The Leanpub Podcast 🎙 Feat. Denniz Dönmez, PhD, Co-Author of Micro Habits for better Teamwork
Micro Habits for Better Teamwork is a field guide for anyone who has ever sat in a meeting and thought: this could be so much better.
Episode Details
In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Denniz Dönmez, PhD, co-author of Micro Habits for Better Teamwork: Psychological Hacks with Great Impact. Denniz explains how small, intentional behavioral changes—micro habits—can dramatically improve collaboration, trust, and team performance without requiring sweeping organizational change. Drawing on psychology, organizational research, and years of practical experience, he discusses psychological safety, curiosity, compassion, transparency, effective meetings, decision-making, and the importance of creating enabling structures that help great teamwork become the natural default.
The conversation also explores how leaders can foster healthier team cultures through consistent, everyday actions rather than one-time initiatives, why habits often outperform policies, and how individuals at every level of an organization can make a meaningful difference. Whether you're a software developer, engineering manager, team lead, or anyone working with others, this episode offers practical, research-backed advice for building stronger, happier, and more productive teams.
This interview was recorded on May 19, 2026.
About the Book
Most team problems aren't technical. They're communicative. A question misread. An assumption never voiced. A conflict that could have been resolved in thirty seconds — but wasn't, because no one knew how.
Micro Habits for Better Teamwork is a field guide for anyone who has ever sat in a meeting and thought: this could be so much better. Drawing on psychology, organizational research, and years of hands-on work with teams across industries, authors Denniz Dönmez and Rafael Huber have distilled the science of great collaboration into something refreshingly practical: small, learnable language habits that compound over time into a genuinely better team culture.
Organized around seven behavioral areas with concrete examples, ready-to-use phrases, and team experiments, the book is both a guide and a toolkit — readable cover to cover, or dipped into chapter by chapter as your situation demands.
Because the biggest changes in how teams work together often begin with the smallest shifts in how they talk to each other.
About the Author
Denniz is an organizational developer who supports companies and leadership teams with his multifaceted expertise. He holds a degree in engineering (Technical University of Munich) and economics (London School of Economics). Since completing his doctorate in organizational psychology (ETH Zurich), he has helped numerous organizations establish structures that enable high performance — from start-ups to large corporations, NGOs, and theater companies. Denniz has implemented major transformation projects and established new understandings of leadership in many organizations. His experience from international projects in diverse industries confirms that interdisciplinary teams succeed when they have the right structural conditions. He has worked in Germany, the UK, Spain, Tanzania, Israel, and Japan, among other places. Since 2010 he has been living in Zurich with his wife and two children, and alongside his work in organizations, he has been a lecturer at numerous universities, including ETH, FHNW, ZHAW, the University of Zurich, and many others. He is also regularly giving keynotes, and has been invited to diverse companies from startups to Google.
More at: www.enablingstructures.com
Clips From This Episode of the Leanpub Podcast
