Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

ased on their tone of voice, their expressions, and other nonverbal cues. People on those teams have high sensitivity toward their colleagues.</p><p id="2ec5">So, if you are given a choice between a serious-minded team A — filled with smart people, all optimized for peak individual efficiency, and few exchanges of personal information that lets teammates pick up on what people are feeling or leaving unsaid — and a free-flowing team B, you should probably opt for the second one. In team B, people may speak over one another and socialize instead of remaining focused on the agenda. This may seem inefficient but all the team members are sensitive to one another’s moods and share personal stories and emotions. As result, the team might not contain as many individual stars, but the sum will be greater than its parts.</p><p id="e1f6">Within psychology, researchers refer to traits like ‘‘conversational turn-taking’’ and ‘‘average social sensitivity’’ as aspects of what’s known as <i>psychological safety</i> — a group culture or a team climate that the Harvard Business School professor <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3boKz0Exros">Amy Edmondson</a> defines as:</p><p id="1640" type="7">“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.”</p><blockquote id="76f4"><p><i>“No one wakes up in the morning to go to the work to look ignorant (don’t ask questions), incompetent (don’t admit weakness or mistakes), intrusive (don’t offer details), negative (don’t critique the status quo). This strategy works for self-protection.” </i>Edmondson said.</p></blockquote><h1 id="34bb">5 key characteristics of perfect teams</h1><p id="a163">To achieve successful teamwork, Google’s data has indicated that different parameters are important, but psychological safety was critical.</p><ol><li><b>Psychological safety:</b> to feel safe in taking risks and be vulnerable in front of other team members.</li><li><b>Dependability:</b> to get things done on time with quality.</li><li><b>Structure and clarity:</b> to have clear roles, plans, and goals.</li><li><b>Meaning: </b>to have a sense of purpose and feel that your work is personally important (financial security, supporting family, helping the team succeed, etc).</li><li><b>Impact:</b> to see that your work matters and creates change.</li></ol><figure id="bc01"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*e3m9fCz5MelPQcYomDJMdA.png"><figcaption>Identify the dynamics of effective teams (<a href="https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness/steps/identify-dynamics-of-effective-teams/">source</a>)</figcaption></figure><h1 id="4248">Establishing psychological safety</h1><p id="954d">Establishing psychological safety is somewhat messy and difficult to implement. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUo1QwVcCv0">recipe of Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson</a> to build a psychologically safe workplace includes three points:</p><ol><li>Frame the work as a learning problem, not an execution problem. And recognize that there’s enormous uncertainty ahead and enormous interdependence. That creates the rationale for speaking up.</li><li>Acknowledge your own fallibility. That creates more safety for speaking up.</li><li>Model curiosity and ask a lot of questions. That creates a necessity for voice.</li></ol><p id="7b1e">Edmondson insists that to succeed, team members must be <i>humble</i> in the face of the challenge ahead, <i>curious </i>about what others bring, and <i>willing </i>to take risks to learn quickly.</p><p id="3a49">In his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html">post</a> in the New York Times, Charles Duhigg<b> </b>has shown a real case of implementing psychological safety and changing the stereotype of tech people often known for being more comfortable working with computers than with people.</p><p id

Options

="6009">After seeing the published result of Project Aristotle and the output of a survey indicating that his team is not as strong as he thought, Matt Sakaguchi — a manager at Google — gathered his tech guys and began asking everyone to share something personal about themselves. He went first and told the group that he has Stage 4 cancer which was surprising and shocking for them. Then, teammates stood one by one and shared their own struggles about health issues, difficult breakup, and other small frictions, and everyday annoyances. They found it easier to speak honestly about the things that had been bothering them and agreed to adopt some new norms and try harder to notice when someone on the team was feeling excluded or down.</p><p id="5643">To Sakaguchi, it made sense that psychological safety and emotional conversations were related. They belong to the same unwritten rules we often use as individuals to bond with each other:</p><p id="fb19" type="7">“… to be fully present at work, to feel ‘psychologically safe,’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations. We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad, to have hard conversations with colleagues who are driving us crazy. We can’t be focused just on efficiency… We want to know that work is more than just labor …</p><p id="e726" type="7">… it’s not only Google that loves numbers, or Silicon Valley that shies away from emotional conversations. Most work-places do. ‘By putting things like empathy and sensitivity into charts and data reports, it makes them easier to talk about,’ Sakaguchi told me.” — Charles Duhigg</p><h1 id="0b28">Final thoughts</h1><p id="cc0e">In our try to optimize everything, we forget sometimes that success is often built on human experiences. Experiences that could make people bring their full selves for the challenging job ahead if we understand the usefulness of imperfection and figure out how to create psychological safety in a more productive way.</p><p id="f1bc" type="7">“In our silos, we can get things done. But when we step back and reach out and reach across, miracles can happen.” — Amy Edmondson</p><p id="4a4b">🧠💡 I write about engineering, technology, and leadership for a community of smart, curious people. <a href="https://rakiabensassi.substack.com/"><b>Join my free email newsletter for exclusive access</b></a><b> </b>or sign up for Medium <a href="https://rakiabensassi.medium.com/membership">here</a>.</p><p id="3443"><i>You can check my <b>video course</b> on Udemy: <a href="https://www.udemy.com/course/identify-and-fix-javascript-memory-leaks/">How to Identify, Diagnose, and Fix Memory Leaks in Web Apps</a>.</i></p><div id="653a" class="link-block"> <a href="https://levelup.gitconnected.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-software-engineer-cb817cf13d0"> <div> <div> <h2>A Day in the Life of a Freelance Software Engineer</h2> <div><h3>How working from home and collaborating with a scrum team is looking like</h3></div> <div><p>levelup.gitconnected.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*M2VyI6kNdMCl_srt)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="d0f5" class="link-block"> <a href="https://bettermarketing.pub/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-content-creator-d87b0049f66b"> <div> <div> <h2>A Day in the Life of a Content Creator</h2> <div><h3>Embracing a deviation in your plan gives room for creativity</h3></div> <div><p>bettermarketing.pub</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*v8K9bGdMwDxy35tO)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Short Thoughts for Busy Folks (December 5, 2023)

