This comment on a thread regarding psychological safety at work is... concerning.
It means: “Putting pressure on teams gets them to work faster and harder!”
I’ve known managers with this attitude, so lets talk about why in my experience it doesn’t work.
It means: “Putting pressure on teams gets them to work faster and harder!”
I’ve known managers with this attitude, so lets talk about why in my experience it doesn’t work.
If you’ve ever had a manager who believed these things then you’ve experienced it yourself:
* “Teams never reach goals, but the harder you stretch the goal the more you’ll get out of them”
* “Let’s bring the deadline forward by 4 weeks so we can squeeze more work in after!”
* “Teams never reach goals, but the harder you stretch the goal the more you’ll get out of them”
* “Let’s bring the deadline forward by 4 weeks so we can squeeze more work in after!”
* “A little bit of fear is good motivation to deliver”
It all boils down to the idea that the fear of failure is the best motivator, and the more you make people feel they are failing the harder they will work to escape that feeling.
It all boils down to the idea that the fear of failure is the best motivator, and the more you make people feel they are failing the harder they will work to escape that feeling.
This approach often has the “benefit” of creating a sick system - issendai.com/psychology/sic…. You keep the team so focused on fear and deadlines they loose the ability to critically assess the toxicity of the situation and stay at a company longer than expected, given the workload.
Here’s the tough part - it does work! This approach does, for many people, motivate them to work harder and longer hours. Particularly for those of us with low self esteem (which is most of us). It’s definitely worked on me in the past.
But it has some incredibly serious flaws:
But it has some incredibly serious flaws:
* It damages your relationship with your team in a way you will never be able to fix. On a fundamental level, you are lying to them about the situation they are in. Even if they stay, many will begin lying to you in return to protect themselves.
* It damages the relationship between colleagues: everyone is in it for themselves to protect their job. If someone is reliant on another team member to hit a deadline, that team member will be the first to be thrown under the bus when something goes wrong.
* Burnout and sickness will become much more common in abled folks. The impact is 10x worse on those with disability or mental health conditions (you won’t always know who they are). Over time, your team becomes unreliable and will begin to implode.
* People start delivering the Wrong Thing. When you focus people on deadlines and unachievable goals, they stop having the time to step back and assess whether their direction is the right one. Output becomes more important than outcomes.
Creating an unsafe environment isn’t something you can deploy once or twice and then stop. Once the trust is gone, it’s gone. And an unsafe environment usually starts an avalanche of other impacts (sickness, resignations, relationship damage) that you’ll never fully recover from.
Creating psychological safety is the most important thing you can do to create a successful team. It’s the only long term solution to sustainable, high quality delivery. It’s not the only thing you should do as a manager, but it’s the only thing you absolutely cannot fail to do.
