[HN Gopher] On the bare necessity of psychological safety
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On the bare necessity of psychological safety
Author : timonbimon
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-04-19 09:33 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| gobengo wrote:
| Everyone on Hacker News should read these "American Psychology
| Association Guidelines for Practice w/ Boys and Men"
| https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guideline...
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why should everyone read this? What did you get out of it?
| motohagiography wrote:
| This topic could be controversial, but maybe we can hack out some
| tools for it.
|
| Previously, this would just have been part of team alignment. In
| a business culture that eshews black-and- white thinking, the
| zero-sum state of "safety," should be replaced with something
| more dynamic, like risk, because then it is something manageable
| you can reasonably engage with. Accepting the principle of
| psychological safety implies that it's not just a (unfalsifiable)
| fire alarm lever to pull. If anyone told me they felt "unsafe,"
| it would be difficult not to make every effort to avoid them, and
| I think any lawyer would say the same. US law has this concept of
| "fighting words," which this concept is not directly, but
| appealing to safety is absolutely a legal and political threat,
| and it is not normal professional discourse. Since I am not a
| psychologist, I am not equipped to deal with psychological
| safety, and this is an HR issue.
|
| Imo, we should really look at reframing "psychological safety,"
| as something more manageable like, "burnout risk," "initiative
| risk," "working trust," or something else less formal.
| watwut wrote:
| Personally, I find the tendency to describe everything in terms
| of risk and risk taking increasingly annoying.
|
| If you are avoiding someone, you feel unsafe. That is what it
| is, no reason to avoid that word.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| This comment highlights both the need for what the article is
| advocating for AND why the waters here will always be
| treacherous; there will always be a push and pull.
|
| To be effective, a team needs to be able to communicate freely,
| and each individual needs to be able to speak freely. But
| there's a lot of power dynamics at play, not just in the team,
| but external to the team.
|
| This is also why minorities are especially cursed in work
| environments: it's not just that some folks might _actually_
| have prejudices against you based on your identity, it's also
| that some folks _might_ have prejudices against you based on
| your identity, and so you watch what you say and /or try not to
| be too assertive or contentious and/or wonder if some poorly
| worded comment was intended as a slur or not...and the smart
| manager is also cursed, because they may feel that they too
| need to be careful not to be too assertive or contentious, lest
| they draw attention from HR or a lawsuit.
|
| Successful teams require mutual respect and brave
| communication. "Psychological safety" is a term that feels
| correct to me in the abstract, but very wrong as an applied
| concept for the workplace.
|
| I think "cultivating mutual respect and open communication" is
| probably a better framing.
| Bjartr wrote:
| If someone extended their trust to you to tell you that they
| felt unsafe, your immediate reaction is to betray that trust
| and run away? They ask you for help and you punish them for it?
|
| > Since I am not a psychologist, I am not equipped to deal with
| psychological safety, and this is an HR issue.
|
| And yet, the way you choose to communicate and interact with
| others contributes to how safe they feel. You aren't formally
| educated in psychology, but it's still your informal
| responsibility as a member of society, to generally not cause
| psychological harm to those around you. Including when at work.
| If you don't take that responsibility, then you become the HR
| issue.
|
| > zero-sum state of "safety," should be replaced with something
| more dynamic, like risk
|
| How is risk any less zero-sum than safety? If you're going to
| claim the only states are safe/not-safe, why doesn't risky/not-
| risky work the same way?
|
| > we should really look at reframing "psychological safety," as
| something more manageable
|
| I think you're putting the phrase on too high a pedestal. To
| paraphrase the article, psychological safety is feeling that
| asking for help or admitting failure will not be punished.
| That's it.
|
| > burnout risk," "initiative risk," "working trust," something
| else less formal.
|
| Those all seem more formal to me, though I think "working
| trust" is at least in the same ballpark.
| foxhop wrote:
| It's not an HR issue either, I wouldn't trust HR at all. They
| don't work for employees, they partner with employers.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| here is my experiment I would like to see
|
| 1. Hire someone.
|
| 2. Pay them at top of scale
|
| 3. Give them 1 years salary upfront, cannot be claimed back.
| (Effectively one year rolling tenure)
|
| 4. Repeat for all employees
|
| 5. Loudly and clearly state the problems facing the business.
|
| 6. Stand back
| fighterpilot wrote:
| What do you expect to see or hope to test for? At a previous
| employer I worked at where people weren't happy, I'm pretty
| sure half would've quit almost immediately. Admittedly I don't
| have data on that but I'd expect that outcome.
| DC1350 wrote:
| > What do you expect to see or hope to test for?
|
| I think the idea is that financially secure people are more
| willing to speak their mind. Getting salary upfront means
| everyone has small scale "fuck you" money. The problem here
| is that most people don't actually have a reason to care
| about their employer's problems, so not speaking up is often
| just a strategy of least resistance.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I think lots of people would just hop around between companies,
| getting the free year of salary. Not too often, every 2-3 years
| maybe. 3 years of salary for 2 years of work.
| ohduran wrote:
| At some point we have to reach the conclusion that most of the
| time products fail because they are of lower quality compared to
| their competitors.
|
| The only way I can see psychological safety effecting the
| eventual outcome of Google+ is someone who, being psychologically
| safe, would have said right at the beginning, "this is stupid,
| don't even try it".
