The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau
A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.
If you want to create a culture where diverse teams flourish, you need boldly inclusive leaders.
Revolutionary leadership that sparks creativity, productivity, and success starts with Psychological Safety: a workplace where everyone feels free to share their best ideas. A leading voice in this burgeoning field, MINETTE NORMAN offers actionable advice on how to create cultures of radical collaboration and compassionate teamwork for increased efficiency. Her upcoming book, The Boldly Inclusive Leader, shows you how to leverage a team’s diversity to achieve breakthrough success. Her first book The Psychological Safety Playbook—an instant #1 Amazon Bestseller in Business Health and Stress—is “a must-read for anyone who cares enough to lead” (Seth Godin). Her books are packed with powerful, airtight lessons for managers and employees. Listen to understand, not to respond. Encourage curiosity, and see where it leads. “The world of work could be so much better for everybody,” Minette says. “But that’s only possible if people feel safe to speak up, and be themselves, and share those crazy ideas.”
As a liberal arts major, Minette joined Autodesk as a technical writer and worked her way up to VP of Engineering Practice. There, she led 3,500 software professionals in the male-dominated tech industry, where she focused on engineering practices while nurturing a collaborative and inclusive culture. Now, she’s sharing the methods she’s developed. In her dynamic presentations and interactive workshops, she helps executives and employees at every level rethink how we communicate, which accomplishments we reward, and who belongs in leadership roles. This is the first step to inspiring a creative work culture that leads to break-out innovation and leveraging diversity to achieve breakthrough success.
At her consulting agency, Minette helps leaders build healthy, inclusive organizations where everyone feels like they belong. In her second book, The Boldly Inclusive Leader, she provides leaders with actionable strategies and daily practices for cultivating inclusive organizations in which diverse teams can leverage their differences to create a more innovative and productive workplace. Minette shows how being a compassionate leader who welcomes diversity in all its forms will transform not just the workplace, but the world. In her first book The Psychological Safety Playbook, co-written with Karolin Helbig, Minette bridges the gap between academic research and actionable guides, emphasizing that psychological safety is about the human experience.
She was named one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times, and “Business Role Model of the Year” in the Women in IT Awards.
Thank you so much to Minette Norman for joining us! Her presentation was spot-on and I really appreciated how she gave some actionable takeaways that our group can implement right away.
International Security Management AssociationMinette was a tremendous keynote speaker at Smartling's Global Ready Conference. She established a unique bond with our audience despite the virtual format and spoke with authority on the subject matter.
SmartlingWhat an incredible talk with us today! Thank you for being a trailblazer and for paving the way for so many to advance.
Extreme NetworksYou’ve really changed my perspective on inclusion. This is what great leaders and people managers do, not the side hustle example you referenced. What an ah-hah moment!
VMwareSo engaging and applicable! Loved how you humanized the interaction and shared your personal experiences. This felt like a very genuine conversation and left me wanting more!
ClouderaUber Tax is building a culture of belonging - fortifying it day by day, knowing the work is never done. We are grateful for Minette's work and wisdom to help us on our journey.
UberYour inclusive meetings workshops made a huge impact. I find that the meetings I attend these days are far more intentional, inclusive, and successful than they were before.
KaratCuriosity Expert Author of Seek Fellow at U.C. Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center Lecturer at The University of Texas
Director of the Penn Primals Project Senior Research Scientist at the Penn Positive Psychology Center
Leading Expert on Adolescence and the Parent-Child Relationship Award-Winning Psychologist Author of You and Your Adult Child
Harvard Business School Professor Author of The Ritual Effect Co-Author of Happy Money
Award-Winning Toy Designer of the World-Renowned Rigamajig Founder and Principal Designer at Toy Company Heroes Will Rise
Performance psychologist Former Director of Mental Conditioning for the New York Giants Author of Life as Sport
Instant New York Times Bestselling Author of The Story of Art Without Men 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 Europe Guardian Columnist Art Historian and Curator
Author of The 272: The Families who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church Associate Professor at New York University Former New York Times Johannesburg Bureau Chief
Author of The State Must Provide: The Definitive History of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education Staff Writer at The Atlantic
Grit, more than talent, IQ, looks, or wealth, is a powerful indicator of success.
There isn’t a beat you can cover in America—education, housing—where race is not a factor.
Great brands don’t simply reach customers: they create real emotional bonds with them.
Stories of queer identity and Black joy have the power to educate us on diversity, inspire social justice activism, and build community.
Technology and science continue to make the world a better place—we can’t lose sight of that core truth.
Many organizations do their best to hire a diverse workforce—but they often don’t put the same effort towards creating an inclusive culture. Leadership consultant Minette Norman knows that an inclusive culture is the backbone of any thriving workplace. Without it, diversity initiatives will fail. Drawing from her book, The Boldly Inclusive Leader, Minette shares a treasure trove of actionable advice to help cultivate inclusive spaces where diverse teams can take leverage their differences and achieve breakthrough success.
In this thoughtful and compassionate talk, leaders, managers, and employees will learn how to tune into their own behavior, challenge toxic norms, and create inclusive meetings where everyone can speak equally. Minette will also show you how to hire and retain diverse talent, from making sure there are equitable opportunities for advancement to understanding how to manage someone’s job performance while checking your biases at the door. Minette approaches these topics with curiosity and empathy—helping you begin a transformative journey towards putting diversity into practice.
Psychological safety is the belief that we will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. Teams that have a high degree of psychological safety are the highest performing teams, the most inclusive teams, the teams that innovate, and the teams that people want to be part of.
In this keynote, Minette Norman shares her approach to creating a psychologically safe culture in which diverse perspectives and experiences are valued so that everyone can fully contribute their best work. Minette tells real-world stories about psychological safety—and its absence—in practice. She also offers practical advice to leaders for increasing psychological safety in any organization or setting, leaving them inspired and equipped to increase psychological safety in their own teams.
No company today can succeed without empathy at the core of its business strategy. But empathy isn’t just about compassion and consideration for your customers. It also means making sure all your employees feel valued, heard, and appreciated. And that takes work.
In this keynote, Minette Norman outlines her approach to ‘radical empathy’: a leadership plan that shatters outdated mindsets about work. She asks audiences to see vulnerability, emotion, and compassion as strengths—even in (or especially in) male-dominated industries. Minette helps us abandon ‘us vs. them’ mentalities, engage in active listening, and make time for the challenging conversations we’ve been putting off. This is a talk to empower leaders so they can take action—and embrace a model of leadership that’s backed by emotion as much as it’s backed by economics.