At Work, Under Pressure

CONNECT WITH JESSI ON LINKEDIN >>> HERE!Knowing what to do and actually doing it under pressure are two very different things.Marc Bernstein built Balto around that gap.In this episode of At Work, Under Pressure, Jessi Beyer sits down with Marc Bernstein, CEO of Balto, to talk about AI, contact centers, human connection, real-time coaching, de-escalation, and what happens when someone knows the right skill but their brain fails to retrieve it in the moment.Marc shares how his own experience in a contact center inspired Balto: he could receive great training, understand exactly what he was supposed to do, and then finish a live customer conversation realizing he had forgotten to do it. That distinction between knowledge and real-time performance eventually became central to the company’s approach.Jessi and Marc discuss:Why skills ultimately matter more than scripts, while scripts can still provide useful examples of what good performance sounds likeHow real-time AI support can reduce the cognitive load on contact center employees and free them to focus on human connectionWhy empathy becomes harder when employees are simultaneously worrying about whether they are “doing empathy correctly”How AI could help replace the traditional churn-and-burn contact center model with higher-value human workWhy Balto deliberately tries to keep AI out of the “human lane”What frustrated customers actually need in order to de-escalateHow AI may expand human creativity and capability rather than simply replace expertiseMarc also shares a particularly relevant example from one of Balto’s crisis-center customers: a new employee encountered a caller expressing suicidal ideation, Balto detected what was happening and alerted the supervisor in real time, and the supervisor was able to leave a meeting and come support the employee through the interaction.This episode is for contact center leaders, customer experience teams, sales leaders, AI executives, learning and development professionals, and anyone interested in what happens when technology is designed to support human performance rather than replace it.Because training someone is not the same thing as preparing them to perform.And the most useful technology may be the technology that gives humans enough cognitive space to do the things only humans can do.CONNECT WITH MARCLinkedInWebsite

CONNECT WITH JESSI ON LINKEDIN >>> HERE!A career transition can be exciting.It can also feel a lot like grief.In this episode of At Work, Under Pressure, Jessi Beyer sits down with Christine McHugh to talk about identity, career transitions, loss, belonging, rituals, and what happens when a job that has shaped your routines, relationships, language, and sense of self suddenly disappears.Christine shares how leaving Starbucks after 27 years forced her to confront how deeply work had become woven into her identity. That experience eventually led her to research identity shifts more broadly and begin writing a new book focused on what happens when major life transitions disrupt the way we understand ourselves.Jessi and Christine discuss:Why telling people “don’t make your job your identity” can be both true and deeply unhelpfulHow career transitions affect routines, relationships, future plans, energy, and sense of selfWhy people around us also have to adjust when our identity changesHow rituals can help acknowledge transitions that otherwise have no clear ceremony or containerWhy contradictory emotions like grief and excitement can be true at the same timeHow giving yourself space can make transitions easier to processWhat organizations and leaders can do to preserve dignity when someone is leavingChristine also points to a major gap in how organizations handle layoffs and separations: companies may offer severance, benefits, or outplacement support while doing almost nothing to address the emotional and identity disruption that can follow.This episode is for leaders, HR professionals, coaches, people navigating career changes, and anyone who has ever looked at a suddenly empty calendar and wondered who they are now.Because leaving a job is not always just leaving a job.Sometimes it means rebuilding the story you tell yourself about who you are.CONNECT WITH CHRISTINELinkedInInstagramWebsite

CONNECT WITH JESSI ON LINKEDIN >>> HERE!Most of us have been taught that being helpful means having the answer.Michael Bungay Stanier thinks that instinct can get us into trouble.In this episode of At Work, Under Pressure, Jessi Beyer sits down with Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit and founder of Box of Crayons, to talk about curiosity, advice-giving, change management, workplace culture, and what happens to our behavior when pressure starts stripping away our ability to choose deliberately.Michael explains why people under pressure tend to fall back into familiar patterns, including the victim, persecutor, and rescuer roles of the drama triangle. The goal is not to eliminate those reactions entirely, but to notice them sooner, spend less time trapped inside them, and build enough self-awareness to respond with more intention.Jessi and Michael discuss:Why most conventional change-management approaches are failing in a world where the pace of change keeps acceleratingWhat pressure does to human behavior and why people default to old patterns when they feel triggeredHow the “advice monster” shows up as the need to tell, save, or controlWhy staying curious a little longer helps leaders uncover the real problem instead of solving the wrong oneHow advice-giving can become a way of managing our own discomfort rather than helping the other personWhy curiosity gives employees more agency and helps them feel seen, heard, and valuedHow organizations can move from a “know-it-all” culture toward a “learn-it-all” cultureMichael also makes the case that curiosity is not simply a softer leadership skill. It affects both strategy and culture by helping organizations identify the right problems, reduce unnecessary rescuing, and create environments where people are more capable of thinking and acting for themselves.This episode is for executives, HR leaders, coaches, people managers, change leaders, consultants, and anyone whose instinct under pressure is to jump in, take over, and start fixing.Because the fastest answer is not always the best answer.Sometimes the most useful thing a leader can do is stay curious long enough to understand what is actually happening.CONNECT WITH MICHAELLinkedInInstagramChange SignalMBS Works