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Or said "you do realize this isn't good, right?" at any point
| later on. A really smart exec could have noticed a
| preponderance of negative internal feedback (or solicited
| feedback if none was forthcoming) and fought to change course.
| That would have worked out a lot better for the company.
| ineedasername wrote:
| You seem to contradict yourself by diminishing the impact of
| psychological safety at the same time that you give an
| excellent example of how it might have helped a project.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Products that could have succeeded instead failed because of a
| lack of PsySafety on the team.
|
| Nobody's suggesting this is a panacea that'll make your
| unviable idea suddenly viable, the article is about how options
| for working that could lead to success get cut off when
| PsySafety isn't present on the team.
| [deleted]
| throwaway856358 wrote:
| Everyone should tread carefully when someone in authority is
| telling them it's okay to speak freely.
|
| I worked at a company where vulnerability and mindfulness were
| championed above all else.
|
| It went exactly the same way as Mao's [Hundred Flowers
| Campaign][1].
|
| So much so that I am convinced it's something deeply ingrained
| into human nature.
|
| Feedback was welcomed, and psychological safety was guaranteed.
|
| Initially people were rewarded for being vulnerable and opening
| up with feedback in public and anonymously. It ended up as a
| witch hunt with the CEO trying to guess whose anonymous feedback
| was whose and admonishing people's anonymous feedback in public
| meetings, and then several employees being fired after the CEO
| went around spreading rumors about the employees and building a
| consensus that things weren't going well because of these
| employees - things that everyone else could see were clearly
| false.
|
| It was incredible to watch, and when it happens it creates the
| ultimate chilling effect, and rapid loyalty to the leader on the
| witch hunt, but closes everyone off, and makes everyone parse
| their words and basically never say what they feel needs to be
| said. You don't push back or tell them they are wrong or what
| they are doing is inappropriate, because you see how vicious they
| are to dissenters. It was an amazing psychological journey to go
| on though, and I learned a lot about human nature, and a first-
| hand understanding of how some events of history probably played
| out psychologically amongst a population.
|
| People who obsess over, and push mindfulness and vulnerability
| and such are usually those that are over-thinkers and with
| psychological problems that led them there in the first place.
|
| The problem is that the people in power don't realize that they
| actually can't handle to hear a lot of the honesty they are
| asking of people.
|
| So I guess my point would be that, psychological safety _is_
| important for eliciting true feedback, but even if you are the
| one in power and offering it, you cannot trust yourself that you
| will be able to handle it.
|
| Everyone should just be more chill and easy-going instead of
| trying to drive formulaic new-age initiatives.
|
| > Awesome! Not awesome that we have this problem, but awesome
| that you brought it up. That's how we build psychological safety
| and that's how we build a successful company!
|
| This gives me chills haha. So robotic and corporate. I just wish
| people would chill!
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
| windowsworkstoo wrote:
| This is so bang on. The real mystery is why this shit
| propagates and becomes such a "necessary" thing that companies
| engage with. I suppose it's another mechanism that business use
| to get rubes to buy in and exchange labour for below market
| rates
| jokoon wrote:
| Sounds like another way of saying humility.
|
| Being humble is often about taking the initiative to express
| mistakes, errors or things you did not know or thought you knew.
| luckylion wrote:
| > "Hey. Do you have a minute? I think I have a psychological
| safety topic." I was stressed. Without a single frontend
| developer in our engineering team we were starting to slow down.
| I had finished the performance profile and sent it to my teammate
| two days ago.
|
| It's weird, there are so many of these pieces and they all sound
| the same. Is there a template that everyone uses who wants to get
| into personal brand building? "Start with a direct quote. Then
| set the context with some sentences. Now throw in a snippet from
| some study you've read. And use funny images!"
| intergalplan wrote:
| Plus a healthy dose of making up or _adjusting_ stories to fit
| whatever they 're writing about. Self-help and pop-business
| books do the same thing, a lot. It's a similar style. I think
| people who are really good at the "tell me about a time when X"
| questions in interviews do some of the same (likely leaning
| more to _adjusting_ than completely making them up, but I
| wouldn 't be surprised if I'm wrong about that and well-told,
| rehearsed fiction gets you the best results there)
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| Maybe from a developer perspective, the grail is a confident
| salary and a kind team. Shipping well fosters, but does not
| guarantee, both. From a management perspective, "pyschological
| safety" is not about self actualization but performance.
|
| Management is foremost about solving the problem you are
| accountable for. In development, that will likely mean that
| success is when the team ships something useful to the business.
|
| In an unsafe environment, members of the team are afraid to act
| and speak. The working relationship devolves to "tell me exactly
| what you want done". Teams can ship like this but managers need
| to overperform and it sucks for everyone.
|
| In a safe environment, manager and team have a shared
| understanding of what the goals are, and we work flexibly to
| acheive them. if something doesn't work, learn from it and try
| something else. Collectively, we still have to deliver. For sure,
| we can all be safe and still fail. Safety needs to improve the
| odds.
|
| The manager question is "how do we best ship?" What dynamic best
| predicts team success for a given goal? The bet is that a safe
| team will perform better at solving the typically squishy
| problems that stand between you and shipping well.
|
| My belief is that safe teams perform better by allowing more
| people to engage constructively and critically on any one problem
| (more traction), by learning efficiently (low latency), and by
| demonstrating work incrementally and frequently (more cycles).
| This is failing fast, failing better, and converging well.
|
| One additional point of "safety" is the question of "how do you
| want live?" As manager or team, what do you want work to be like?
| People flee harsh teams. How do you succeed then?
| agogdog wrote:
| Early on in my career it was nearly impossible to have
| psychological safety because I was constantly worried I'd be
| risking my physical safety if I did anything that could put my
| job at risk.
