About Dr. Erika Salina &Â WorkingSmarts
Dr. Erika Salina founded WorkingSmarts in 2012 after decades building expertise as an organization development consultant and educator. She launched WorkingSmarts to help organizational leaders build high-performing and healthy workplaces where curiosity and creativity are supported, where positive mindset is modeled, and where learning is continuous (“brain-friendly workplaces”). She shows clients how to apply smart research-based organizational and management practices to achieve “radical productivity” and greater ease at work and in their personal lives.
Erika is a sought-after speaker and consultant in the area of corporate culture, productivity, and organizational excellence. Using expertise developed over 25 years as a practitioner, her warm, engaging connections with audiences and clients bring her back time after time.
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We are a SBA Minnesota Award Winner!
And we couldn't be prouder!
For more than 60 years, the SBA has celebrated National Small Business Week (NSBW) acknowledging the critical contributions of America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners. NSBW 2026 features events across the country – and in Minnesota - amplifying small business success and connecting entrepreneurs with resources, training, and opportunities to start, grow, and succeed in achieving their American dream of small business ownership. To learn find an event near you, and learn more about how the SBA can help you achieve your small business dreams, go to Minnesota | U.S. Small Business Administration.
The Brain-Friendly Workplace
Big Ideas From Neuroscience That Address Organizational Challenges
Written by Dr. Erika Salina
Podcast FeaturesÂ
"Brain-Friendly Workplace" Interview for the High Performance Mindset podcast with Cindra Kamphoff
"Practicing Mindful Leadership" Interview for Association for Talent Development podcast
Interview and Publication Features
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New Book Applies Lessons from Neuroscience to Improve the Workplace
Interview with Dr. Erika Salina
Featured on YouTubeÂ
Dr. Erika Salina: Radical Productivity, More Ease!
Your Difficult Person Isn't the Problem
Does this sound hard to believe? Managers and leaders often connect problematic staff behavior with the person they think is the source. This can be premature and can be a mistake. Instead of reacting to the unwanted behavior by correcting the individual, it's important first, to assess what systems or procedures in the work group may be missing or unclear. The difficult person you think is the problem, may not actually be.
Individual problem employees are typically a signal that there is a misunderstood, unclear, or absent process or expectation held in the group. This is the place for a manager or leader to direct attention first. Then, address communicating the process, procedures, expectations. Lastly, address individual behavior as needed.
ViewHow to Improve Staff Accountability - Part 1
In this first part of a 3-part series on building accountability at work, Dr. Erika Salina shares a more useful way to look at accountability. Trying to push on accountability at work is largely futile, because it's not actionable. Accountability has components . . . ingredients. In this video, Erika shares the first two components -- responsibility and transparency. She also offers suggestions for what to do in order to improve each for your team or with your colleagues.
ViewHow to Get Over Workplace Bullying
Dr. Erika Salina (was Garms) of WorkingSmarts, Inc. shares three ways to get over workplace bullying -- understand your goal is not to "get over it" but rather to "get through it" to a more self-assured, focused, calm, and productive version of yourself. This is possible! The second way is to pick a scope that you want to put your energy into, and thirdly, take first action steps toward recovery at the scope level you chose.
Dr. Salina discusses how the RESTORE program uses a path with sequenced steps toward recovery after enduring a "work hurt", some sort of emotional injury at work.
ViewDon't Focus on Resistance to Change
Instead of focusing on and talking about resistance to change at work, Dr. Erika Salina suggests focusing on living gracefully with transition as the "new normal" in our organizations. Our language reflects our mindset. When we (especially managers and leaders) use language that imply that a change initiative is separate from us, that it stands in confrontation with our organization or current systems, we signal to staff that the change is unwelcome, and an intrusion.
Using language that reflects the belief that we will always live and work in a state of transition, and this is expected and welcomed, greatly influences others' reactions to change. This is one of the roots of how our organizational cultures address change.
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