Creative Confidence Podcast

Most strategic plans are built for one version of the future: the one your team thinks is most likely. That works until conditions change, and then the plan needs rewriting. Futures thinking adds a step before strategic planning: looking at several plausible futures, so the strategy you choose has room to adapt. In this episode, host Mina Seetharaman talks with Jennifer Lo, Senior Director of Desi...

Complex challenges, from traffic congestion to organizational culture change, don’t exist in a vacuum. Each one is part of a larger system. You can’t solve one piece of the puzzle without understanding how it affects the whole. Systems thinking is a holistic approach to making sense of that interconnection. Paired with a human lens on what motivates people and which needs go unmet, it leads to sol...

Medical bills written in codes patients can't read. Homes that don't fit a wheelchair. A specialized bed that can run up to $15,000 and isn't covered by insurance. For the 24 million caregivers in the US, these are everyday obstacles. And each one points to a design opportunity. This week, we’re sharing an episode from IDEO Thinking, a new IDEO podcast where authors read their own stor...

IDEO has built a business around solving difficult problems. But problems and situations are not the same thing, argues Seth Godin. And correctly telling them apart is critical. Get it wrong, and you'll spend months pushing on something that was never going to move. In this conversation, Seth and Mina dig into themes from Seth’s new book The Knot : how to tell a problem from a situation, why n...

Jane Fulton Suri spent nearly four decades defining the craft of design research. She says it’s less about collecting information and more about changing how you see something.  In this episode, IDEO CEO Mike Peng talks with Jane about memorable moments from her lengthy career, what separates a good insight from a great one, and where she thinks the discipline needs to go next. Related Resour...

Ed White has a rule he's tested on his own writing: hold yourself as the writer, and let AI be your editor. Ed is a Senior Design Director at IDEO's London studio, where he co-leads the firm's AI portfolio across Europe. Before IDEO, he spent 12 years as a writer and editor at the Financial Times, Wired, and Contagious. So when he talks about when to use AI for storytelling and when not to, it com...

Storytelling isn't a nice-to-have for entrepreneurs. It's often the only asset you have before you have a brand, a product, or proof.  In this episode, we talk with Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and co-author with his brother David Kelley of the bestseller Creative Confidence , about the four stories every entrepreneur needs ready to go: the elevator pitch, the origin story, the pitch deck, and th...

Most AI products today are built for work—a space with clear problems and established systems. One founder noticed a gap: personal life is messier, harder to systematize, and mostly left behind by the AI boom. So she built Cue, a personal AI that lives inside iMessage and group chats, to go where the other tools haven't. In this episode, Becca Carroll, IDEO's Chief Strategy Officer, talks with Sid...

Most personal financial tools are built to run the numbers and optimize towards a budget. While that works for some, most people experience money as a lived relationship that doesn’t neatly fit into a spreadsheet. Johannes Seemann spent years interviewing people about their personal finances and came away with a different premise: Money is inherently emotional before it is mathematical. Accounting...

We talk a lot about curiosity as a mindset. Scott Shigeoka lives it as a practice. Right now he’s driving a 25-foot purple van across the country, finding and documenting the stories of ordinary people making their communities better. He's not just curious about what's possible. He's out there finding out. In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with Scott Shigeoka, author of Seek and Head of Curi...

We're told more is always better—more options, more resources, more freedom. But David Epstein spent years looking at the science, and what he found challenges that assumption. Constraints don't just force creativity. According to the research, they often generate it. In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better and the New Yo...

Two thirds of leaders say they would rather be seen as decisive and get it wrong than appear uncertain and get it right. It may sound illogical, but it's actually the result of decades of organizational culture training leaders that decisiveness equals strength and that not knowing is a liability. In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with Sam Conniff, founder of Uncertainty Experts and author o...

We have more information than any generation in history. And we're more anxious about the future than ever. So what's going wrong? In this episode, Mina Seetharaman talks with Simone Stolzoff, journalist, author, TED speaker, and former IDEO Design Lead, about why certainty is so seductive, how our hunger for it quietly gets us into trouble, and what it actually looks like to build uncertainty tol...

