Why Your People Don’t Speak Up (even when you ask them to)
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast On The Road, we sit down with Khalil Smith, VP, Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement at Akamai Technologies, to unpack what it really takes to build a performance culture where people trust each other enough to speak up, challenge ideas, and grow.
Khalil explains why culture is not what leaders say they want, but what the organization actually rewards, and why silence is often the clearest signal that trust has broken down.
He shares how leaders can build stronger cultures by creating trust, encouraging healthy disagreement, aligning systems with values, and making recognition and feedback feel honest, specific, and useful.
Most importantly, Khalil reveals why the future of culture belongs to organizations that close the gap between what they say and what they reward, creating environments where people can challenge respectfully, perform boldly, and speak up without fear.
🎓 In this episode, Khalil discusses:
How culture is shaped through awareness, behavior, community, and systems
Why recognition only works when it is grounded in honesty, specificity, and trust
ow leaders can create the conditions for employees to speak up and challenge ideas
Why healthy disagreement is essential for trust, performance, and better decision-making
Why organizations must align internal reality with the values they communicate externally
What if the future of work wasn’t more artificial?
What if it was more human?
On May 20, Workhuman Forum London brings the UK and Europe’s most forward-thinking CHROs, CPOs, and people leaders together at the London Hilton Park Lane for one defining day on trust, recognition, psychological safety, and leadership in the age of AI.
Because as AI accelerates, the real competitive edge is not just better technology.
It’s stronger cultures.
It’s leaders who can build trust when pressure rises.
It’s recognition that connects people to strategy.
It’s psychological safety that helps teams speak up, adapt faster, and perform through uncertainty.
And it’s human intelligence that gives leaders a clearer view of what is really happening inside their organisation.
You’ll hear from world-class thinkers and senior HR leaders including Rachel Botsman, Eric Mosley, Susan David, Ph.D., Tom Lee, and more, unpacking the practical strategies people leaders need now.
This is not another conference.
It’s a reset moment for HR leaders who know the next era of work cannot be built on automation alone.
00:11
Welcome to the show, my friend. Yeah, thank you. Nice to see you. Yeah, good to see you. Your colleagues kind of hyped you up. Well, listen, that's how we do it, Akamai. We support one another. We lift each other up. It's a lot of hyping each other. I love it. I love it. And you're bringing energy. Me and you doing a podcast, then Michelle Obama. There you go.
00:32
Actually, is anybody going to see that? I can't get on board with that.
00:37
That's the sequence of events as well. I mean, we're the warm-up act. Warm-up act. That I will take. Can we take that? Absolutely. Cool, man. Well, listen, before we jump in, tell everyone a little bit about your background and sort of the journey to where we are now. Yeah, so the lion's share of my background was at Apple. So I was at Apple from 2002 to 2016.
00:57
And during that time... 2002, 2016. Yeah, so basically right after the launch of the iPod to right after the launch of the Apple Watch. So...
01:05
steve tim do you still have an og ipod i do have an og ipod and i still have an og iphone in the wrap no you don't in the wrapping because when when we first launched we got one for free and i had a family member stand in line to buy one so i've still got one in the wrapping it's in a pelican case and i'm just like i'm gonna give it to my boys i'm like you're not getting any they open now i'm gonna cry yeah i'll cry My oldest son, who's 26 at this point, was like, just please make sure the younger one doesn't open it because the younger one is 15. He's like, he needs to understand how important this is. Dude, it's like the Holy Grail. It's history as well. Like, it's just, I mean, the iPhone changed so much. I've been looking for an OG iPod to use.
01:49
And I just want it. I just like the old, like the tactile scroll wheel. To see if I can like find one. Because I've got like minis and nanos and the whole thing. Oh man. I'm like, sorry, I was just fanboyed there. No, me too. I loved it. I lined up for the original iPhone. I lined up for the, I remember waiting in the rain for like the original iPad. Yeah. The first iPad. 100%. Which was just insane. Yeah. All of it. And that's the thing to be there during that time and learning all the things that I did about culture, about scaling. Right. Because we were going from being a handful of retail stores. So the first seven years I worked on the retail store side of the business. So I was in stores, opening them, setting them up.
02:31
And, you know, it was this amazing opportunity. Like, how do you take a brand and scale it to the point where a store in China feels the same as a store in Soho, New York? but they're different, they're built with different materials. So you're really taking that local culture and imbuing it, but not losing the core part of what Apple was. We're talking a lot about culture here, isn't it incredible how a technology, a piece of hardware can bring so many different cultures together? And that was the brilliance of it. People cheering in the streets. Listen, at the end of the day, so much of this was around the feel. And that's the thing that, like, Ron Johnson, who was the SVP of retail, and Steve Jobs, and everybody else got right. And we talked about this. It wasn't about the features. It was about the benefits. And the Crazy Ones video, right? Like, we became massive. Yes, exactly.