CONNECT WITH JESSI ON LINKEDIN >>> HERE!How do you build a spacecraft so complicated that no single person understands how the whole thing works?You start with the humans.In this episode of At Work, Under Pressure, Jessi Beyer sits down with Dr. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator of NASA’s Psyche mission and author of Mission Ready, to talk about team culture, creativity, communication, burnout, psychological safety, and what it takes to lead hundreds of highly specialized people through extraordinarily complex work.Lindy explains why even the hardest science and engineering ultimately comes back to person-to-person relationships. On Psyche, that has meant deliberately breaking down traditional silos between scientists, engineers, schedulers, budget teams, communications professionals, and everyone else whose expertise is necessary to make the mission work.Jessi and Lindy discuss:Why high-performing teams need people willing to look beyond their own “swim lane”How curiosity and asking questions can prevent expertise from turning into egoWhy silence from part of a team can be an important warning signHow leaders can distinguish productive pressure from the kind of stress that leaves people feeling trapped and unsupportedWhy high performers are often rewarded with more work and less supportHow punishment and psychological unsafety can shut down the communication teams need to catch problemsWhy NASA viewed Psyche’s team culture as an asset capable of helping the mission survive high-stress situationsLindy also shares how she thinks about protecting intensely driven people from burnout: giving people multiple ways to speak up, measuring the temperature of the team, acting visibly on what leaders hear, educating people to recognize burnout in themselves, and providing real support when someone begins struggling.This episode is for executives, scientists, engineers, researchers, project leaders, people managers, and anyone responsible for helping highly driven teams perform when the stakes are enormous.Because extraordinary technical systems still depend on ordinary human relationships.And when the pressure rises, the strength of those relationships can determine whether the team keeps communicating, solving problems, and moving forward.CONNECT WITH DR. ELKINS-TANTONLinkedInNASA Project PsycheX (Dr. Elkins-Tanton)X (Project Psyche)Death Star Canteen Skit

CONNECT WITH JESSI ON LINKEDIN >>> HERE!People are often quick to label someone as lazy, unmotivated, distracted, or unable to hack it.But sometimes the problem is not willpower at all.In this episode of At Work, Under Pressure, Jessi Beyer sits down with Michael Delman, founder of Beyond BookSmart and WorkSmart Coaching, to talk about executive function, ADHD, anxiety, accommodations, leadership, coaching, and how to help people succeed without assuming that everyone’s brain works the same way.Michael describes executive function as the skills that help people achieve “success with less stress,” from setting priorities and managing distractions to regulating emotions and following through on goals. He also introduces the idea of “hill, skill, will”: sometimes people are not failing because they lack motivation, but because the demands in front of them do not match the skills and scaffolding available to them.Jessi and Michael discuss:What executive function actually is and why it affects far more than school performanceWhy struggling people may need scaffolding rather than shameHow leaders can accommodate individual needs without negatively affecting the rest of the groupWhy small accommodations can produce outsized returns in loyalty, commitment, and performanceWhat it takes to support and develop a large team of executive function coachesWhy coaches need clear boundaries when clients disclose mental health, trauma, substance use, or other needs outside their scopeHow organizations can build enough crisis readiness that trusted employees know what to do when someone shares something seriousThis episode is for parents, educators, HR leaders, people managers, coaches, school leaders, executives, and anyone trying to understand why smart, capable people can still struggle to organize, start, focus, and follow through.Because struggling does not always mean someone lacks willpower.Sometimes it means the ladder rungs are too far apart, and the right support can help them climb.CONNECT WITH MICHAELLinkedInBeyond BookSmart (free infographics and guides!)WorkSmart Coaching