Angela Kochoska, Design Researcher and Data Scientist at IDEO and co-instructor in IDEO U's new course, Human-Centered Research with AI, joins Mina to answer your questions on how to responsibly and effectively use AI in the research process.  After her co-instructor Hannah Rosenfeld’s episode on using AI in human-centered research, our audience had so many great questions. We dedicated an en...

AI is changing what it means to be a researcher. But most teams are only using it one way—to go faster. In this episode, Hannah Rosenfeld, Executive Design Researcher at IDEO, shares a framework for using AI intentionally across your research process: not just to move faster, but to see more, ask bigger questions, and do things you couldn't do before. Hannah teaches these ideas and more in IDEO U'...

Most organizations don’t fail because their ideas are wrong. They fail because the systems underneath those ideas aren’t designed to support them. In this episode, Mina Seetharaman speaks with Clay Parker Jones, Director of Organizational Design at Airbnb and author of Hidden Patterns, about six things you can do to build a more agile, adaptable, and human-centered organization. Related Resources:...

Tension on your team isn’t always a problem to solve. In fact, it’s often a signal you’re doing meaningful work. In this replay episode, bestselling author Daniel Coyle ( The Culture Code ) shares how the most successful teams channel friction into forward motion, instead of avoiding it. Drawing on research and real-world examples from places like Pixar, the Navy SEALs, and professional sports, Da...

There are many hidden barriers to building trust on teams, and sometimes we don’t see them until something breaks down. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Mina Seetharaman sits down again with Ben Swire—co-founder of Make Believe Works and author of Safe Danger —for a practical Q&A on what actually gets in the way of trust on teams. Drawing on his experience designing team exp...

Team building often feels like a necessary evil. Leaders know it matters, but too often it feels awkward, forced, or disconnected from real work. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast , Mina Seetharaman speaks with Ben Swire, co-founder of Make Believe Works and author of Safe Danger , about what actually builds trust, psychological safety, and creative collaboration on teams. Ben int...

How do leaders apply playful thinking at work when time is short and the stakes are high? In this Q&A episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, host Mina Seetharaman is joined by play designer and author Cas Holman and IDEO Partner Michelle Lee to explore how a playful mindset holds up under real-world constraints. Building on their earlier conversation about why play matters at work, this e...

For teams and leaders striving to unlock better collaboration and outcomes, play isn’t just a break from work—it’s a powerful leadership mindset. Embracing play fosters curiosity, creativity, and resilience, helping teams innovate and thrive even under pressure. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, host Mina Seetharaman sits down with special guests Cas Holman, renowned play designe...

IDEO CEO Mike Peng returns to the Creative Confidence Podcast with an insightful, listener-driven conversation tailored for leaders, managers, and team leads who are navigating change and striving to build high-trust, creative teams. In this episode, Mike delves deeper into the core principles of creative leadership , sharing practical strategies for leading creative teams within organizations tha...

The creative leadership advice continues. In Part 2, creative leaders including IDEO partners, alumni, and IDEO U instructors share hard-won lessons on relationships, reflection, and staying human as we move into 2026. Host Mina Seetharaman and IDEO Partner Ilya Prokopoff share reactions and builds on each leader's advice. Many of the leaders featured on this episode have been guests on the podcas...

This episode is a Creative Confidence Podcast replay. In celebration of 20 years of the Stanford d.school, we’re revisiting our conversation with David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, on the core abilities of the most successful creative problem-solvers. David also shares personal stories and learnings from his friendships with several of today’s most innovative CEOs and leaders...

As the year winds down, we asked 20 friends of IDEO including IDEO U instructors, Creative Confidence Podcast guests, and partners of IDEO to share honest leadership advice for leaders heading into 2026. In part one, hear reflections on uncertainty, creativity, and momentum. Host Mina Seetharaman and IDEO Partner Ilya Prokopoff share reactions and builds on each leader's advice. Find more episodes...