"We Have Loads of Psychological Safety. We Just Know It."

Back in the day (aka a couple of years back when I first started on the journey of exclusively figuring out how to lower HumanDebt and enable humanity in tech), I spent quite a lot of time being up in arms about “the people people” and how they shouldn't have let all this debt accumulate in the workplace.

My vehemence then was intransigent and I can’t blame the HR professionals that have decided not to listen because I was militantly and aggressively assigning truckloads of blame and let's face it, that's never productive. I used to have zero compassion for what they went through and could only think of the suffering of their employees surrounded by HumanDebt every day so I was vocal about blame assignment and thought we need radical honesty first and foremost. Unsurprisingly, this hasn’t endeared me to the community and while I’m ok with that, I have to model admitting when I am wrong myself and pointing the finger at the people professionals was harsh and devoid of basic empathy. The truth is they have it immensely hard too. And in time, I’ve changed my tune.

I met hundreds of good people-people in the past few years with PeopleNotTech, some officially in those positions and some de facto influencers, leaders, mentors, and thinking, caring humans. They’re not ill-intentioned they’re not unskilled or unknowing. They’re not ignorant, they’re not even care-less. What they are often times though, is misguided. That is undeniable and some would argue, inexcusable. They lean on a misconception that helps them get through the day.

And in that “okay”, that they are psychologically safe.

• And in that “okay”, that they are psychologically safe.
• “We know how important Psychological Safety is, and we have loads of it in our teams.”
• “Annual surveys, employee engagement studies, NPS and suggestion boxes/intranet folders.”
• “How would you know if they didn’t? And how would you know if they weren’t Psychologically Safe after all? Where would you see that?”

“We know how important Psychological Safety is, and we have loads of it in our teams.”