In yesterday’s article, we outlined the very clear and basic fact that Psychological Safety can never be a “once and done” topic. No people-topic ever is, but in PS’s case, it is even more fragile and more likely to be lost as soon as one gets their eye off the ball.
The latest example of this – is Googles’ SRE Borg team and how it made news when it found itself in a bind when they were shown to have slowly moved very far away from the ideals of the company and had had employees being mistreated and even potentially borderline-abused by their manager.
In today’s video, contrary to our usual Tuesdays’ habit, we do not have a lot in the way of exact practical advice beyond “do not delay the human work and don’t be hoping it will ever be a tick-box exercise” but we do outline the importance of giving this episode the attention it needs.
It would be tremendously easy to jump on the accusatory band waggon and simply point fingers but would that truly be helpful to anyone? Instead, we propose a different stance:
It is BECAUSE they had enough Psychological Safety in that team at some point and BECAUSE they had done copious amounts of the people-work that they got this far. How far?
Let’s see – they clearly had:
- EQ – Note the way they all frame the problem when they are being asked in interviews, notice the words and notions they use and how much sensitivity to the team dynamic they demonstrate;
- Extreme sensitivity to loss of Psychological Safety – they knew unequivocally and early that they are slipping on this, the number one topic that they knew keeps their work as a team performant;
- The courage to speak up about it – not only were there multiple instances of internal reports but even now, almost all players who have raised the alarm bells are happy to show their name and face, no one is afraid of repercussions, this may not seem like much but if you consider how likely this is that it would have happened the same way in other enterprises then it becomes a clear difference;
- (Some) trust in the organisation to fix it – this one is debatable when there were resignations and some trust erosion is impossible to avoid when presented with toxic cultures irrespective of how temporary of a situation that would be, but they would have believed change and a return to a baseline of Psychological Safety was possible and that is certainly the vibe now in light of the swift response;
- Less HumanDebt than most places – the fact that something like this was so close to the surface and became public knowledge is a clear example of how far ahead of the herd they are when it comes to minimising their HumanDebt;
- Enough engagement/passion/belonging to intensely care!
The latter needs no explanation. If research is to be believed, the vast majority of the people reading this are living through something equivalent. Typically command and control connected or simply a toxic culture that insidiously takes hold of teams with bad managers, whatever your personal circumstances, chances are you are either currently in a very similar situation, or that you have lived through one or more of these instances during your career. That’s probably where the similarities stop though because you probably have left that position or that enterprise quietly, as many of us have, determined to save yourself but not particularly invested in saving the shop too or not in the way that the Borg team seems to be or you would have been equally vocal and invested.
So take their tale as cautionary enough to keep you honest about the constant human work that sees Psychological Safety thrive but also take it as inspiration because once you set aside the temptation to use it as an excuse for our people-work-resistance, you’ll find there’s much to look up to.
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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are: Understand, Measure and Improve
At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams. If you care about it- talk to us about a demo at contact@peoplenottech.com
To order the “People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age” book go to this Amazon link