What is your reaction when you hear someone say any of the following:
- “That's the way we have always done it.”
- “I didn’t want to propose a change because I thought you would (fill in the blank).”
- “What a piece of junk. I’m sure glad I didn’t write that.”
When team members lack imagination, it just means you don’t have a great team. But when you have a good team and team members don't feel safe, they won’t take chances. They also aren’t as valuable as they could be if they felt freed up to make a few mistakes.
One Person Can Ruin Your Team
All it takes is one perfectionist dream-crusher to kill a whole team. Google proved it. They studied teams for years to try to figure out what the secret sauce was. They thought it might be the brightest or the most motivated or the best huggers, but it wasn’t any of those things…except maybe the bright, motivated huggers. They seemed to come out on top a lot.
The distinguishing characteristic of high-functioning teams is "psychsafe." A what now? Psychsafe is short for psychological safety. In the context of teams, the lack of psych safety was a total performance buzzkill. Some people can fight through the unimaginative, but most of us simply dial it back or shut it down when faced with a bully or a jerky perfectionist.
Creating a Psychsafe Team
Take a cleansing breath and repeat after me. "Everything is a draft."
You feel better already, I know it.
In a work setting, in a commercial environment, and in practical ways, what does "Everything is a draft" mean?
First, it means that uber awesome idea you've been dreaming about for the company, the one that freaks you out if you were to tell anyone—you should write it down as a draft and run it by a couple of people. It might be good. It might be crappy, but what the heck? It’s a draft.
Second, critics have to fix it. There are no snipers allowed. The critics have to get down to ground level where the real fighting is. Open your mouth and you're now part of the process.
Third, when people are freed up and contributing and nobody is sniping, now you have a real team. Now the team is not as good as the greediest ego, it is as good as the synapse-jarring network of committed minds.
Fourth, when you have real contributors and people who have each other’s backs, you'll take chances and explore places you never would before. How will you know what's around the next corner if you never look? You might run back screaming to the safety of your team, but at least you looked. (I saw it, too and it wasn’t pretty.)
Fifth, in a strictly business sense it means that you're going to get better faster. Psychsafe doesn’t mean staying in the basement playing video games. We have really high expectations of performance for everyone around us. Nobody is off the hook. We just try to be true to our goals and show respect as a basis for personal conduct and team grammar.
Everything is a draft is foundational. To run a complex enterprise without a highly functioning team, you would have to use Jedi mind tricks. I have known a few Jedis, but they are few and far between. The rest of us mortals need to nurture chance-taking, discipline critics by bringing them into the process, and leveraging the best out of our teams.
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