Highlights
Portfolio
Seeking a field-placement host · remote or Bay Area · 2026–27I help organizations keep good people, repair trust on strained teams, and make work more humane. The way in: finding the answers to the questions teams have been afraid to ask.
Organizational development, people analytics, and occupational health. PsyD candidate at Claremont Graduate University, with 14 years of clinical and health-promotion experience — plus a design lens: experience mapping, convening stakeholders, and shaping a shared vision.
San Francisco Bay Area · bryan@bryanlian.com
Host my field placement
I'm looking for an organization that wants to improve worker experience and build healthier conditions — healthcare, mission-driven tech, higher education, anywhere that takes it seriously. I'd take on a supervised, project-based organizational-development engagement of about 320 hours, remote or in the Bay Area, toward my doctorate. You get doctoral-level support on a real people problem. I get the field experience that completes my training. A true both/and. References available upon request.
Featured · People Analytics
Does psychological safety buffer a heavy workload?
An exploratory analysis of a four-wave engagement survey. N = 715. Public dataset.
Higher workload predicted lower intention to stay. Psychological safety appeared to soften this, but the difference was not statistically significant.
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The question
A heavy workload can wear people down and make them think about leaving. I tested whether psychological safety — the felt permission to speak up without punishment — softens that link. The outcome I could measure was turnover intention: whether people planned to still be there in six months.
What I did
I pooled four waves of a public engagement survey (N = 715), built the measures, and ran a hierarchical moderated regression: workload, psychological safety, and their interaction predicting intention to stay, with supervisor support as a covariate. I added correlations and a logistic model for who was more likely to intend to leave.
What I found
- Workload mattered. Higher workload predicted lower intention to stay — the clearest, statistically supported result.
- Resources related positively. Psychological safety, career development, voice, and pay equity all tracked with a stronger intention to stay.
- The buffer did not hold. The interaction pointed in the predicted direction but was small and not statistically significant. I report it as suggestive, not proven.
What it shows
The full people-analytics workflow on real data: cleaning, moderated and logistic regression, and honest interpretation. Knowing when not to overclaim is part of the craft.
My role
I led the data cleaning and all quantitative analysis. I co-developed the hypotheses and contributed to the literature review and final write-up, on a four-person team.
Exploratory graduate analysis, CGU PsyD. Public dataset. Self-report, single-item workload measure; turnover intention, not actual turnover; associational, not causal.
Doctoral Portfolio · Selected Work
The Missing Ingredient: How Organizations Flourish
My doctoral portfolio is a set of projects on what helps people and teams thrive at work — and what gets in the way. Each starts with a real organizational problem and ends with something a leader can use: a diagnosis, an instrument, an intervention, or a decision. The work runs along four threads — Chemistry (how teams work together), Conversations (how people make sense of change), Connection (who belongs, and who bears the cost when they don't), and Courage (naming hard things and acting on them).
Belonging by Design: Onboarding & Resource Connection
A large healthcare employer, mid-change, wanted new employees to adjust and belong. I helped design a manager-facing toolkit that works at three levels at once: the new employee, their manager, and the conditions around them.
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De-identified: a large U.S. nonprofit health insurer (public-programs division). Client name, sponsor, and figures withheld under confidentiality. Details available on request with permission.
The context
The client's onboarding and engagement systems were already well designed; the gap was in execution, mostly at the manager level. Working from Appreciative Inquiry, a strengths-based approach, we built on what was already working rather than replacing it.
What I did
With a team of four, I helped run a needs assessment (six key-informant interviews) and design a leader-facing toolkit around two connected modules: a structured 90-day onboarding sequence of three manager-led check-ins that build role clarity, confidence, belonging, and voice; and a resource-connection protocol that turns employee resource groups from a passive link into an active introduction.
What it unlocked
A practical, strengths-based way to help new employees belong and recommit during change — built on a strength the organization already had: people trust their managers.
Observing the Team “Black Box”
Teams are easy to measure on the way in and the way out. What happens between people stays hidden — and the usual fix, a self-report survey, is biased. I built a way to see it.
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The black box
Team effectiveness gets measured at the edges — inputs like skills and composition, outputs like performance. The live relational process in between is mostly a black box. When we do measure it, we ask members to self-report: the same people rating both the process and the result on one survey. That invites common method bias.
What I built
A process-consultation observation scale: a behaviorally anchored instrument a trained observer uses to score team process from the outside, sidestepping common method bias. It draws on Schein's process consultation, Lambrechts' relational practice quality, and Weick & Roberts' heedful interrelating, across four observable dimensions: reciprocal interaction, mutual questioning, humble inquiry and status negotiation, and suspension of judgment.
Why a leader cares
I stress-tested it with two independent raters and mapped where it would fail, with a revision plan and inter-rater reliability targets. It turns team dynamics into something you can measure and coach, not just sense.
In the Lab
Work in motion — designs and drafts moving toward completion. Status tags become outcomes as each one lands.
From Toxic to Brave: Conversation Cards
Toxic team patterns are easy to feel and hard to name. A 60-card deck lets a team name them in the moment — and practice braver ones. Try the mechanic:
Tap a card. The card becomes the messenger, not the person.
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The idea
Double-sided cards show a toxic behavior on one side and a braver alternative on the reverse. Teams start toxic-side-up and claim braver behaviors by vote.
Why it works
When a pattern shows up, anyone can flip a card. The card becomes the messenger, not a person pointing a finger. That makes feedback safe, builds shared ownership of culture, and grows the habit of naming and correcting in the moment.
Why a leader cares
Psychological safety and high-quality connections are what let teams take risks and tell the truth. This turns those ideas into a practice a team can run on its own. In partnership with Dr. Gloria González-Morales.
Lab Culture Assessment & Brave Intervention
Some research labs run on a win-at-all-costs culture that quietly drives talent away. I measure it, work to shift it, and check whether it moved.
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The problem
Research labs concentrate power in the principal investigator and run hot on competition — fertile ground for what Berdahl calls masculinity-contest culture, linked to lower citizenship behavior and worse well-being. A psychosocial hazard, not a personality clash.
The design
Pair a culture assessment with a brave-relational intervention for labs scoring high on toxic power, then evaluate the change — assessment, intervention, evaluation, with an explicit equity lens on who carries the cost.
Why a leader cares
A full cycle of organizational work in one package: diagnose a system, intervene, verify the result. The same method ports to any high-pressure team.
Off-Sites & Retreats That Work: Evidence Review
Companies spend heavily on offsites and team-building on faith. I am writing the evidence review on what actually works.
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The question
Organizations invest a lot in offsites and team-development interventions, often without knowing whether they work. When do they pay off, and how should they be designed — especially for hybrid and distributed teams?
What I am doing
Synthesizing the evidence on utility, return, and design into a practitioner review a people leader could use — drawing on Kneeland's (2024) study of how offsites reshape organizational networks and Shuffler & Salas on team effectiveness. Aimed at a peer-reviewed consulting-psychology journal.
Why a leader cares
It turns a budget line that usually runs on gut feel into a decision you can defend.
Beyond the Doctoral Portfolio
Teaching & Learning Design
I design learning experiences, not just deliver them — turning complex ideas into sessions people remember, then teaching them.
- Teaching assistant for a graduate Job Design & Job Analysis course
- Designed and facilitated credit-bearing coursework at Stanford, including “Mindfulness & Food” and “Peer Coaching,” plus well-being workshops on goal setting, guilt tripping, and meal planning
- Trained in evidence-based teaching through Stanford's Center for Teaching and Learning
For an L&D or OD team, that means someone who can design the program and stand in front of the room.
CV available upon request.
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