Session type:

Talk

Presented by:

Alan Smith

Compare the Market

Session time:

30 Sep 12:15 — 13:00

Session duration:

45 minutes

About the session

Theme: Happy People | Teams | Collaboration

In 1994, The Cranberries sang about numbness: a generation desensitised by conflict and mistrust. 

Four years later, Mo Mowlam walked into the Maze Prison and modelled leadership with humanity. Humour, empathy, and radical honesty in the face of hostility. This session reimagines her story for modern engineering leadership. 

When teams go numb, cynical, disengaged and buried under process, how do we bring them back to life? Through trust, autonomy and accountability, we’ll explore how emotional courage creates psychological safety, restores ownership and sustains high standards without fear. Because you can’t build great teams with people you don’t trust.

The session blends story, reflection and practical tools you can use immediately in 1:1s, team conversations and tense moments where the easy option is to retreat into process.

Participant takeaways:

  • a simple “numbness diagnostic”: early signals a team is disengaging, before it shows up in delivery metrics
  • how to rebuild trust after setbacks using specific behaviours and language, without blame, theatre or false positivity
  • how to reset autonomy safely: decision boundaries, intent-based leadership, and “what good looks like” that enables ownership
  • accountability without fear: feedback loops that protect standards while preserving dignity and psychological safety
  • practical ways to handle conflict early and humanely, turning avoidance into honest, workable agreement

About the speaker(s)