I got into the idea of deliberately developmental organizations. Are DDOs a good idea? I still think probably yes, but they’re easy to get wrong. What’s important is that I spent a lot of time thinking about and then experimenting with ways to affect the culture of the organization and thereby understanding how organizations work.
What have you found in your experiments, in terms of what helps or hurts in developing DDO culture?
Lots of people are pretty suspicious of doing things that are too much like direct positive psychology work. They have their own traumas and hang ups about these sort of things and are pretty opposed to anything that looks even vaguely like group therapy. You can only do that kind of stuff if you’re the leader and you’re willing to have people quit over it (and, similarly, going forward are willing to use it as a differentiator when hiring).
What helps is just doing everyday things to create psychological safety. Listen to people. Don’t tease and taunt, even though this normally serves as a bonding activity. You can do it, but only very judiciously with people you know already feel secure and even then don’t do it in front of the people who aren’t secure. If you see other people doing things that will make others feel less psychologically safe, push back to make the workplace safer. Psychological safety is the foundation needed for development to happen.
Create space for people to try things and fail. Encourage people to take on tasks outside their comfort zone. Give them something like 70% work that they can succeed and at 30% work that they might fail at but will learn something trying. Let people have ownership and give them time to act on it. If they don’t after months, nudge them. Give them ideas. Encourage them to go out on a limb. Explicitly tell them they’re safe and you won’t hold it against them.
What have you found in your experiments, in terms of what helps or hurts in developing DDO culture?
Lots of people are pretty suspicious of doing things that are too much like direct positive psychology work. They have their own traumas and hang ups about these sort of things and are pretty opposed to anything that looks even vaguely like group therapy. You can only do that kind of stuff if you’re the leader and you’re willing to have people quit over it (and, similarly, going forward are willing to use it as a differentiator when hiring).
What helps is just doing everyday things to create psychological safety. Listen to people. Don’t tease and taunt, even though this normally serves as a bonding activity. You can do it, but only very judiciously with people you know already feel secure and even then don’t do it in front of the people who aren’t secure. If you see other people doing things that will make others feel less psychologically safe, push back to make the workplace safer. Psychological safety is the foundation needed for development to happen.
Create space for people to try things and fail. Encourage people to take on tasks outside their comfort zone. Give them something like 70% work that they can succeed and at 30% work that they might fail at but will learn something trying. Let people have ownership and give them time to act on it. If they don’t after months, nudge them. Give them ideas. Encourage them to go out on a limb. Explicitly tell them they’re safe and you won’t hold it against them.