I’ve had an action at the top of my to-do list for four days and haven’t started it yet. It’s not urgent, but has a deadline and it is important to me. The negative consequences of not doing it, or not doing it well are significant. So why on earth have I spent the morning shredding my confidential waste?

A definition of psychological safety

Psychological Safety is the belief that we can speak our mind without negative consequences. We can offer our ideas, ask questions, raise concerns,
communicate mistakes and speak truth to power, without being sanctioned, punished or humiliated.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Human beings are fundamentally social animals. Social exclusion tells  our emotional brain that    social relationships are threatened or damaged. Exclusion tells us there is a crisis; we experience a visceral emoptional reaction that stays with us for a long time.

What if the post- pandemic organisation needs something very different from our leadership?

The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have. The last year has taught us this. We have faced challenges we could never have imagined and many of our beliefs about work have changed for ever. Our teams have faced into sudden and dramatic changes that disrupted the rhythms and patterns of their lives. We have found depths of resilience, creativity, empathy and kindness that we never knew were possible.

On the plus side, we have largely welcomed not having to commute for hours every day, dinner with the children and the productivity of uninterrupted desk time. On the other hand, the pluses come at a cost; screen-fatigue, work-home life boundaries challenged, tensions around space and Wi-Fi, lack of social interaction with colleagues.

Most of the organisations I work with are looking forward to a future with less office space, more remote-working, and extensive use of technology tools for communication and training. They are designing the future of work around what the last year has taught them; but is that going to be enough?

For pretty much all of the 90s I worked for the Motorola Corporation. Those ten years of varied, challenging and global change leadership experience were pretty much the bedrock that my last 15 years have been grounded in. Motorola was not perfect, but it was innovative and humanely people-centric. If the business had not contracted as it did, I would probably still be there.

During the ritual winter clearing-out of my office, I came across some Motorola paraphernalia. One thing in particular made me think; “Individual Dignity Entitlement” (IDE) was a very controversial, global Motorola process. I am told there was even a Dilbert cartoon about it!

The Institute of Directors are hosting events throughout Scotland in support of the Publication of  "The Game Changer" by Alistair Gray. 

The next will be held at Cairn Energy’s offices at Lothian Road in Edinburgh on Tuesday 26 November at 1800h. Attendance is by registering via the IoD website. Here is the link to the event.