|
| I attribute a lot of this to weak social safety nets and at-will
| employment in the US. I constantly feared that I would be fired
| for some statement, personality clash, or mistake (or for no
| reason at all, which is entirely legal)... so I kept my head down
| and was lightly abused (frequent overtime without pay, tolerating
| verbal abuse, etc).
|
| I was living paycheck to paycheck and without a job I'd rapidly
| lose housing and healthcare. It took me nearly a decade to attain
| financial security while racking up psychological damage.
| zwkrt wrote:
| I just can't help but think of this movement as a kind of
| gaslighting. Your reports are either engaged because the work is
| interesting or the product is meaningful, or they are not.
| Attempts to sugar coat will fail just like how construction
| workers making a bridge to nowhere out of Popsicle sticks will
| inevitably start asking reasonable questions. Maybe my experience
| at some relatively cutthroat teams at Amazon color my opinion,
| since I have been in an environment where this kind of PS "happy-
| argumentation" was actually rewarded instead of just talked
| about.
|
| In an optimistic mindset, "psychological safety" boils down to
| feeling secure in one's job and in control of one's project. When
| people feel secure, they free up cycles to creative, sleep
| better, enjoy each other's company more, etc. when they feel in
| control they have the energy to constructively argue.
|
| But when rubber hits the road most engineers do not have one of
| either security or control. At a startup they may have some
| limited product control but there is no safety. In a large
| company they may have more security but no actual control of the
| product. Either way, to promote PS and get a more engaged team, a
| manager has to downplay the reality of the situation. This leads
| to management allowing complicated pet projects, rewrites, and
| feedback meetings that go nowhere all for the sake of appeasing
| egos. Engineers tend not to be overly people-savvy but we catch
| on eventually.
|
| I think it's no better than the "we're all a family" rhetoric.
| Just another way of trying to eke out more work for nothing in
| return. My last employer signed all employees up for an app
| called "happify" where we would get daily challenges to pop
| bubbles with stressful words on them or write praises to our
| coworkers. That strategy was so bald-faced that I had to kind of
| admire it.
|
| So why are checked-out engineers bad? They are worse than bad,
| they are counter-productive. They push shit code because who
| cares? They don't question obviously bad designs because they
| know there's no point. They quit or move on leaving the team in
| churn-hell. But these are symptoms not of psychology but of
| reality. Spinozas Ethics is a lovely look into how psychology and
| reality are just two sides of the same coin, and you can't fix
| one without fixing the other. As stated above, the solution is
| engaging work, but most work is not engaging. So let's just be
| more realistic, ok?
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I don't think "psychological safety" boils down to feeling
| secure in one's job in the way you suggest, it's more specific
| than that.
|
| Being able to be your "true" self is the observation, not "be
| happy". If your true self is a neurotic mess, "psychological
| safety" on a team would give you the space to do that without
| feeling judged or that negative consequences would arise
| (informal or formal) by acting that way.
|
| You can improve "checked-out" engineers feelings by creating a
| way for them to express their concerns without worry that
| they'll be punished for it.
|
| Those toxic teams I'm sure you've been part of, where everyone
| felt shitty and nobody felt connected to the work? They didn't
| have to be that way by leveraging "psychological safety", even
| if "reality" was immutable (also, it's not immutable but we can
| get to that).
| zwkrt wrote:
| I completely agree with you and every point. I will also
| admit that I was being intentionally pessimistic but to get a
| point across. It's funny you mention my cutthroat teams as a
| negative, because those are the teams that made me realize
| what it actually means to be committed to a goal. The teams
| that made me come to this conclusion were subsequent
| "bullshit" teams in places where will-to-power was punished
| instead of cultivated.
|
| My main point in writing the diatribe above was to deter the
| type of pleasant but dull middle manager who thinks that all
| they have to do to solve their teams' problems is
| psychologize them. I've actually noticed this as a larger
| cultural trend: people blaming their own minds or the minds
| of others for what is an actual real problem in the world. If
| I can help clear the wool from a few low-level programmers
| eyes to help them see that they aren't so different from an
| accountant or the fry cook at their favorite bar (and that
| this is not a bad thing!) I feel like my job is done.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Yeah, it bothers the hell out of me when management forgets
| that we're actually tied to providing real value. The whole
| point of all this is that you get _more_ value from the
| team when you do these things -- making people feel "safe"
| is a productivity hack, not the end goal. If people feel
| warm and fuzzy, but then don't move the project over the
| finish line, it's re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
|
| The trick is to find people like you, get you engaged and
| feeling like you can actually fix the shit that's stopping
| you from being productive, while also getting you to give
| space for people to fuck up now and then, because people
| fucking up and feeling okay with that sometimes leads to
| really great insight when instead of fucking up they do
| something great.
|
| Basically, "safety" is letting people feel not-terrible for
| taking a risk and having it blow up in their face. That
| should be allowed on a team, and Google's research seems to
| show that teams who allow people to fuck up without making
| them feel bad about it tend to make better shit than teams
| who punish people for fucking up.
|
| ...to a point. If all you do is fuck up, that also violates
| the safety, on the manager's side because then they're not
| feeling safe _letting_ people take risks.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I think you have it backwards; psychological safety is
| something that executive leadership has to build into the
| culture of the company.
|
| What it comes down to is a culture where decision making is
| transparent, questioning the status quo is encouraged and
| no one person holds the power to make / break a product. At
| the team level you're always going to have good managers
| and bad managers, but with the right culture the bad
| managers blast radius will be diminished. A good manager
| can't do a whole lot to overcome a shitty culture.
