On the bare necessity of psychological safety
Everyone should tread carefully when someone in authority is telling them it&#x27;s okay to speak freely.<p>I worked at a company where vulnerability and mindfulness were championed above all else.<p>It went exactly the same way as Mao&#x27;s [Hundred Flowers Campaign][1].<p>So much so that I am convinced it&#x27;s something deeply ingrained into human nature.<p>Feedback was welcomed, and psychological safety was guaranteed.<p>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&#x27;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&#x27;t going well because of these employees - things that everyone else could see were clearly false.<p>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&#x27;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.<p>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.<p>The problem is that the people in power don&#x27;t realize that they actually can&#x27;t handle to hear a lot of the honesty they are asking of people.<p>So I guess my point would be that, psychological safety <i>is</i> 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.<p>Everyone should just be more chill and easy-going instead of trying to drive formulaic new-age initiatives.<p>&gt; 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!<p>This gives me chills haha. So robotic and corporate. I just wish people would chill!<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hundred_Flowers_Campaign" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hundred_Flowers_Campaign</a>