10 Facts About the People Work

At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams. If you care about it- talk to us about a demo at [email protected] ?

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We get asked very often if there are any examples of companies that do the people work right. Companies that have reduced their HumanDebt? or made sure they amassed as little of it as possible as they went along and if they are really putting people and the work that needs doing first before delivery or operational work.?

There are. The classic Silicon Valley examples of the mammoths that do well from the controversial example of Google to the less known one of Netflix, but also the myriad of scale-ups constructed in their resemblance where the culture has been built intentionally with humans at the centre, a lack of fear and an obsession with Psychological Safety and teams and these have been upheld religiously.?

But also there are a handful of big enterprises who have also started on the big-ticket of reducing HumanDebt and on putting their teams and their Psychological Safety at the heart of everything they do.?

If we are to look around and be honest about who is it that does the people work in any of these big enterprises we’ll be fairly surprised to find it is never exclusively HR or any discipline who had to deal with the employees aspect as their primary to-do.?

I’ve talked about Superheroes last week and there are many of those both on the HR, the leadership and the Tech side of the people equation. They are the lifeline of any successful enterprise. It’s their efforts, -often time unsung and not-mandated or visible- that keep these big organisations competitive despite their huge amounts of HumanDebt.?

Their journeys to understanding that the only thing that really matters is how relationships and the dynamics between people when it comes to making anything happen in the workplace were different, some studied it and arrived at it through the academic or professional route, some had had no humanistic ambitions but their experiences drove them to this realisation.?

We make no secret that we are in awe of the latter category, the techies who came to the people work because they are the former “Nah mate, not my thing” crowd. The researchers, the engineers, the scientists, the developers, the numbers people, the nerds really, the geeks who had believed they are exempt from having to deal with the potential cringe-factor of purposely interacting with people. They spent most of their lives hoping someone somewhere will come and save them from the curse of having to have yet more meetings where the words “purpose”, “meaning” or “impact” are on any slides. The ones who you’d buy the “I hate people” mugs for. And then they had an "a-ha" moment that led them where they are today.

Of the tens of such people that I have been fortunate enough to meet, I don’t know any who can trace back their passion for making their lives and the lives of their teammates better by caring about the interactions between them to a singular occurrence or who have had a revelation thanks to having read on a solitary book or listened to some illuminating Ted talk. It’s always about years and years of observing patterns and bemoaning anti-patterns while tasked with a very concrete deliverable that the supreme importance of these intangible bits became clear.?

It isn’t that they have any kind of different predisposition, that they are amateur psychologists, that they come from a more open culture (one of our biggest pet peeves can be discussing cultural differences when it comes to the people-work -one for another article) or that they have any certifications or diplomas. It’s that they have eventually arrived at seeing how the team dynamic is everything when it comes to getting good results and it can never be unseen. They’ve understood that the people-work, (the “human-work”, whatever you want to call it, caring about the others and trying to actively improve the team’s interactions) is a sine qua non condition to delivering the outcomes they’re searching for. In a sense, it’s a product-and-outcomes-led revelation born out of experience and not a theoretical exercise driven by some helicopter view business strategy drivers that eventually translate.?

Irrespective how they have arrived at it and who they are, the truth about the people-work is that:

It starts with awareness and acceptance - each and every one of these Superheroes would have had a moment when they decided to act on all that they’ve learned about people and the complex dynamic between them and set aside any trace of Impostor Syndrome to do so;

It’s uncomfortable - working with people, analysing your own behaviour and that of others is not easy and it really doesn’t come naturally to the vast majority of people. Not everyone is gifted EQ wise or comfortable with the people topics in general, so they are instead embarrassed or uneasy when around intangible topics. That said, everyone can and should work to better their EQ and their empathy if they are intentional about it;

It requires reframing - we have to shake all we know about being rational and emotionless in the workplace and go against a myriad of internal stops that make it difficult to engage;?

It means you have to go against the false comfort fearful behaviour promises -?The culture of non-emotion coupled with organisations that are toxic in many other ways has rendered every employee risk-averse and fearful. What if being open means conflict? What if we speak up but we disagree and something other comes to light? What if being real/honest/emotional/raw is not something we can handle? The less Psychological Safety in the enterprise the more these fears are a generalised state;

It needs support - “organisational permission” that we keep talking about at PeopleNotTech means both unreservedly open cheerleading and encouragement and resources- time and money being offered by the company to any advocate or team that works on the People Work. If you know you’re doing some of this work go ask for the organisational permission slip, they owe it to you;

It’s easier if it is data-led - almost everything people-wise can be “done” (bettered or solved) by the equivalent of years of talk therapy - long chats, modelling, discussing concepts, story-telling, etc but it will be slower and far less efficient if we are using approximate supposition to feed our presumptions of what such “fluffy” talk therapy is needed than if we rely on data and can understand cognitive and behavioural triggers. This is why we can not emphasise more that finding objective ways to measure and using that data to inform what people work needs doing in something like our Dashboard is essential;

It needs to be done before other types of work- any time we leave the people-work of any time as last, as an after-thought - at the end of a meeting, at the closing of a day’s workshop, for that one Friday discussion, for any other time that is “after” the delivery, operational or business work, it always means it is simply not as important or crucial and that is wrong. If you were to not attend a meeting, not write the lines of code, not answer those emails or not put out a minor fire but you’ve instead spent time investing thought and care into your team’s dynamic, then you can really claim to have your priorities straight and to have any designs on sustainability and performance.?

It needs you to mentor - You have to overcome not only your resistance but the resistance of others and there’s no better way than passing the baton to other advocates - any and all of the people-work advocates and superheroes have had to empower and mentor others through their journeys of acceptance of the people-work. Have had to reaffirm they are on the right track, help them by pointing our examples and results, by assisting them to keep their cool when the battle is hard, by pointing out that it’s ok to be perceived as a bit “out-there” or flower-power-y by those who don’t understand the numbers behind high performance and in general provide a strong role-model;

It’s ongoing and never “done” - you wouldn’t expect to spend a year building muscles and building your physique and then stop going to the gym and hope it holds, there’s no reason to believe that a beneficial team state that sports a Psychologically Safe and high performing dynamic will last in the absence of regular work either.?Like our fitness journeys, the people-work is never finished;

Here’s the good news though - it gets easier with time once there’s a real people-work habit for everyone and it is stupendously rewarding. Nothing like the addictive feeling of knowing you have helped create a better life for your team and everyone’s life is better off thanks to it.

We make no qualms that the people work is easy but it is certainly worth it.

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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are:?Understand,?Measure?and?Improve

Read more about our Team Dashboard that measures and improves Psychological Safety at?www.peoplenottech.com?or reach out at?[email protected]?and let's help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.

To order the "People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age" book go to this Amazon link