Rachel Franco | Episode #485
The Team Engagement Podcast – Season 6, Episode 485: Get Up and Move
In this episode, Shawn Richards welcomes Rachel Franco, Founder and CEO of Fail Smarter, for a conversation about psychological safety, intelligent failure, growth mindset, and the importance of taking care of yourself as a leader.
Rachel explains that organizations navigating rapid transformation and innovation need cultures where experimentation and learning are encouraged. Because experimentation inevitably involves mistakes and failures, leaders must create environments where people feel safe enough to take thoughtful risks, speak up, and learn from what does not work.
Psychological safety, Rachel says, begins with leadership behavior. Leaders can model vulnerability by acknowledging their own mistakes, uncertainties, and failures. Equally important is how they respond when someone brings forward an unconventional idea or bad news. Responding with curiosity instead of judgment can determine whether people continue speaking up in the future. Rachel also encourages leaders to actually measure psychological safety rather than simply assume their teams feel safe.
Shawn and Rachel also explore growth mindset from a different perspective. Rachel challenges leaders to ask whether they genuinely believe the people on their teams are capable of growing. When leaders subconsciously label someone as incapable or limited, they may stop offering stretch assignments, meaningful feedback, and opportunities that could help that person develop.
The conversation then turns to emotional wellness. Rachel emphasizes self-awareness, self-care, and seeking support from other leaders. One of her most practical recommendations is also one of the simplest: get up and move. Even a short walk can help reduce stress, create mental space, and allow new ideas or solutions to emerge.
Rachel closes with a meaningful baseball memory of staying up late with her grandmother to watch the Atlanta Braves. The details of the game may have faded, but the experience of sharing that time together remains a lasting reminder of the relationships behind our most memorable moments.
⭐ About Rachel Franco
Rachel Franco is the Founder and CEO of Fail Smarter, where she helps leaders and teams transform failure into greater innovation, adaptability, learning, and performance.
Her work focuses on building psychologically safe cultures that give people the confidence to experiment, learn from setbacks, and continue developing. Drawing from her background in innovation enablement, Rachel helps organizations develop practical systems and behaviors that make productive failure part of the growth process.
Connect with Rachel
Website: https://www.fail-smarter.com/about
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelfranco
