Workplace Psychology & Human Performance
Psychological safety, motivation science, burnout, deep work, emotional regulation, cognitive bias — the human operating system behind every people decision.
For: Managers, HR, founders who want to lead with science, not vibes
Psychological Safety at Work — the Amy Edmondson Playbook for Managers
The single biggest predictor of team effectiveness in Google's Project Aristotle wasn't smarts or seniority. It was psychological safety.
Motivation at Work — Self-Determination Theory in Plain English
Most 'motivation' advice is folklore. The science is clear and 50 years old: three needs drive sustainable motivation — autonomy, competence, relatedness.
Burnout — the Six Organizational Causes (Maslach), Not the Bubble Bath Fixes
Burnout isn't a personal failure of resilience. Christina Maslach's 40 years of research show it's a workplace mismatch across six dimensions.
Deep Work for Knowledge Workers — Cal Newport, Adapted for Real HR/Ops Realities
Most professionals do shallow work all day and call it busy. Cal Newport's deep-work thesis says the ability to focus without distraction is the rarest — and…
Cognitive Bias in Hiring, Reviews, and Promotions — a Manager's Field Guide
Every people decision you make is filtered through 200+ documented cognitive biases. You can't eliminate them. You can build processes that contain the damage.
Emotional Regulation at Work — What to Do in the 90 Seconds Before You Reply
Most career-ending moments are 90 seconds of unregulated emotion. Neuroscience offers a simple model — and a small set of habits — for staying in command when…
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs — What It Actually Means at Work
The pyramid every manager has seen and almost no one uses correctly. Here's how Maslow really applies to a 2026 workplace, with a five-layer diagnostic you…
Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory — Why Fixing Complaints Doesn't Create Motivation
Pay raises stop people from quitting. They don't make people care. Herzberg explained why — and what to do instead.
McGregor's Theory X & Y — The Hidden Assumption Behind How You Manage
Every management decision rests on a hidden assumption about whether people actually want to work. McGregor named it in 1960, and the assumption you choose…
Vroom's Expectancy Theory — The Equation Behind Every Motivated Effort
People don't try harder because you tell them to. They try harder when three specific beliefs line up. Vroom wrote the equation in 1964 and it still debugs…
Adams' Equity Theory — Why Fairness Beats Generosity
People don't compare their pay to their needs. They compare it to yours, to their neighbour's, and to last year's hire.
Social Identity Theory at Work — Why 'Us vs Them' Quietly Runs Your Org
Engineering vs Sales. HQ vs Remote. Founders vs Joiners. Tajfel's research explains why these splits form so reliably — and gives you the three moves that…
Workplace Stress Management — Karasek's Demand-Control Model
Stress at work isn't about how hard you work. It's about how much control you have over the work. Karasek proved it — and the Whitehall studies made it…
Recovery Systems — Why Output Without Recovery Becomes Output Without Output
Elite athletes train recovery as deliberately as exertion. Knowledge workers don't. That's why burnout looks like a 'sudden' collapse — when it's actually a…
Nervous System Basics for Work — Why You Can't Think Your Way Out of Anxiety
Most leadership stress is not a thinking problem. It's a physiology problem. A 60-second primer on the nervous system at work — and the four down-regulators…
Sustainable Performance — The Operator's Pace That Compounds
Sprint culture wins quarters and loses careers. Here's the pace senior operators actually run at — and how to design teams that compound rather than collapse.
Work-Life Integration — Why Balance Was Always the Wrong Metaphor
Balance implies a zero-sum tradeoff. Integration treats life as one system to design. Here's how senior operators actually do it — five domains and the…
Digital Burnout — The Slack/Email Tax No One Budgets For
Constant pings aren't a productivity tool — they're a cognitive tax. Here's what digital burnout looks like, what it costs, and how to design it out of your…
Career Resilience — Designing a 30-Year Arc, Not a 3-Year Sprint
Careers used to be linear. Now they're portfolios, pivots, and reinventions. Resilience is the skill that lets you compound through change instead of being…
Psychological safety: what Edmondson's research actually says (not the TED-talk version)
Beyond the slogan — the 1999 Edmondson study, the 7-item scale she actually uses, the four learning behaviors it predicts, and what 25 years of meta-analyses…
Burnout: Maslach's three dimensions, the MBI, and why individual interventions fail
Burnout is not stress. It is a specific syndrome with three measurable dimensions — exhaustion, cynicism, inefficacy — and an evidence base that says…
Identity at work: LMX theory and social identity theory for managers
Two of the most empirically supported lenses on workplace behavior — Leader-Member Exchange (in-group / out-group dynamics) and Social Identity Theory — and…
Power and politics at work: French & Raven's six bases of power
The taxonomy of where workplace power actually comes from — coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, referent, informational — and how each one ages, scales, and…
Conflict styles: the Thomas-Kilmann model and when each mode actually works
The most-used conflict-style instrument in the world is also the most misused. The 5 modes — competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating…
Negotiation for HR: BATNA, ZOPA, and the Harvard PON model applied to people work
The Harvard Program on Negotiation’s vocabulary — BATNA, reservation price, ZOPA, principled negotiation — applied to the negotiations HR actually runs…
Power & politics at work: a step-by-step HR playbook (with scripts)
A 7-step playbook HR can run when politics turn toxic — map the power bases, diagnose the game, intervene with scripts for the manager, the influencer, the…
Conflict styles in action: a step-by-step HR playbook with scripts
A practical playbook for HR — diagnose the conflict, pick the right Thomas-Kilmann mode for the situation (not your comfort zone), and run the conversation…
Managing up a difficult executive: a step-by-step playbook with scripts
A practical playbook for managing up a volatile, absent, or controlling executive — diagnose the pattern, build the contract, run the upward 1:1, and protect…
Influence without authority: a step-by-step playbook for HR & staff functions
HR, security, and platform teams have to get things done without owning the people who do the work. A 6-step playbook with scripts for stakeholder mapping…
Team conflict mediation: a 90-minute facilitator playbook with scripts
A timed 90-minute mediation playbook for HR — pre-work, opening, structured airing, interest mapping, option generation, decision, and written agreement.
Two cofounders in conflict: an HR mediation playbook with scripts
When cofounders stop trusting each other, the company has 90 days. A step-by-step HR playbook — diagnose the rupture type, run the structured conversation…
The high performer behaving badly: a step-by-step HR playbook
The brilliant jerk problem — how to keep standards when the offender is your top revenue or top engineer. A 5-step playbook with scripts for the manager, the…
Conflict on a remote/async team: a step-by-step HR playbook with scripts
Async conflict festers differently — silence reads as hostility, time zones distort intent, written tone amplifies friction.
Manager-vs-manager turf war: a step-by-step HR playbook with scripts
Two peer managers fighting over scope, headcount, or a shared report. A playbook for the HR partner — diagnose the structural cause, run the joint…