Matt Rowe: You have to artificially create moments of pause and recovery. Because the mountains are endless, the leader must set the cadence. We have to get people inspired to have great impact and create conditions where people are striving to do even better.
When there is more to do than time allows, the answer is disciplined prioritization. It’s an opportunity to get really good at saying “not now,” so the team can focus on what actually moves the needle.
Thiébaut Meyer: I’m a firm believer that psychological safety isn’t something you can just delegate. You have to model it yourself, especially when things go wrong. How do you approach modeling psychological safety at a large organization?
Matt Rowe: For me, it starts with transparency. People need to see me being challenged and observe how I react. It’s about making it obvious that being brave — speaking up, or questioning a process — is what we value. We have to create proof points where people who operate with psychological safety are seen as the role models.
Thiébaut Meyer: We’ve both seen the risks of security teams becoming silos or even fortresses against the rest of the organization. How do you ensure a resilient team remains a business enabler?
Matt Rowe: You have to embed the team’s objectives directly into business priorities. If the company’s mission is to provide lending to small businesses, our mission is to enable them to get those products to market faster and safely.
When the team sees themselves as stewards of the business mission, it changes the mindset from one of security versus the business to one of shared resilience.
Learn more about building resilient organizations
Building a resilient organization is a continuous journey. As we navigate the mountains ahead, protecting our teams starts with protecting the people behind the roles.
- Seize the reset moment: Use consolidation as a catalyst to demystify complexity. Reducing the tool stack is the first step toward reducing the mental load on your team.
- Be like water: Adopt a mindset of flexibility. The most resilient organizations are those that can make quick, flexible decisions.
- Mandate the pause: In an environment of endless mountains, the leader’s primary job is to set the cadence of recovery and enforce disciplined prioritization.
- Architecture over effort: Resilience isn’t about being tough enough to handle adverse situations, it’s about being more intentional with our technology, our team design, and our shared mission so that we can achieve our goals and avoid burning out.
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