Yesterday we started speaking to you about the hidden cost of inaction when it comes to HumanDebt and Psychological Safety. As you know, these articles and videos on Tuesdays are designed to be the actionable, practical advice companion to any of the big themes we tend to bring up in the Mondays articles but every once in a while, as is the case today, genuine “do this” practical advice is harder to give.
These are typically the times when we are asking you the reader -or viewer- to understand what can only be described as an organisational ailment and find some type of heroic way to do something about it.
It’s no small ask and we’re well aware so there’s little we can personally do from the sidelines but appeal to your sense of what’s right and your deep-seated knowledge that the human work is good, sorely needed and utterly necessary and then hope to offer some small way in which our work – be it our articles, videos, keynotes, books or the software itself- can aid in this huge piece of internal lifting we recognise you have to do when you decide to help save the organisation.
We’re well aware that for many of you, this monumental task is solely a labour of love and you owe the enterprise nothing. No matter how high up the hierarchy you find yourself, you too are, after all, a victim of the same transgressions the enterprise amassed under the HumanDebt™ umbrella so it’s even more admirable that you’re trying to help, at times even seemingly going against the enterprise itself to do so.
What the video says, is that while we at PeopleNotTech have put together a HumanDebt™ Audit where we’re able to slice through the debt and understand the risk and cost that it brings about thusly underlining the need for deep change and sustained human work, there’s a version of this audit you can do yourself.
It doesn’t even need to be exact, or comprehensive, but you have the best seat at the table to see when instances have occurred that added to the HumanDebt and if you recall some of them and use them in dialogue with other Superheroes-in-training, then you’d be well on your way to showing the need for a real audit.
It is stupendously irresponsible to ignore the people risk. We quantify and measure every other risk out there but not our biggest one. Pure insanity if you stop to consider it.
While succession plans and performance-based risks have fallen out of favour over the last few years, the fact that most enterprises have started down the path of major transformation efforts in absentia of either quantifying or mitigating the risk and the work that the human element adds to it is absolutely shocking.
Those companies that were already people-centric enough and had lower levels of debt (and implicitly higher levels of solid wellbeing and psychological safety in teams) could potentially fare better with these transformations on the back of their existent work but the rest of everyone else will see more failure than success.
As mentioned above, we have already helped some companies with this work, we can help yours too so once you feel you’ve gone as far as you can personally come and speak to us and bring us in to continue fighting the battle.
The fact that you are even reading this and trying is huge so hopefully, you know what deeply important and impactful work you do.
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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