not modern, messy, knowledge work.
Radhika, author of Radical Product Thinking and advisor to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, has seen it all: pivotitis, obsessive sales disorder, hypermetrisemia, and leaders who cling to targets while flying blind. Her verdict? Goals don’t simply “need better implementation” — they structurally push people to hide bad news, optimise vanity metrics, and suffocate innovation.
So what’s the alternative? Puzzle-setting.
Radhika walks us through OHLA — Objectives, Hypotheses, Learnings, Adaptations — a practical, psychologically safe, reality-based way to shift from “Did you hit the number?” to “What did we learn and how do we adapt?” OHLA is built for complex, creative work — not the spreadsheet theatre most orgs mistake for strategy.
In this episode, we get into:
Why OKRs and targets quietly sabotage truth-telling and innovation
The 1940s origin story of goal-setting (and why it no longer applies)
How OHLA works in real organisations — and why it changes behaviour
What leaders have to unlearn to stop demanding fake certainty
How to build a bubble of psychological safety even inside a messy system
The HR Breakdown: Dr Jo Burrell on Why the Function That Fixes Everything Is Falling Apart
HR isn’t “a bit stressed.” HR isn’t “managing fine.” HR isn’t “designed to be everyone’s emotional shock absorber.” The latest data finally confirms what every HR human already knows in their bones:
The profession responsible for everyone else’s wellbeing is quietly falling apart.
In this raw, unfiltered, data-driven conversation, we sit down with Dr Jo Burrell — Clinical Psychologist, co-founder of Ultimate Resilience, and one of HR Magazine’s Most Influential Thinkers 2025 — to unpack her groundbreaking findings on HR mental wellbeing… and the systemic failures that put HR professionals at clinical levels of depression, anxiety, burnout, and moral injury.
Jo walks us through the research, the human cost, and the emotional labour nobody sees. Then she introduces an actual solution: HR Supervision — the psychologically informed support model used in clinical professions that could finally make HR sustainable.
If you work in HR, lead HR, or have ever forwarded a problem with the phrase “Can HR just handle this?”, this episode is your reality check.
In This Episode
The shocking stats from Jo’s HR Mental Wellbeing Report
Why HR is experiencing clinical distress levels
The moral injury of delivering decisions you didn’t make
HR as the organisational “junk drawer”
Why employees blame HR instead of the actual decision-makers
The parentified-child → HR professional pipeline
Why self-care is not — and never will be — the solution
What HR Supervision is and why it matters
How to build a psychologically safe workplace when HR is drowning
Dr Jo Burrell on LinkedIn:
Free-Range Humans vs. Corporate Battery Hens — Michelle McDaid on Flexibility That Actually Works
What happens when flexibility stops being a perk and becomes the backbone of inclusion, well-being, and high performance? In this episode, we sit down with Michelle McDaid, founder of The Leading Place and long-time engineering leader across FinTech and HR Tech, to unpack how trust, autonomy, and psychological safety reshape the modern workplace.
Michelle brings over two decades of experience leading and scaling global distributed product development teams — most recently as Senior Director of Engineering at Workhuman, and previously at Fidelity Investments and AIB. Now, through The Leading Place, she helps organisations design flexible, people-centred cultures that actually work. A qualified coach and MSc candidate in Work & Organisational Behaviour at Dublin City University, Michelle is widely recognised for her leadership in DEIB, gender equity, and Women in STEM. She has championed ERGs, mentored underrepresented groups, completed the 30% Club Ireland Board Ready programme with Deloitte, and has been honoured as a finalist in the Everywoman in Technology Awards and the Diversity in Tech Awards. She was also named in DiverseIn’s 133 Women Who Change The World.
Together with Danny, Marion, and Cacha, Michelle digs into the truth about flexibility: Why it matters, who gets left behind when it’s taken away, and how brave leadership — not buzzwords — creates cultures where free-range humans thrive while battery-hen systems crumble.
We explore: • Why flexibility is infrastructure, not a perk • The weaponisation of resilience • ADHD in women and the unseen cost of masking • Gender equity and the real state of DEIB • Trust as the starting point for performance • Psychological safety inside rigid systems• Courage vs. consistency in leadership• The future of flexible work — and why it’s about design, not location
Dan Smolen on WorkFit: Finding Joy in How We Work and Live
What if “success” wasn’t someone else’s checklist—but a life that actually fits? In this uplifting, reflective conversation, Dan Smolen—Executive Producer & Host of What’s Your Work Fit? and fellow member of the Future of Work Alliance—joins Danny, Marion, and Cacha to explore how purpose, passion, and fit overlap (and don’t), why agency over your day matters, and how “soft eyes and soft ears” help us hear what truly lights us up.
When crisis hits, clarity collapses — and HR is often left holding the mic.
In this episode, Marion, Danny, and Cacha sit down with Alison Arnot, award-winning consultant, trainer, and author of Internal Communication in Times of Crisis: How to Secure Employee Trust, Support, and Advocacy in Crisis Situations. From her early-career baptism during the 2007 Glasgow Airport terror attack to decades guiding organizations through chaos, Alison shares what really happens when comms go quiet and people are left to fill in the blanks.
She introduces her Seven S’s Framework — Surviving, Supporting, Sense-making, Stabilizing, Stimulating, Sustaining, and Strengthening — and explains how it helps teams move from panic to trust. Together, we explore how HR often becomes the crisis communications department by default, what psychological safety looks like when everything is on fire, and why connection—not control—is the cornerstone of any credible response.
🎧 Expect stories, strategies, and a few uncomfortable truths about leadership, silence, layoffs, and the human side of crisis.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
If you’re gearing up for another annual goal-setting cycle and your inner voice is whispering, “there has to be a better way”… this episode hands you the blueprint.
📩 Got a hot take or a workplace horror story? Email us at elephant@thefearlesspx.com
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
If this episode made you feel seen, vindicated, or slightly ragey in a productive way, send it to another HR human who needs it. And leave us a ★★★★★ review — it does more for HR wellbeing than any corporate “resilience webinar” ever has.
📩 Got a hot take or a workplace horror story? Email us at elephant@thefearlesspx.com
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
💬 Like what you hear? Follow/subscribe so you don’t miss an episode — and if this one hit home, leave a ★★★★★ review to help more people find the show.
🎙️ About the Show The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024 — fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits 🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros 🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX ✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