| fooey999 wrote:
| > You can improve "checked-out" engineers feelings by
| creating a way for them to express their concerns without
| worry that they'll be punished for it.
|
| This is a utopia though. Every manager has their own manager
| right up to the company board. If you have to let people go,
| then how can you say you are not going to fire the guy who is
| the most checked out? If the person cannot deliver you cannot
| guarantee they won't lose their job.
|
| It boils down to you really can't trust yourself to not be
| biased to those who are more open but more negative.
|
| Simple, you cannot guarantee "they won't be punished".
| giantg2 wrote:
| "But these are symptoms not of psychology but of reality."
|
| "But when rubber hits the road most engineers do not have one
| of either security or control."
|
| Well said
| acntr_employee wrote:
| Thanks for the clear and concise way of summarizing my thoughts
| of the last few months.
|
| I am in a situation where I actually have near absolute safety
| and nearly no control over the projects. It was even worse in
| 2020 regarding control after being thrown into a toxic project
| by a CEO who always touts the motto "no a**holes".
|
| Well when pitching for the biggest budget in the history of the
| org reality is what counts. Not nice mottos.
|
| So I agree. Everytime I hear this bs about being a
| team/family/safe place I just think: STFU and pay me. I do my
| work. Nothing more, nothing less.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Psychological safety isn't about making you _happy_ , I'm
| actually a bit surprised why so many people here think it is.
| It's about producing positive outcomes in the form of
| successful projects. You're still going to have toxic
| projects, this isn't a magic dust you sprinkle on a project
| to make it suddenly successful, it's a technique you use to
| make unbearable work bearable and give the people who don't
| feel comfortable speaking up the space to do so.
|
| The observation is if everyone feels comfortable disagreeing
| with one another, the project is more likely to succeed.
| That's it.
|
| This is a productivity tool to make marginal projects more
| likely to tip favorably, and to keep good engineers around
| even when they're on bad projects, and hopefully make some
| bad projects less bad by giving everyone room to suggest
| improvements.
| zwkrt wrote:
| People keep saying this but I don't understand the
| difference. Engineers only want to have constructive
| arguments with each other if they feel committed to the
| project and happy about their place in the organization. If
| people feel that their job is on the line or that
| argumentation will not lead to any constructive output,
| then they will not engage in such an activity. Can you
| explain the difference between being happy and engaging in
| behaviors which a happy person engages in?
|
| Maybe it would be helpful to use the term other than
| "safety"? Is there a synonym for a psychological safety
| that would get cross what you're thinking about better?
| solidasparagus wrote:
| > Maybe it would be helpful to use the term other than
| "safety"? Is there a synonym for a psychological safety
| that would get cross what you're thinking about better?
|
| Trust. Psychological safety is (real) trust between
| members of the team and the people who impact the team
| (e.g. managers or executives or whoever). It's trusting
| the people around you so you feel free to be yourself, to
| propose off-the-wall but potentially terrible ideas
| without being thought less of, to be open about flaws and
| failures, to try to stretch yourself beyond what you
| think you are capable of because you trust that the
| people around you will support you.
|
| It isn't having a secure job or even a happy one. I was
| once on a team with a shitty director and severely
| understaffed in a very unsexy, low-paying industry. I did
| not enjoy my place in the organization. But we had
| psychological safety on our team. In our scrum team the
| tech lead/manager was amazing. He protected us from
| above, he trusted us, he was honest about the situation,
| and he had a passion for building a great team and
| growing his people. When someone made a big mistake in
| prod, he taught that person how to correct the mistake as
| an opportunity for growth while the entire team supported
| them (but didn't do it for them, because we trusted that
| person). The job sucked and within 2 years the entire
| team had quit. But not a single person even thought about
| leaving until that team lead left and the culture of
| trust left with him. Psychological safety is related to
| happiness in that teams with it tend to also have happy
| employees - but it creates happiness, not the other way
| around.
|
| Psychological safety is often hard to have when the job
| is unstable (it probably feels unstable because of a lack
| of trust somewhere), but a startup is a great example of
| where you can have both trust and an unstable job.
| ska wrote:
| I've had lots of junior and entry level engineers who are
| frankly intimidated by their team. Someone will have a
| decent idea but not bring it up in a group session
| because "Jane has a PhD and 15 years more experience than
| I do, their idea is probably better so I didn't bother".
|
| You know what? Most of the time they are right. But it's
| _still_ important to have a culture where everybody feels
| comfortable presenting their own ideas and critiquing
| others - not because we 're going to discard the sr.
| staff persons architecture in favor of the interns idea
| very often, but because the process is good for the
| ideas, good for the product, and good for the team
| members (whatever level).
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I think the part you're missing is that projects don't
| just materialize as "committable" or "comfortable",
| people have to make them that way, and the more people
| who feel like they can step into that position, the
| better it is for the project, just from a pure numbers
| perspective.
|
| "Happy" is a hard term to define, and I don't think you
| need to be happy to feel "safe". Another way of
| describing "safety" is "the ability to make mistakes/ask
| for help without negative consequences". You may feel
| "unhappy" that you made a mistake, but you won't feel
| judged for it if the people around you are comfortable
| with you taking risks.
|
| You can be deeply unhappy, personally and professionally,
| and still experience that shared comfort with risk taking
| on your team, and benefit from what Google's research
| shows, I think. Perhaps you're all comfortable with the
| risks _because_ the project is going so poorly and you
| need to throw some hail marys out there to try and get
| out of the bad situation. The focus is on everyone
| agreeing that making mistakes is expected and acceptable,
| because risks also come with reward.
