The [un]common stuff that lives between strategy and execution, that teams don’t talk about.
Your first read every Wednesday morning, meant to be applied and forwarded.
I continuously get asked why teams won't speak up in meetings, why the best ideas stay quiet or why talented people who used to lean in now sit back and wait to be told.
Leaders are building out psychological safety seminars, running engagement surveys, and creating open forums, but nothing's changing.
The best leadership teams recognize that four kinds of security have to exist before psychological safety can be real. Without them, you're asking people to be vulnerable on unstable ground.
TL;DR:
When people feel secure, energy goes toward the work.
When they don't, energy goes toward self-protection.
Read that again! If time is tight this morning, download this 4 lenses of Security infographic: SPARK - Security - The Venned Group.png and then take our free Security Pulse Check to see where your energy or your team's energy is going.
Plus, find a special event offer at the end of this email!
Your team is evaluating security through four lenses right now, whether you realize it or not:
- Mental Security: Can I think clearly here?
Your manager adds three new priorities to the five you're already juggling without telling you which two to drop. Leadership changes direction every quarter but still holds people accountable to last quarter's goals. Your best people stop making calls because they've learned the ground keeps moving. Stabilize this and decisions start happening at the right level. People stop escalating everything. Your senior leaders get out of the weeds.
- Emotional Security: Can I be honest here without relational punishment?
Someone raises a concern in a meeting and gets a defensive response. Everyone else in the room just learned something. Feedback gets met with passive aggression for the next two weeks. People stop offering feedback. The real meeting starts happening after the meeting. Stabilize this and conflict surfaces early enough to actually solve something. The parking lot conversation moves into the room. Your leadership team starts operating like a team.
- Physical Security: Can my body sustainably operate here?
The culture celebrates the person who answered emails on vacation. Timelines get set based on what's aspirational rather than what's sustainable. Your managers are sprinting until something breaks. The people who care the most burn out first. Stabilize this and performance becomes sustainable. People bring focus instead of exhaustion. Your best talent stops quietly looking elsewhere.
- Financial Security: Can I trust the organization enough to focus on my work?
There's been two rounds of layoffs but leadership keeps saying "we're in a strong position." People stop believing anything. Budgets get slashed but expectations stay the same. People spend meeting time calculating their market value instead of focusing on the strategy you're trying to execute. Stabilize this and people start taking smart risks again, innovation returns and your team moves like they own the place because they finally feel safe enough to.
What Stabilizing Actually Looks Like
Any one of these four securities gets threatened, energy shifts to self-protection. The way you redirect that energy back to the work isn't through better communication techniques. It's through stabilizing the foundation first.
- Is mental security shaky? Stop adding more priorities and start clarifying which three things actually matter this quarter. Give people permission to deprioritize the rest. Make the trade-offs explicit instead of asking them to guess.
- Is emotional security shaky? Address your own defensiveness before asking your team to be more candid. Name the pattern out loud: "I know I've gotten defensive in the past. I'm working on that. I need you to keep raising concerns anyway." Make it safe by going first.
- Is physical security shaky? Reset timelines based on what's sustainable, not what's aspirational. Stop celebrating the person who worked through vacation and start celebrating the person who delivered excellent work within reasonable hours. Model the behaviour you're asking for.
- Is financial security shaky? Tell people what you know about the business reality, even when it's uncomfortable. Give them the context they need to make decisions. Stop pretending everything is fine when everyone can feel that it isn't.
The question shouldn't be how to get people to speak up, but which area of your team's foundation you need to shore up first, so they have the capacity to.
I've put together a Security Pulse Check that tells you exactly where you or your team sit on the security scale right now, and a one-page framework that shows you what strengthening each one actually looks like in practice. It takes about 7 minutes and gives you a clear picture of where to focus.
Download the Security cheatsheet here: SPARK - Security - The Venned Group.png
Take the Security Pulse Check here!
Shore up the foundation and the rest will follow!
Kendra
Ps. If you're getting into digital transformation within your organization, join me and a number of amazing speakers to hear their success with automated systems, AI, CRMs and more! Visit https://dxmomentum.com/ and get your free friends of TVG ticket using code VENNED.
See you there!
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