Paul says the Gospel is the Power of God in Us. It Allows Us to Live Life Better by Accident than We Ever Could on Purpose.

Image is owned by the author: Caboose Coffee, Hill City, South Dakota, part of MounainPeaksInn.com

“History Tends To Repeat Itself”

It has been said: “History has proven that history will continue the same way unless we take steps to change it.” Since the 1950s, history has changed at an alarming rate. Then, the Constitution was ‘in,’ and moral, godly laws kept us safe, secure, and at peace.

Today, peace is fleeting. The 1960s and 1970s saw change at a rapid rate: Viet Nam… racial turmoil…drugs… free sex… gender change… abortion… homosexuality… no prayer in schools… no-fault divorce… evolution in schools… same-sex marriage.

We’re like a second ‘Sodom and Gomorrah.’

Then, ‘LIBERAL POLITICS’ began to flourish in the early 1990s with Bill Clinton, and this promoted more non-constitutional, ungodly thinking. He’s the one who said his administration was ‘redefining’ (changing) unchangeable ideas that have been with us from the beginning.” How do you change UN-changeable ideals? The truth is you can’t.

The fact is, history will continue the same way unless we say ’NO’ to liberal politicians, and say ’YES’ to more Constitutional thinkers. Many experts are now claiming it’s too late for America. They say it’s too late to say ‘NO’ to liberal, ungodly politicians. They say their foot is in the doorway and we can’t close the door.

Why Can Song Lyrics Touch Us At A Deep Level?

Have you ever wondered why you can be so inspired by song lyrics? I even use some lyrics in these posts and comment on them. And I’ve composed a lot of songs and have a thought on this.

When most people talk, they seldom think for five seconds about what they are going to say next. As the saying goes, “They operate mouth before engaging their brain.”

But this is not true of many composers of songs. Most of us think long and hard before putting something on paper. We try to word it just right, with inspiring thoughts, and create all the emotional impact that we can.

I’ve written a couple of songs where I just felt like I was an instrument being used to write, as the song came so fast. But mostly it takes some real work to compose to connect well.

The result is the lyrics touch you, are inspiring, and move you to emotion. This is not true of all songs. Some are no more inspiring than everyday gibberish, and some are just downright bad, off-color and even satanic.

But this is true of a lot of songs where the composer has worked hard and long to put their thoughts into your mind and heart. In just talking we don’t usually do this.

The truth of the Bible may hurt our souls if we’re too busy, absorbed in other things, or self-involved to take time to deal with it.

We’re consumed with lies today,… in politics, in church, in business, in society, etc. As a new-fledging lawyer, I was a great liar. I could concoct stories that sounded great, and then sell them to judges and juries.

At least I did this until I met Jesus.

We’re told in scripture: ‘God cannot lie.’ His character won’t let him lie so we can believe him. This is why we can trust God and believe his gospel truth: the Bible never lies to us.

Many groups try to prove the Bible wrong in ways: — in its historical fact, — in its future prophecy, — in its truth for everyday living. But they always just remain mute and quiet.

The best they can come up with is whether Judas committed suicide by jumping off a cliff or hanging himself. Maybe he hung himself over a cliff and the rope broke. Who knows? But the fact is he did commit suicide.

Christians are called ‘the just who live by faith,’ so everything we do should be by faith in God (Gal 3:11).

But the problem is we often buy into the world’s definitions of faith, which are not God’s definitions. “Self-help, do-it-yourself, positive thinking, New Age, name it and claim it, and even witchcraft.”

Faith is simply us trusting God enough to believe what he says, and take it into our hearts as fact and reality. So faith is our response to God’s stated faithfulness to us.

Trusting God is the easiest thing in the world if you believe him. But the problem is that most of us hear so many other theories, opinions, speculations, and even fantasies that we tend to latch on to anything that comes down the Pike.

This is not biblical faith. This is not ‘the just who live by faith.’