|
| I actually really like that example, where you're on a
| doomed project, and the natural "safety" that forms with
| the team who all knows it's a doomed project anyway, so
| why not take a few shots at something wild? The space you
| create in that environment where, "we were going to fail
| anyway might as well throw some shit at the wall to see
| what sticks" is exactly what I mean when I say "safety".
| Projects that have that attitude apparently tend to be
| more successful. Imagine having that level of comfort
| with your team and _also_ working on a successful
| project!
| watwut wrote:
| > Engineers only want to have constructive arguments with
| each other if they feel committed to the project and
| happy about their place in the organization
|
| This is not true. I don't need to be happy to want
| constructive arguments. In fact, the more unhappy I am,
| the more I need that constructive argument about what is
| bothering me - to deal with situation that makes me
| unhappy.
|
| Whether I go into it depends a lot on whether I
| think/feel it is safe for me to open argument or join it.
| If I think I will be punished for saying stuff, I don't
| say that stuff, because I am not dumb.
|
| And I can also be unsafe psychologically and subjectively
| happy. I can have interesting tasks, fun, I won't be
| expressing my opinions and there will be risk unsolvable
| situation will arise. But until then, I will be happy.
| jcims wrote:
| >I'm actually a bit surprised why so many people here think
| it is.
|
| I would hazard a guess that most of the misunderstanding
| around the term is due to its ambiguity. I think it's so
| bad it's counterproductive actually but that's subjective.
| It really feels like what they are trying to say is that
| everyone feels personal agency in their decisions, actions
| and communication, but the term evokes a concept of being
| free from threats or risk.
|
| I would suggest that neither of these create high
| performing teams, they just tend to reduce the pathological
| behaviors that impede them. They still need to get past the
| observations of Andy Grove 'When a person is not doing
| [their] job, there can only be two reasons for it. The
| person either can't do it or won't do it; [they are] either
| not capable or not motivated.' After all, someone sleeping
| at their desk day after day could actually be experiencing
| maximum psychological safety.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| When I first started studying software
| engineering/development/programming, I was bombarded with
| advice to question everything, push back on unnecessary
| features, try to get to the bottom of what was really needed
| and deliver _that_ instead of what was being asked for and not
| to be afraid to say no. I took that advice to heart - I was a
| professional and in it for the long haul, trying to make a
| lifetime career out of this, after all. It took a long time for
| me to realize I was better off abandoning those platitudes and
| just getting my work done. Although the inspirational types are
| correct in arguing that the world would truly be a better place
| if everybody took ownership and made the bottom line their
| business, it 's hard to make the world a better place if you
| get fired for being a PITA.
| rxhernandez wrote:
| Yeah, I heavily bucked trends at my past 3 companies. I even
| got into plenty of disagreements with "principal engineers"
| at the end of their careers and those engineers inevitably
| won the arguments. However, there were enough times where,
| once the team realized how problematic those solutions were,
| they backtracked and used my solutions.
|
| Every manager (as well as a few colleagues) has tried to get
| me to come back so far. A couple have recommended me to lead
| the tech side of their friend's (well-funded) startups long
| after I left.
|
| I wouldn't ever do it again though unless it was explicitly
| asked for. Stressing about getting fired in the initial weeks
| after getting hired (or during a boss change) just isn't
| worth it.
| carabiner wrote:
| Meta but why has the term "gaslight" become so common on
| Twitter and HN?
| watwut wrote:
| Terms are subject of fashion. Psychological/relatinships
| related terminology is as much subject of buzz-words as tech.
|
| The process is exactly the same as when on tech suddenly
| everyone talks about fluent api one year, then about other
| buzzword, just for those then slowly dying.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I've noticed this with some other insults too - primarily
| used by the "woke" crowd.
|
| My favorite example of "marxist" style insults is claiming
| that someone lives "rent free" in ones mind. Admittedly, I
| find this uniquely insulting and if anything I've got to give
| credit to zoomers and the other forerunners of todays
| "wokism" for adding more interesting insults and accusations
| to our linguistic zeitgeist.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Limbaugh, hardly a zoomer (but actually a closeted
| Marxist!), bragged about living "rent-free" in Obama's mind
| at least a decade ago. My memory is fuzzy, but I'm pretty
| sure he made the same boast about one or both of the
| Clintons even earlier than that.
| xlpmark wrote:
| The woke people like to use stronger terms:
| slightly impolite => harming a person rejecting
| nonsensical PRs => missing stair having heterodox
| opinions => harming the community being friendly
| first but firm on another occasion => gaslighting
|
| So the original somewhat elaborate and sinister process of
| actual gaslighting has lost its original meaning.
|
| Now it means that by being friendly once but not always you
| have betrayed the trust and psychological safety of the woke
| person.
|
| You are therefore an evil manipulator on the same level as
| the villain in the movie Gaslight!