03:20
or like the 1984, right? It was like rage against the establishment. This is for the crazy ones. This is for the MIT fits. You're giving me nostalgia right now. And this thing still gives me goosebumps. I loved my time there after I was there. So it was like, all right, 14 years, loved it. Did a bunch of training and development with them. Did all this wonderful work. And I was like, you know what? The time is right to continue to kind of spread my wings and try some other stuff. I've learned a ton here and I'm leaving on a high note. I love the people that I still work with. Still keep in touch with a bunch of them.
03:49
and moved on to a place called the Neuro Leadership Institute and NLI. So I oversaw consulting practices and research. So things like our SCARF model and the SEEDS model, working with Dr. David Rock. And all of that was around how do you blend kind of neuroscience and social psychology and behavioral economics with the practical application of what does it look like in a business? So not just in a research institution, but what does it actually mean when you get down to the nuts and bolts of running a business? And that's how I came across Akamai. So we're actually working collaboratively with them. No, we're stealing you. That's exactly it. And so, you know, I still keep in touch with folks at NLI as well. Neural Leadership Institute is a great place. And I still love the psychology and kind of how these things come together. I fundamentally believe that once we understand ourselves better and we understand how to create an ideal workplace, those are the types of things that have these benefits above and beyond just the institution.
04:44
Because I know we've taught people feedback and then they come back and say, I'm a better parent. I'm a better spouse. I'm a better neighbor. Those are the ripples that you can create by really running a sustainable business. And that's pretty much one of the big themes here at Work Human Life, right? Yeah. Absolutely. And so much of this is about, you know, this is almost a deep dive on things like recognition. But within that, there's all the, well, how do you do recognition right? And what does it really mean? And what does it look like? And what does it sound like? And how does that live in an ecosystem of high trust? Because I can, you know, if you and I don't trust each other, we don't spend a lot of time together, we don't really like each other. and I say, hey, great job on the podcast, really appreciate how you asked this, this, and this question, you may be like, okay, that was specific, but was it honest? What was behind that? But in an environment of high trust where you've given me feedback and recognition, I've given you feedback and recognition, there's now this space where we're like, thank you.
05:39
Or, you know, you may say to me, hey, Khalil, I watched your presentation. I love that you did this, this and this. I really would suggest you maybe thinking about doing this differently next time. And it's like, wow, you know me and I trust you enough that I'm willing to take that in and do something different. That's the essence of a high performance organization. Yeah, it could be a lot for some people when they come into those environments. Right.
06:00
I talk to our new hires that we have like around like assume positive intent there. For example, because they were here. I had an employee actually who came to me and said, oh, I can't believe like this team member disagreed with you in front of the whole team. Like, how can they question you? You're the CEO. And I was like, no, no, that's exactly why I hired them. And they were like, in my previous company, you could never do that. Right.
06:27
And I was like, wow, okay. And you're like, and that's why you're here. And that's why we're glad to have you here. But that's the thing is that, you know, again, every organization has a different culture and maybe for some companies, they still believe that command and control works for them or, you know, the mandated return to office or whatever those things may be. What you're creating is looking at the research and say, Hey, I think there's a better way. And I am the CEO, but I don't always have the right answer. And so if I can encourage people to say respectfully, hey, have we thought about it this way or I have a slightly different point of view, then all of a sudden you're getting even better ideas that are coming in because I would guarantee your goal is to grow the business, deliver results, grow viewership. It's not to always be right. And so if those things are mutually exclusive, which they are, I would rather have higher revenue, higher customer satisfaction, higher innovation than a bunch of sycophants that tell me I'm always right.
07:19
Yeah. It's interesting though, because you hear a lot of founders and leaders who say they want that, but they don't create the environment that makes that possible. Well, and that's one of the things that I talked about in the session that I had earlier today. So a book that I wrote called The Performance Culture gets at these four elements. Awareness, so how do you kind of understand the problem you're trying to solve? Behavior, so specifically what is it you're trying to do? So when you tell people, when you disagree, I want you to articulate it in some of these ways. People are now like, okay, this feels uncomfortable, but he gave me the latitude. I know what I'm supposed to do. Not just, hey, be controversial. And people are like... What does that mean? What does that look like? Am I going to get fired? Am I being controversial in the right ways? Community. So just as you're doing, you're building that across your entire organization and then the systems. And so if you tell people, I want you to disagree with me, but then you only promote the people that agree with you.
