Psychological safety in a hybrid world

The mix of some people here, some people there, some people anywhere, is creating this hybrid world of work. 

And it requires some subtle responses. 

Psychological safety is still psychological safety. No matter where people are working from. 

Amy Edmondson’s work is extended here in collaboration with Mark Mortensen in this Harvard Business Review article that’s a must read for leaders and managers. 

Navigating the hybrid world of work requires a step by step process. 

Are you additive or subtractive

When there’s a problem to be solved, do you find yourself adding things to get to a solution ... or removing them? 

It turns out we are all more ‘additive’ than ‘subtractive’. 

And it’s impacting the quantities and kinds of ideas and solutions we can come up with. 

Researchers still don’t know why we’d rather keep adding things, features, stuff, to try and solve a problem ... rather than stripping them out, but knowing we do it is a good step to being able to compensate for this bias. 

‘The first question we ask ourselves is ‘what can I add?’ And ‘what can I subtract?’ is not [part of our first reaction]. Subtracting something isn’t a harder thing to think of “but you have to think harder to get to it”.

We’re missing the potential of a raft of ideas when we solve problems simply by throwing ‘more’ up as a solution. 


Read about it in this article by Katie MacBride in Inverse.  

It’s curious to wonder about how we think. If we can consciously subtract, remove, reduce or take things away to problem solve... we’ll be better thinkers and more productive problem solvers.

Close by and included. Far away and left out.

Would you know it if you were doing it : excluding or forgetting someone because they’re not right here? 

You’d more likely notice it if you were on the receiving end of being excluded, left out or forgotten. 

As hybrid work has some of us here, some of us there and some of us anywhere, the danger of the unconscious ‘proximity bias’ is also here, there and anywhere!

The challenge of remote leadership may be deferred to focus on the ease of leading those who are here, near us. 

This article in Digiday highlights some of the things to consider about proximity bias. 

And as with all unconscious biases, we may not even realize it’s happening or that we’re doing it. 

Seek to include. Deliberately. No matter where people are. 

The complex culture of the meeting

They’re groaned at, suffered through and widely reported to be up to as much as 50% a waste of our time. 

Meetings. 

Every meeting you’re in is a complex construction and reflection of the culture in which it exists. 

Online or not, there are elements and behaviours in meetings that 
- include and exclude people
- accelerate and slow the pace of progress
- make the workplace more or less safe
- generate and ideate ... or stagnate and eliminate. 

This article from the World Economic Forum asks us a series of questions about what we do and how we lead in meetings. 

Do we any just accept the toll that poorly led meetings inflict on people and culture? Even when better is possible?

For your own meeting effectiveness and for those you meet with, check through the questions here and take a cultural look at what’s going on when we meet. 

Would you work in a tent

Leave a door open and someone may scold us with, ‘Were you born in a tent? Close the door!’

Tents and forts made from blankets and furniture are a playful memory from many childhoods. 

And while there are pro and anti camping camps out there (you know, ‘I don’t do camping/We only do glamping’) there’s an interesting use of tents that’s popping up. 

Providing shelter, protection, coziness and keeping people safely distant at work ... how about this: would you work in a tent? 

This article shares some of the thinking and benefits to segregated spaces in covid safe workplaces. 

As a long time camper, I am here for the tent!

And don’t get me started on caravans ... particularly the retro allure of an Airstream. I reckon that’s got productivity and creativity written all over it!

Would you? Work in a tent?