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| The definition of "gaslighting" is a form of psychological
| abuse where someone is trying to make you doubt your own
| sanity by manipulating your perception of reality. I think
| this is a very powerful meme, because if you think
| gaslighting is occurring, anyone who argues that you aren't
| being gaslit is calling you crazy and is therefore one of the
| gaslighters. This worldview reframes self-doubt or cognitive
| dissonance as being a product of a conspiracy. So in that
| sense it's kind of a one-way street. Any thoughts that
| perhaps you aren't being gaslit are just further evidence of
| how deep the gaslighting goes. Other explanations like
| "honest disagreement" or "lying" are more parsimonious and
| often a more accurate representation of reality, but just
| can't compete.
|
| Unfortunately the adaptive thing to do here is go along with
| it. If a friend tells me they are being gaslit, I'm certainly
| not going to side with the gaslighters.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _Your reports are either engaged because the work is
| interesting or the product is meaningful_
|
| The point is that all members on a team may believe the work is
| meaningful and interesting, but still be unproductive due to
| group dynamics that penalize certain types of behavior that
| would constructive if they were allowed. It doesn't matter how
| meaningful or interesting things are if a co-worker or manager
| shuts you down every time you present a differing opinion on
| something.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Psychological safety describes a belief that neither the formal
| nor informal consequences of interpersonal risks, like asking for
| help or admitting a failure, will be punitive. In psychologically
| safe environments, people believe that if they make a mistake or
| ask for help, others will not react badly. Instead, candor is
| both allowed and expected.
|
| People feel "psychologically safe" because they have confidence.
| They have confidence because they have a track record of getting
| things right. They might be wrong now but they have enough credit
| to risk being wrong. Successful teams have people who speak up
| because those people are confident (likely due to a history of
| success).
|
| In any case, in the event that you speak up and are wrong,
| there's no way you can be insulated from "formal nor informal
| consequences of interpersonal risks". If someone says something
| that I know to be wrong, it makes me think less of them. Will I
| be rude to them? No, but if it keeps happening I'll pay less
| attention. Kind people will give you plenty of chances but only
| stupid people will give you infinite chances.
|
| The perspective here, where we should aim for "psychological
| safety" is minimizing one kind of fail case (people not speaking
| up because they're afraid) and maximizing another (people
| speaking up and being wrong). It isn't obvious that you should
| make that trade-off.
| ColFrancis wrote:
| Regardless of reality, perception of reality is more important
| for this. The boss can think the worker is wrong, and can react
| with a
|
| > That's stupid, it won't work due to X, we're going with Y
|
| or a
|
| > Thanks for the feedback, but this time we're choosing Y due
| to X.
|
| One is going to leave the worker happier than the other and
| feeling safer despite the boss thinking the worker is wrong.
| Unless you can measure the counter-factual (often not) you will
| only guess as to which was better.
| pyjug wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like a lot of managers don't live in reality.
| Sure, psychological safety as a concept is nice to talk about,
| but how can an employee be totally psychologically safe in an
| employer-employee relationship?
|
| How many line engineers at Google let alone a random tech company
| can question a VP/director's pet project? Heck, how many middle
| managers can? Psychological safety should mean you should be able
| to call BS and be okay with others calling your BS (in a non-
| inflammatory way), but in reality it means stroking others' egos,
| especially of those in leadership.
|
| >It is easy to see the faults of others, but difficult to see
| one's own. -- Buddha, Dhammapada
|
| Indeed, like all of Buddha's teachings, it also applies to the
| author of course.
| foxhop wrote:
| Additionally I've been in situations where management turns a
| blind eye to an obvious sociopath, and sociopathic people are a
| real phenomenon which prey on people's vulnerability. I tried
| just be vulnerable, it back fires. Since experiencing that,
| I've found myself keeping a distance, I tell my truth but I
| don't share vulnerability since it sucks when it's used against
| me. I'm in a stronger position not sharing.
|
| There are always consequences for over sharing, the obvious
| answer is don't overshare.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I think it can exist by the employee forgetting the nature of
| the relationship in the heat of the moment, but the slightest
| sigh of frustration by the boss is going to destroy it. It is
| exceptionally fragile.
| pyjug wrote:
| >employee forgetting the nature of the relationship in the
| heat of the moment
|
| Curious to learn others' experiences, but I've never seen
| this in my career, ever. I've seen _peers_ yell at each
| other, but never seen an employee slip "out of character"
| with their superiors, at least publicly. And if it isn't
| happening publicly, there's no psychological safety, is
| there?
|
| Most people (including myself) have been conditioned to bring
| their "work self" to work, not their "true self". As such,
| there's very little chance of "forgetting the nature of the
| relationship" even in heated moments.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| So context here, I'm transgender -- but transition was
| always about bringing 100% of myself to the table at all
| times. I similarly had my "work self" and "true self" --
| but keeping them separate was impossible when in that
| identity-less state a lot of trans people experience mid-
| transition.
|
| So when I was reestablishing my personal identity in my
| late 20s, I just never made a separate "work self", and
| it's been a deliberate decision. I regularly talk openly
| with my superiors and make it known that I'm very
| opinionated but I'm also fallible and open to learning from
| my mistakes. This kind of openness and trust is absolutely
| essential at the executive level; the real secret is that
| none of us _really_ knows what we're doing and we're all
| making it up as we go too.
|
| Doing this a few times with the right people will help you
| learn when asking questions is helpful and when you should
| get out of the way and follow orders. A good leader has the
| level of humility to know they're not always right.
|
| In fact, this ability to "fight back" effectively is what
| gets you promoted above a line manager level. And in my
| opinion is why white men are so overrepresented in senior
| levels of companies: the psychological safety is there for
| them in the rest of their lives so they can have it at
| work, and it's not there for others so it's a lot harder to
| build the muscle on the job if you're always on guard at
| home.
| pyjug wrote:
| > I just never made a separate "work self", and it's been
| a deliberate decision
|
| This is amazing self-awareness. I wish I had it earlier
| in my career.
