Ben Swire
Ben Swire is an award-winning designer, writer, and speaker who helps teams build trust, reconnect as humans, and work better together. He is the founder of Make Believe Works and the author of Safe Danger, a book about how creativity, psychological safety, and shared emotional risk fuel collaboration and innovation at work.
Ben’s work sits at the intersection of team building, organizational culture, creativity, and human behavior. He is known for designing experiences that help people lower their guard, engage honestly, and practice the kind of trust and curiosity that real work requires—but most workplaces struggle to create.
From IDEO to Make Believe Works
Before founding Make Believe Works, Ben was a Design Lead at IDEO, where he worked on projects spanning innovation, strategy, and human-centered design. While there, he created Make Believe Time, a bi-weekly creative playdate for the IDEO community.
These sessions brought together people from all levels of the organization to create, experiment, and play—not as entertainment, but as a way to reduce hierarchy, build trust, and strengthen connection. Participants consistently left feeling more energized, more open, and better equipped to tackle complex challenges together.
As interest in this work spread beyond IDEO, Make Believe Works was born.
CO-FOUNDER/AUTHOR
What Ben’s work focuses on
Across his workshops, keynotes, and writing, Ben explores a central question:
How do teams build trust and connection in a world that rewards caution, speed, and surface-level productivity?
His work helps teams:
Build psychological safety without forced vulnerability
Break down silos and work more effectively across roles
Use creativity and play to lower defenses and invite participation
Practice honest communication in low-stakes, human ways
Develop emotional and creative muscle memory that lasts
Rather than relying on games or gimmicks, Ben’s approach uses thoughtfully designed experiences to help teams feel safe enough to take small risks together—because that’s where trust, collaboration, and innovation actually grow.
Safe Danger
Ben’s book, Safe Danger, grew directly out of his work with teams. It introduces a simple but counterintuitive idea: comfort doesn’t create trust—shared emotional risk does.
The book explores why most workplaces are optimized for politeness and predictability, and how teams can rediscover creativity, connection, and momentum by learning to take small, supported risks together.
Safe Danger is read by leaders, facilitators, and teams looking for a more human, practical approach to building trust and collaboration at work.
Speaking and workshops
Ben regularly works with organizations through experiential workshops, culture-building sessions, and keynote talks. His sessions are known for being playful, thoughtful, and emotionally resonant—helping teams feel more connected, more courageous, and more alive in their work.
His work has been used by organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to early-stage startups, particularly during moments of growth, change, or cultural reset.
Why this work matters now
At a time when teams are overwhelmed, disconnected, and increasingly risk-averse, Ben’s work offers a different path—one that treats trust, creativity, and connection not as soft skills, but as essential infrastructure for meaningful work.