🍉 Tech Coordination, Intuitive Leaders, Hiring Juniors, Progression Frameworks, Tech Debt at Scale, CI/CD Attacks: TMW #431

We Are a Good News Organisation “We are a good news organisation”“The senior leadership update is too negative – it needs to be reframed more positively”“Instead of focusing on risks, let’s talk about what we will deliver by when” You learn that if you question the approach, or highlight risks, you are labelled as negative or seen as someone who is not open to change. You try to raise concerns, but your voice is not heard. And some time later when there is a major outage, something you predicted would happen, you stay quiet. However, you feel resentful that you are the one who must work late to fix the problem you highlighted but weren’t listened to. The heat comes on your team who are blamed for ‘bad engineering’. There is no retrospective to reflect on learnings. Everyone is told this cannot happen again and reminded of the need to work harder, to move forward, faster. You learn that you either need to get on board or stay quiet. You realise it’s career suicide if you challenge. The next time you foresee an issue you don’t bother raising concerns – there’s no point. Have you ever experienced any of these scenarios? If you were CEO or a senior leader, would you want to hear the real story, or the sugar-coated version? If your proposed change is met with silence or you hear no objections, do you take this as agreement? There are many reasons for silence. One of them is a lack of psychological safety. Psychological Safety Amy Edmondson was surprised when her research found that the highest performing teams made more mistakes. It turned out that this was because they felt safe to admit their errors, whereas the lower performing teams felt the need to cover up their mistakes (Edmondson, 1999). Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “A belief that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes”. In a psychologically-safe workplace, people know that their voice is both welcomed and expected.” If you are working in a psychologically safe work environment you know that you won’t be punished for speaking up, sharing bad news, asking for support or admitting an error. You may find psychological safety in parts of an organisation but it could be absent in other pockets. In low trust work environments, people play it safe, keep their heads down, and stay silent. It’s hard to have innovation when people are keeping their heads down, and sadly these are words I am hearing a lot from people in tech! The Cost of Silence The pace of change in the technology industry requires a focus on continuous improvement and innovation. If employees don’t feel safe to share their ideas, innovation will be lacking. Why hire talented people but not hear from some of them? There are many reasons why people may not share their ideas. There may be a few loud voices of ‘experts’ that make others feel their idea is not good [...]

About the EVENT In this online Fireside Chat, Michelle McDaid and Emma Hopkinson-Spark go further into the subject of Michelle’s article on the CTO Craft blog around trust and psychological safety. Highlighting the critical importance of psychological safety in the workplace, particularly within the fast-paced technology industry, Michelle and Emma will look into the implications and impact on a culture where employees fear speaking up, raising concerns, or admitting mistakes. What the significant negative consequences, including stifled innovation, unaddressed risks leading to failures, and a lack of learning and improvement can mean for a business and their own experiences of both the positive and negative impacts where trust is at the heart of the workplace issues. What you’ll learn: A deeper understanding of psychological safety in a professional context, beyond the basic definition. The link between psychological safety and high-performing teams. Practical and actionable strategies for leaders and individuals to build and foster psychological safety within their teams and organisations. How to differentiate between healthy debate/disagreement and a lack of psychological safety that leads to silence. Methods for encouraging open communication and feedback, even when it involves critical perspectives or bad news. The importance of trust as a foundation for psychological safety and how to build and maintain trust within teams. The long-term benefits of investing in psychological safety for organisational success and employee well-being. key info Date: Thursday 10th JulyTime: 12:30pm – 1.30pmLocation: Online REGISTER NOW Speakers Michelle McDaid Founder, The Leading Place Emma Hopkinson-Spark NED & Coach @, CTO Craft REGISTER NOW Only open to CTOs and senior technology leaders. If you’re not sure if that’s you – please drop us a line. No recruiters. CTO Craft reserves the right to cancel tickets for ineligible ticket holders. MORE FROM CTO CRAFT:

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