|
| >And in my opinion is why white men are so
| overrepresented in senior levels of companies: the
| psychological safety is there for them in the rest of
| their lives
|
| This is interesting, but I don't entirely agree. I have
| seen both sides as an Indian male who has worked both in
| India (privilege) and SV (no privilege). It's not a
| matter of "fighting back" or "being open", it's just in-
| group mechanics at work. There is a tacit understanding
| among people in positions of power about who is the "in-
| group" that doesn't need to be expressed or acknowledged
| even. For example, in India, even as a junior engineer I
| would be invited to important meetings whereas more
| experienced female engineers wouldn't. If I'd simply
| shown up and done the bare minimum, I would have quickly
| risen up the ranks, IMO. I had the exact opposite
| experience in SV, being seen as the "out-group" of the
| "worker bee" class by default.
| [deleted]
| MattGaiser wrote:
| In my own case it is getting caught up in a discussion and
| pressing further than my strategic self would. It is as
| simple as stating "this is going to break" when I would
| usually do a more muted and subtle "I am not sure that this
| will work."
|
| I am not really one to challenge all that directly
| normally. But sometimes that slips.
| munificent wrote:
| _> how can an employee be totally psychologically safe in an
| employer-employee relationship?_
|
| How can any human feel totally psychologically safe in a world
| with climate change, cancer, random attacks of violence,
| earthquakes, etc?
|
| The answer is that you're thinking in black and white terms
| about a concept that is a continuum. Even in employee-employer
| relationships, with a good manager it is entirely possible to
| have a _reasonable_ level of psychological safety, just like it
| 's possible to have a reasonable level of physical safety while
| driving a car.
| 0xBA5ED wrote:
| >just like it's possible to have a reasonable level of
| physical safety while driving a car
|
| Then again, it's reasonably straightforward to measure
| _physical_ injury and come to some agreement about acceptable
| risk. Psychological injury is far more subjective.
| pyjug wrote:
| >psychologically safe in a world with climate change, cancer,
| random attacks of violence, earthquakes, etc?
|
| Obviously, "total" in this context means in the workplace.
| Also, psychological safety essentially means "ability to
| express yourself and make mistakes without the fear of
| negative consequences" - it has nothing to do with shielding
| yourself from cancer, climate change etc. Ironically, the
| Buddha, who was quoted in the OP grew up with "total
| psychological safety" as you defined it, and you know where
| that led him.
|
| > just like it's possible to have a reasonable level of
| physical safety while driving a car
|
| Again, this is not a comparable analogy at all. If you're
| unable to in no uncertain terms say "this project is going to
| hurt users" out of fear of getting fired/looking like not a
| team player, that is not even a "reasonable level" of
| psychological safety.
| TheTrotters wrote:
| > If you're unable to in no uncertain terms say "this
| project is going to hurt users" out of fear of getting
| fired/looking like not a team player, that is not even a
| "reasonable level" of psychological safety.
|
| We're talking about software engineers in big tech
| companies, right? They're extremely well paid and would
| have no problem finding a new job.
| xlpmark wrote:
| I think the managers _do_ live in reality. They know perfectly
| well that this is a power tool that can be used against
| engineers who are more intelligent than themselves.
|
| U.S. companies are very much fear driven. Management always
| keeps people in doubt and uncertainty. Violating psychological
| safety is another charge to hit people with.
|
| It is the same as the "counterrevolutionary" charge in
| communist countries, to be used against intelligent dissidents.
| solipsism wrote:
| _How many line engineers at Google let alone a random tech
| company can question a VP /director's pet project?_
|
| All of them, as long as it's done internally and not jerk-like.
| Doesn't sound like you know much about Google culture.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Without any consequences? (Including hidden ones)
| pyjug wrote:
| >All of them
|
| Really? Why are y'all working on FLoC then? :-)
| zamadatix wrote:
| You're asking developers at the largest ad company in the
| world why some of the development they do relates to ads.
| It has nothing to do with engineers vs managers, both are
| and have been willing to push against user interest for the
| vast piles of money.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Being able to question a project without fear of
| retaliation doesn't mean that your requests will be
| followed.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| Anyone with the wealth to not care about the outcome, even if
| it means getting dismissed. There's more wealthy individual
| contributors in tech than we might think. It's certainly not
| everybody, but there are some who could speak their mind,
| without fearing losing their income and risking their mortgage
| or rent payment.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Sometimes I feel like a lot of managers don 't live in
| reality. Sure, psychological safety as a concept is nice to
| talk about, but how can an employee be totally psychologically
| safe in an employer-employee relationship?_
|
| That talk is not actually meant to matter, it's just cant...
| jvanderbot wrote:
| There is a thing, called the matrix organization, which has
| many problems. One of its strengths, though, is that you have a
| "boss" who is responsible for your career advancement but is
| not responsible for assigning and grading your work and is not
| concerned with your opinion about leadership so much.
|
| You work on technical tasks for other people, who make sure
| _your work_ is ok, and your supervisor makes sure _you_ are OK.
|
| That person is your advocate in all things that fall in the
| tense employee-employer tug-of-war. Inside the "group", there
| is psychological safety. On "tasks" there is often less of it,
| but you always have your group.
|
| Or at least it should be that way.
| darkerside wrote:
| I think this often papers over the tension instead of
| resolving it. The best way to resolve the tension that comes
| from doing a poor job is to do a better job. The second best
| way is to find a better job (within or outside the
| team/organization). I realize that sounds heartless, but I
| believe the first is usually possible (assuming competent
| hiring) because most people want to do good work. If you
| disconnect the career manager from the work being done by the
| employee, you make it harder for good managers too
| effectively redirect their employees, which results in worse
| outcomes.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| And the same structure prevents accountability, promotes
| political infighting and causes a misalignment of objectives
| all around. I hated every single minute of working inside
| such organizations.