08:09
Everyone's going to see that there's some hypocrisy built into exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. And so that's where it needs to come through. So if you truly believe those things, say it. And if you don't truly believe those things, you can still run successful businesses, probably not over the long term, but you can pay people more. You can anticipate that turnover is going to be higher. You can do the things that say, listen, this is the type of environment I want to be in. I'm not optimizing for the ideal workforce. I'm optimizing for my comfort. Just be honest about that. You're the CEO. You could say, I actually don't want people to disagree with me about this, this, and this. So when it comes to marketing, my decisions go, I don't want you to tell me you don't like the colors or any of that. This part is off limits. People may not like that and they may leave or they'll say, okay, great. I know the rules of the road and therefore these are the places that I can show up and these are the places I shouldn't.
08:59
Yeah. But it's so much more worse when you're saying one thing, but living something different. Absolutely. It's that dissonance, right? That's where you lose all the trust. 100%.
09:09
And you lose that in not just the place that you were talking about, but in all these other places as well. Because nothing you say can be taken seriously anymore because people have seen you say one thing and do another. And then they won't even speak up. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, listen, sometimes leaders feel like, you know, hearing a lot of stuff from people is overwhelming and it's challenging and it is right. Not hearing it. It's just silence is the worst sound in any organization. Yeah. Oh, I like that. Yeah. I like that. Um, one of the things that we were talking about actually over the last couple of days, which we have here to talk about is how can leaders lower the temperature on difficult conversations without avoiding the tension, which often comes with that. Cause we kind of like tiptoe.
09:53
Around it. Definitely don't tiptoe around it. No, you know, and it's interesting because there's different types of conflict. And so there's a professor in UNC Chapel Hill, Kenan Flagler, Allison Schlobaum, that talks about courageous conversations and kind of anything that kind of raises your blood pressure, right? Any of the difficult things you may need to talk about it. anything that's high stakes, there's going to be some degree of courage that goes into that discussion. Avoiding it doesn't benefit you. Part of what we need to do is separate out interpersonal conflict because that's not the type of stuff we should be, you know, kind of leaning into in the workplace. And so it's not... I think your ideas are dumb. I think you don't know what you're talking about. That you've got to root out right from the start, because that's about having a respectful workplace. But the disagreements around how we're going to do things, what part of the business we should be going after, those are the ones you want to encourage.
10:39
Now, again, there's this middle space of like, well, do we talk about politics? Do we talk about religion? Do we talk about gender identities and all of those pieces? And part of it is understanding what's realistic in your organization. In a smaller organization where everybody maybe knows each other, there may be a bit more latitude for some of that in some larger organizations, but you're never going to completely kind of keep it out of bounds. Everything that happens outside of work influences us at work. And so the questions become, how do we want to talk about some of these things? So it is things like, let's be respectful and recognize that everyone has slightly different perspectives. And the way that we operate within this workplace, within this organization, is that we respect those things. That's the baseline. It has to be the baseline. And what are the things that are kind of bringing us together as a workforce? What are we trying to accomplish? And so if part of what we're trying to accomplish is that you and me talking about politics actually helps some of that, then okay, let's lean in.
11:38
But it probably doesn't. Yeah. And so the question is, am I trying to be right? Am I trying to change someone's mind? Am I trying to just be heard? If those are the cases, maybe it's not the best thing for me to bring up. So encouraging people to really take a step back and think about what are you trying to accomplish? And is this the best path to do that? I think one of the challenges is that organizations, this is off topic, what we're talking about. I love it. But like organizations are being asked to take a stance. Yeah.
12:03
And it's always back and white to take a stance, right? Like employees, they were like, no, where do you sit, right? And like, it's tough because most people, and it's been a lot of research, right? Like I think that Edelman Trust Barometer showed that like most people look at their organization. Yep. for guidance than their own government. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of wild, right? The responsibility we have. They are the most trusted institution. And even there, there's some kind of dips and back and forth in terms of trust. And talked about that in the session as well, right? Like, what does all of this mean? Because you look at the Gallup data and the Deloitte data and the Edelman data.
12:38
But in a lot of instances, what folks are saying and the way that we've interpreted this is have a point of view inside the organization. And so when we talk about the benefits that we offer to same-sex couples, or we talk about the pay equity analysis to make sure that everybody is paid fairly, we can be an incredible kind of safe space in the maelstrom of the rest of the world. But what right or what obligation do we have to speak up and tell everybody else the way they should be doing things? And so if we are investing in our employees, being fair and equitable to all of the people inside our organization and showing up in really positive ways in the world, then that creates this cascade where everybody else can either look and see and say, wow, we love what they're doing and we want to follow. But how often do we follow the people that are the loudest saying, hey, look at me, I have an opinion, follow me, do what I'm doing. And it'll be loudest, right? That's exactly it. And so if you can be internally consistent and make sure that your people know where you stand, that they feel valued, that they feel taken care of, you are creating the conditions for people to go off.
