595: What AI Can't Replace: Former design lead at IDEO on Safe Danger, Trust, and the Future of Work

The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

In this week's Strategy Skills episode, we spoke with Ben Swire, author of Safe Danger and former leader at IDEO.

His thesis is trust and psychological safety aren't byproducts. They're designable conditions. And when designed correctly, they create room for calculated risk, creativity, and deeper collaboration.

Below are a few insights that stood out:

1. Experiential culture > Instructional culture

"There's a difference between handing someone bullet points on how to build trust and giving them a space to practice it."

Swire's workshops deliberately use low-stakes emotional challenges to normalize openness and risk-taking. The result: teams that critique, challenge, and share more effectively.

2. The right environment for growth is neither 'safe' nor 'dangerous', it's both

"Safe danger is the space where people feel secure enough to step outside their comfort zones."

This is about systematically building tolerance for uncertainty, while preserving respect and inclusion.

3. AI makes human insight more, not less, valuable

"AI converges. Humans diverge. That's where value creation happens."

The strategic challenge for leaders is to identify which human capabilities (empathy, contradiction, surprise) will grow in relevance as AI adoption expands.

4. Most resistance to AI is cultural, not technical

About 15% of executives Ben sees reject AI outright. But those who fail to define the human contribution clearly are still at risk.

"If you want to preserve jobs, don't argue with AI. Focus on what people can do that AI can't."

5. What actually builds durable teams

"Teams that feel safe take more risks, make fewer mistakes, and outperform others. There's strong data behind this."

This conversation is relevant if you're leading transformation, team design, or trying to calibrate your culture for the post-AI workplace.

📚 Get Ben's book, Safe Danger, here: https://shorturl.at/GuVGP

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