|
| The elephant in the room is that there has to be a level of
| tension, of slight mutual discomfort, of a bilateral
| transaction present in employer-employee relationship. It
| needs to be very dull and implied but it has to be there to
| make sure incentives are aligned and objectives are
| consistently met.
|
| Tenured public service and unions show what might happen when
| this inconvenient element is missing.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > How many line engineers at Google let alone a random tech
| company can question a VP/director's pet project? Heck, how
| many middle managers can? Psychological safety should mean you
| should be able to call BS and be okay with others calling your
| BS (in a non-inflammatory way), but in reality it means
| stroking others' egos, especially of those in leadership.
|
| Employees should have psychological safety to voice concerns
| within their domain, but that's not a license to start backseat
| driving upper management. It's one thing for a line engineer to
| raise concerns about their team's choice of frameworks for a
| project or the chosen architecture of the system. It's a
| different issue entirely if the employee is simply "calling BS"
| on company directives or cynically referring to initiatives as
| "pet projects". From a managing perspective, there is a stark
| difference between people who voice concerns reasonably and
| those who simply like to complain.
|
| The good team members raise their concerns with an open mind,
| seek more information to understand why certain decisions were
| made, come prepared with alternative suggestions, and most
| importantly are willing to disagree and commit if they don't
| get their way.
|
| The bad apples do things like "call BS" on initiatives without
| understanding the whole story, aren't interested in learning
| more, don't have any constructive suggestions, and tend to drag
| their feet or spread dissent through the ranks when they don't
| get their way.
|
| Psychological safety doesn't mean employees get a free pass to
| be disgruntled or push back against what they're being paid to
| do. Questions, concerns, and alternate suggestions are welcome
| and should not be punished, but at the end of the day employees
| must be willing to commit to the chosen direction and get on
| board with company initiatives.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| As long as in the end you can disagree and commit I've found
| that being willing to disagree in the first place is treated as
| a moderately positive trait by most managers.
|
| If you won't disagree and commit that's a different story.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > How many line engineers at Google
|
| And this is _engineers at Google_ we 're talking about: usually
| people with advanced degrees from hard-to-get-into colleges and
| years of experience along with very specialized knowledge. In
| other words, very hard to replace people. How must more
| difficult must it be for people who could be replaced tomorrow?
| bogwog wrote:
| > we're talking about: usually people with advanced degrees
| from hard-to-get-into colleges and years of experience along
| with very specialized knowledge
|
| I thought Google just hired recent grads that play the
| leetcode game.
| shemnon42 wrote:
| > usually people with advanced degrees from hard-to-get-into
| colleges and years of experience along with very specialized
| knowledge.
|
| Maybe 2005 Google, but not anymore. A good bachelors degree
| or enough YoE at most companies gets you the interview, and
| then the interview result usually does the rest. Those are
| the "line engineers" that move on to other faangs or unicorns
| when psychological safety becomes an issue.
|
| Typically it's the people from the hard-to-get-into colleges,
| or with years of company tenure, or with specialized
| knowledge causing the psychological safety issues.
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| > Typically it's the people from the hard-to-get-into
| colleges, or with years of company tenure, or with
| specialized knowledge causing the psychological safety
| issues.
|
| This is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary
| evidence.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| At my current job I'm getting marked down for not demonstrating
| leadership. "Leadership", in this context, means supporting and
| implementing whatever latest buzzword the VP heard at the
| country club that we are not staffed for and will be a
| disaster.
|
| That's the kind of psychological safety I have.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I speak up fairly often. I offer my opinion on things and offer
| my own ideas.
|
| I'm still trying to learn to keep my mouth shut. Speaking up is
| detrimental unless it conforms to the existing group (really
| leader) sentiment.
| [deleted]
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| It may help to put yourself in the mindset of your group
| leader, and figure out how to present your feedback as
| assisting with their problems and priorities. I've heard
| "junior engineers bring me problems, senior engineers bring me
| solutions."
| giantg2 wrote:
| I understand that. The impression I've gotten is that the
| managers got where they were by going with the flow. They
| don't care about ideas that come from below unless they align
| with an existing mandate from above. I mean, if you're making
| that kind of money, it pays not to rock the boat, even if
| it's beneficial, when the person above you holds all the
| power.
|
| The other issue is how do I tell if it aligns with what they
| want? There's so much salesmanship in the leadership talks at
| large companies. I've brought in suggestions that clearly
| aligned with stuff stated in those sorts of meetings, only to
| have it basically ignored. With some of it I was able to find
| out from friends that the real goal behind the scenes was
| completely different.
|
| I generally only bring up problems if there is a solution for
| it. Otherwise it's just complaining, which I still do but not
| to my boss.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I've done it often enough and had things work out well, but you
| do have to know your audience and pick your battles. If no
| amount of reasonable conversation is going to change something,
| even if it is very obviously wrong, you have to let it go.
| someelephant wrote:
| I think it's great that you speak up. Your ideas may be
| incongruous with the current conversation or too black and
| white when there is a lot of grey beneath the surface. Work on
| reducing your general level of stress and people will likely be
| more receptive to your ideas.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "too black and white when there is a lot of grey"
|
| Actually, I tend to be the one advocating for the grey area
| solutions. I think in the West we have too much emphasis on
| one of two opposing solutions being the complete and correct
| answer, when the best option is probably some amalgamation of
| the best parts of both ideas.
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