Momentum One Zero is a deep tech innovation centre at Queen's University Belfast, business-led and built under the Belfast Region City Deal to create commercial value at the convergence of AI, cyber security, and wireless technologies.
Natural Resilience works with founders, senior leaders and executive teams to build sustainable high performance — focusing on the systems, behaviours and environments that allow people to perform under pressure without burning out, drawing on experience across elite sport, policing and leadership development.
What happens when a deep tech innovation centre starts asking questions that have nothing to do with technology?
Stephen McCabe and Ciaran May don't come from the same world — one builds innovation ecosystems, the other works with leaders who risk being consumed by them. But what they found themselves talking about touches something most people in tech recognise and few say out loud.
Stephen: I’m really interested in the relationship between high performing teams and psychological safety – what has your experience taught you about how those concepts fit together?
Ciaran: High performance without psychological safety will get you results, but not for long. Psychological safety is the cornerstone of a high performing team — it allows people to feel seen, heard, valued and understood, and provides a pathway to contribute to something bigger than themselves.
What I see in tech teams especially is that you can drive output through pressure, urgency and fear and in the short term it can look impressive. But underneath that, there’s usually friction building. People stop speaking up. They hide mistakes. They optimise for looking competent rather than critical thinking.
Psychological safety is what allows a team to stay in performance over time. It creates an environment where people can challenge, admit uncertainty, and solve problems properly rather than defensively.
The key distinction I always make is that psychological safety is not about being comfortable. It’s about being able to contribute fully without fear of being diminished.
The highest performing teams I've worked with hold both high standards and high safety. One without the other leads to burnout or mediocrity.
Stephen: Reflecting on my own career journey, I think I spent a lot of early years being driven by fear (often ‘imposter syndrome’, anxiety that I would somehow be ‘found out’ by my much smarter colleagues) - in other words, a real deficit in psychological safety. Ironically, that produced good results in the short to medium term – I ran very hard to produce good outcomes. But it wasn’t sustainable, and I’ve experienced long periods of anxiety and clinical depression in the past as a result. That’s why I’m so passionate about this kind of conversation.
In industries where identity is tightly coupled to performance, how do you separate self-worth from output?
Ciaran: This is one of the biggest challenges in high-performance environments, particularly in tech where output is so visible and measurable. The risk is that people start to equate “what I produce” with “who I am.”
When that happens, every success inflates you, and every setback destabilises you. If your entire identity sits inside your role, your nervous system is constantly under threat.
Understanding that your work role is only part of you — not all of you — creates stability. It allows you to review your work objectively, take feedback without it becoming personal, and maintain consistency under pressure.
Stephen: I’m interested too in the idea that we often intertwine our identities with our careers – that's a natural thing to do when we derive self-worth from output. Do you think there are any pitfalls in that? How important is extending our identity ‘beyond the workplace’?
Ciaran: There's a real danger in becoming one-dimensional. When identity is overly tied to career, two things happen. First, people become fragile — a failed project, a bad quarter, a difference of opinion hits harder than it should. Second, decision-making narrows. People protect status instead of pursuing progress.
The leaders who sustain performance tend to have multiple anchors — family, health, interests, community — not as a distraction from work, but as a foundation for it. It allows better decisions, because your entire sense of self isn't tied to the outcome of a single meeting or product release.
Stephen: Are there frameworks or mental models that help people maintain clarity under sustained pressure?
Ciaran: Under pressure, people don’t rise to the occasion they fall to their systems. So the question becomes: what are your systems?
A simple model I use with leaders is:
Awareness → Regulation → Response
First, awareness. Can you recognise what’s happening internally? Stress, frustration, defensiveness etc
Second, regulation. Can you create enough space to avoid reacting impulsively? That might be as simple as a pause, a breath, or stepping out of a situation.
Third, response. Can you choose a behaviour that aligns with the outcome you actually want, not just what you feel in the moment?
Most breakdowns in leadership happen in that middle step, lack of regulation. So we build simple, repeatable practices that allow leaders to stay composed when it matters most.
Stephen: If you had to prioritise 2–3 interventions for someone overwhelmed in a tech role, what would they be?
Ciaran: The mistake most people make when they’re overwhelmed is trying to do more, better. What’s usually needed is less, but clearer.
First, I’d look at load. What actually matters this week? Not everything is equal, but we often treat it that way.
Second, physiology. Sleep, movement, nutrition and social connection, these aren’t lifestyle extras, they are performance drivers. If your physiology is off, everything feels harder than it should.
Third, conversation. Most pressure builds in silence. Whether that’s a colleague, a mentor or a professional, speaking things out loud often reduces complexity immediately.
None of these are revolutionary, but consistently applied, they are transformative.
Stephen: I’ve had multiple cycles of therapy, as many people have. For me, talking things through with an objective and professional person can be a bit of a game changer – it's something that should be seen as normal, as part of a weekly routine! A good therapist will also help with strategies for resilience – what do I actually need to do when i find myself in a difficult conversation, in a situation where there is conflict? Fight, flight, dissociate? Or is there another way?
You’ve work with lots of tech leaders, and seen how they operate. What does a “sustainable career” in a high-pressure industry look like to you? How do you develop resilience for a career – rather than a quick fix?
Ciaran: A sustainable career isn’t built on intensity alone. It’s built on rhythm. What I see in a lot of high-performing tech professionals is cycles of overdrive followed by depletion. That might work for a product sprint, but it’s not a career strategy.
Sustainability comes from designing how you work. That includes clear boundaries around recovery and deliberate reflection, not just constant execution. An understanding of your own operating system such as when you perform best, how you make decisions, what drains you.
Resilience, in that sense, isn’t about pushing through. It’s about building a way of operating that allows you to keep showing up, at a high level, for years.
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