We lose followers and subscribers any time we go back to basics and we can’t blame the leavers. It’s tiring to hear “same old” and we eternally chase the new in particular in a “newsletter” but we simply can not cater exclusively to the Superheroes. They’ll be ok without us. We have to help hold the hands of those that most need our help – the superheroes in training.
These are people who have just started their journey in helping their teams. They have such a monumental and potentially Sysyphian task ahead, that they need all the supportive studies, statistics and articles they can find.
They come from all areas of the business – mostly technologists but the odd Superhero leader or HR person too -thankfully- but they all have one thing in common: they have “seen” the HumanDebt™ and they have enough of an emotional investment in their company (or even just in the people of their own team) that they experience a growing conviction that the answer is in doing the people work and starting with the Psychological Safety of their teams. To do so they need to make others see the same light.
Who are these “others”?
Everyone else. The reluctant; the resistant; the middle managers convinced there is no other way but command and control; the leaders who are eternally “busy”; the ones stuck in a past where none of this makes sense or matters; the completely disconnected and disengaged – they all need “proof” that the human work needs doing. They all need the clear and unequivocal tone of some of these articles which may well be superfluous and repetitive to the ones much further down the journey.
In this video, I speak about how obvious the difference between the two experiences -that of of the Superheroes and that of the Superheroes-in-training- is to us when we meet tens of each kind every month and how conscious we are each needs a different set of “I see you, use this weapon for your next battle” and how we try to cater to both through this newsletter but also the Fundamentals of Psychological Safety series.
Let’s be honest: at PeopleNotTech we make and sell software that repairs the team dynamics and makes them their best selves by teaching them how to understand emotions and take action that changes behaviour for high performance.
It’s unheard of. It doesn’t feature in any “gap analysis”. This isn’t accountancy software or an inventory tool – no one -yet- has a “Tools to lower our HumanDebt” RFP out there. That may be the case in 3-5 or even 10 years, that everyone will so acutely comprehend the need that they won’t be able to comprehend how they risked their entire enterprise wellbeing by not measuring and trying to better Psychological Safety but it isn’t the case today.
Today, the only ones with the vision or really, the common sense to get this over the line inside the organisation are either Superheroes or Superheroes in training. Does the organisation owe them a world of gratitude for fighting a fight that ought to be theirs? Of course. Will they thank them? Probably not.
What we created only becomes a painfully clear need once people start using it in earnest and wonder how they lived without it before. We’ve seen developers moved to tears, scientists in shock, engineers speechless, leaders aghast, all with how incredible of a difference it makes to use our software and do the human work when they had thought HR was right in saying they have all they need in the annual survey or the occasional email-based team check-in.
But without the Superheroes they would have never had it in their hands and what an epic battle they usually have to fight to get it to them.
The bulk of the fight is predicated on how simply considering our software will throw up huge questions, a true organisational existential crisis if you will, we’ve seen it over and over again.
The number one and really most basal question which will come up awfully quick as soon as any new organisation even starts a trial is: “What is a team?/Who all really is in our team?” as most places have rarely considered this including the silos, leadership and distribution follow-up questions. And then others such as:
“What do we call engagement?”
“Am I empowered to help with this human work? If not, who will?”
“How do we measure productivity?”
“Do we care about performance?”
“How much structure and how much clarity is there?”
“Do we believe we give our people all they need including the time and support to do the people-work?”
“Are we treating the human topics as a fluffy after-thought or as a priority?”
“Do we raise awareness and stop there?”
“Do we all collectively care enough to be analysing our HumanDebt?”
“Do we think people/teams can and should invest in self-improvement and do so continuously or are we obsessed with some antiquated centralised model where HR/L&D/some shaman “will come down to fix them”?”
And ultimately, the biggest question of all:
“Do we believe our people deserve better and when they get this “better” they’ll make us sustainable and performant? Can we truly put our people first?”
So we won’t always get it right in what we say and how we say it, or even when we do, but we’ll simply never quit trying and if you expect us to or hope we’ll stop wanting to be in your team with our sleeves rolled fighting side-by-side and passing you the weapons you may need, then no longer reading us/me is the right choice to avoid disappointment.
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This Thursday on the Fundamentals of Psychological Safety Series: “The People Work – what does it take?” so make sure to subscribe so you have it in your inbox.
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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