13:35
And if they want to be advocates outside of work, have fun. But now you've got the energy and the capability and the tools and the skillset to be able to do that. But it's not for the CEO to come out and say, We as a company believe this, because guess what? Whether you're 20 people or 20,000 people, you as a company don't believe anything. There are a lot of different people in that organization who are saying, I showed up to be able to do this work. But you can't shy away from it internally. So people want to know, hey, how are we going to handle these H-1B visas? That is a critical part of your business. You should have an answer for that. But if it's, hey, this reporter wants a quote on how we're going to handle H-1B visas, it's like... We got it. We're going to do our stuff internally. It's almost the difference between having a really healthy and loving relationship and kind of the social media relationships that you see. There are some that cross over into both, but there are some others that it's only for the news.
14:27
And so the posting black squares and the stuff that's not consistent. And then you get people that are like, well, we're saying this externally, but we're not living it internally. Right back to what we were talking about before. And those people will come and leave just as fast. Absolutely. They join the business, right? Yep. Like, you can, yeah. Like, does your external shop window reflect internal, right? 100%. Yeah, it's like, oh, well, we believe in this. And it's like, well, look at your leadership team. You're not demonstrating that.
14:53
We're lobbying the government for this thing. And it's like, well, look at our benefits. We're not even doing it ourselves. Why are we telling others to do it? And so I don't think it's running away from the needs of the moment. I think it's everybody lining up where they're best equipped to do that. And so we have a philanthropic arm. We invest heavily in science, technology, engineering, and math. That is our wheelhouse. That's where we have a right to play. We believe the internet should be fast, safe, and secure for everybody. We have a right to that opinion because we are a foundational bedrock of the internet.
15:26
Should we be talking about affordable housing? I may have a point of view, but it's like, shouldn't that be more for the hotels and the Airbnbs and maybe some of those companies that are in that space? Shouldn't Pepsi be talking about and Coke be talking about drinkable water around the world? Everybody has a role to play that also fits into their organizational strategy and their business strategy. Because if it doesn't fit to your business strategy, it's just a bolt on and it's so easy to bolt it off. Yeah. Before I let you run, because if people can't see behind us, but there's a huge line in form right now for Michelle Obama. They clearly don't care about me and you. Absolutely not. Maybe any other day we'd have a line. Today, it's not going to happen. Not today. Yeah, there's levels to the gate. They're not there yet. What aren't people talking about enough?
16:13
but it really should be.
16:15
I mean, I think people are talking about everything. I think the big thing is, well, yeah, it's actually putting these things into practice, you know, right? There's always, we talk about kind of the knowing, doing gap, or urgent versus important. There's all this foundational stuff that we need to continue to get really right about what is the nature of work? Can we agree on, you know, I often tell people, and maybe this will resonate, maybe it won't, don't bring your full self to work, bring your full work self to work. Right? Like part of, and there are so many, like we contain multitudes, right? We are so many different things. And I've heard people from time to time say, well, if you can't take me at my best, you don't deserve me. Or you can't take me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best. And I'm like, that's kind of toxic for a relationship, let alone a workplace. Yeah, that's not a good jumping off point.
17:04
And we don't accept that from other people around us. So like, just because I didn't, or if you didn't sleep well, I'm not okay with you berating me on the podcast because, oh, he didn't sleep well. No big deal. It's like, no, I expected you to be a professional and to be courteous and to, you know, figure it out on your own. that doesn't discount any of what people have going on. But I do think this nature of, what is the nature of work? What are we trying to accomplish? And I do think this going back and forth between companies have the power and employees have the power, that's got to stop to some degree. We just need to kind of get to some equilibrium, some homeostasis where it's like, I will show up and do great work for the company. The company will reward me and share in the profits and the benefits of the organization. That can create this virtuous cycle. But when it's like, ah, aha, we've got the power now. Do what I say or you're fired. Aha, I've got the power now. Promote me or I'm out.
17:54
It's just a lot of people that wind up getting caught in the kind of middle ground. Yeah. Listen, man, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you. It's been awesome. Before I let you go, where can people reach you, connect? Where can they grab a copy of the book? Yeah, LinkedIn is the easiest way to get me. I'm also just at Khalil at Akamai.com. So K-H-A-L-I-L at Akamai.com. And the performance culture of the book has a lot of these same concepts expanded out. It is available literally everywhere books are sold. Anywhere books are sold. Well, as always, anyone watching, the links will be below to make sure. But listen, enjoy the rest of your day. I'll see you soon. You as well. Good to see you.
Khalil Smith, VP, Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement at Akamai Technologies.