Psychological Safety Is the Best Productivity Hack

If you believe that we need great new ideas to solve the major problems in our society and grow as a species and as individuals, then I propose that feeling Psychologically Safe at work, and having trust in our Public Systems and Institutions, is vital.  We may be able to survive without safety and trust, but we will never thrive without them.

Why is trust important?  Especially public trust?  When you trust a person or a system, you get to turn off your internal “virus scanner”.  When we can turn that off, we can use that freed up mental energy for better things.  We need to be able to turn off our internal virus scanner because some of the things that we’re going to need to do to move forward as a species will require 100% of our brains in a complete flow state as often as possible.

This is why Psychological Safety is the single most important factor in a workplace and, as I’m coming to see, in virtually any other type of relationship.  Trust and psychological safety are central and vital because some things in our lives require “100% of our brains” to solve, so to speak. Which means our full focus and attention in a relaxed state.  Anytime that we feel unsafe it means that some of our brain and body power is devoted to looking for threats and watching our back.

While this is good for survival, it means that we are a lot less creative and productive mentally, and it leaves us feeling drained and exhausted and unpleasant at the end of the day. So really it attacks both the experience and the point of being at work.  When we have safety, and we feel like we can let our guard down, we can then activate the “Broaden and Build” mental system, which means solving problems in creative ways that help more people with fewer drawbacks or sometimes even no drawbacks if the idea is particularly elegant.  (Think of the great ideas you have when you’re relaxing in the shower.  That’s the Broaden and Build system at work.  Quick, write those ideas down!)

But this system isn’t activated until I feel completely safe. If I even have to devote one percent of my energy to watching my back or watching what I say for any reason, it shuts down that system. Are you like this as well?

It’s like a sewage analogy I heard recently:

If you add 1 teaspoon of soup into a bucket of sewage, what do you call it? Sewage.

If you add 1 teaspoon of sewage into a bucket of soup, what do you call it? Sewage.

And you don’t eat it.  You reject it.  Safety and trust are like that.

Perhaps this is why the Public Trust is so important and so fragile as well. You can’t treat trust and mistrust like a ratio with an acceptable limit. It’s all or nothing.  Either you feel safe, or you do not feel safe. And the results are also all or nothing. Either you lower your guard and relax and all the wonderful gifts you have come flowing out, or you’re watching your back and watching what you say and second-guessing everything you do before and after you do it, and the Broaden and Build system is completely deactivated.

It is sometimes useful to measure the intensity of a fight or flight or anxiety reaction. (In a toxic work environment one might feel “95% unsafe and anxious”). There is great value in finding ways to calm down these anxieties.  If I can bring my anxiety from 95% down to 40% that represents a great deal of relief for me. But relief from pain and attainment of pleasure are two different things.  Avoiding harm and attaining growth are two different things.  Reduction in anxiety and feeling safe are related, but not exactly the same thing.

The Broaden and Build system is necessary if we are going to solve the major problems of our society and our own personal lives and have the best relationships we possibly can. We need the Broaden and Build system activated more often as a society so that we can solve the problems of life and experience the purpose of life, (certainly one of the purposes!)  To connect and experience pleasure and excitement and a have feeling of growth and progress.

Fight or flight helps us survive in hostile environments.  Broaden and Build helps us create environments with less hostility. And they feel good and they’re fun and they make you look forward to getting up in the morning, which I think might be another point of life.

Since Broaden and Build is vital for growth, it’s important to know that a little bit of distrust or non-safety is enough to completely shut down that system. The door to that world of ideas and solutions just blinks out of existence in an instant.  Like blowing out a candle.  Can you relate?

If I’m in a staff meeting and I feel very safe, lots of great ideas will likely start coming out, ideas that perhaps no one else had thought of.  If we’re stuck on a problem, this is just what we need.

Then I go “too far” and end up saying something really “out there” or wildly inappropriate (usually as I seize an opportunity to make a joke, an irresistible urge sometimes!).  People shoot me looks.  Strange looks, concerned looks, annoyed looks, and that’s it!  The safety disappears, The flow of ideas gets cut off, and I immediately start backpedaling.  Stammering out an apology or rapidly changing the subject, all the while feeling shame. And honestly, that is usually the last time that I’m able to come up with ideas for that group, or, if I do come up with great ideas, I keep quiet about them.

A teaspoon of sewage turns any amount of soup into sewage.

Another (less yucky) metaphor for feeling unsafe is that of a poorly designed virus scanner. One that takes up too much of the computer’s resources to look for threats.  You’ve all used them.  We won’t name names, but we all know which ones we’re talking about here.  J

Virtually everyone who has worked with computers, especially older or less expensive computers, has experienced a slowdown of their whole system once a virus scanner was either installed or upgraded. More than once in my life I was looking for an antivirus program for an older computer, and I found that commercial antiviruses slowed that computer to a crawl.  (Think clicking an app and then going to make a coffee because you know you have time before the computer responds.  Might as well make some toast too!)

The virus scanner was so concerned with looking for threats that it ended up destroying the very thing that it was there to protect; my productivity and my easy use of the computer. Because complete online safety is still impossible (lots of malware out there), I would look for the most basic, lean version of a virus scanner and combine with wise browsing and email habits. In the case of our computers, the best that we can do is to minimize the impact of the virus scanner.  And maybe this is why we accept a margin of unsafety and mistrust in our workplaces and public institutions and officials.

And this is my point about trusting our systems. If we could trust that our doctors weren’t trying to push pills on us, we would see them for more preventative care. But there’s no money in prevention. If we could trust that 100% of our tax money was being used for great things and to markedly ease the suffering of people and advance our country, we would more happily pay taxes, instead of disgustedly.  However, we have no idea if the money is being used for good, or if we’re helping the friend of a politician land a contract and buy a 3^rd yacht.

Imagine how much time, energy and stress could be freed up if computer malware ceased to exist.  The computing power saved alone could be significant.  Think of how much more productive and happier you are when you feel safe.  Better performance with less cost, mentally and emotionally.

The benefits of trust and safety are enormous. Anything less than complete trust leaves us fighting each other in survival mode. It’s very easy to lose trust, as an individual or an organization, and there is no “losing it just a little bit“. You either got it or you don’t. And if you don’t got it, you should work hard to try to get it back. Because without trust, nothing great is possible.  With trust…completely relaxing and letting the ideas flow, what could be possible?

Maybe I’ll have a nice long shower and think about that.

AI and Automation: People Make Terrible Robots

It’s not just “what jobs will be lost?” but what lives will be found?

We’re Not Just Bad at Robotic Work — We’re Built for Something Else

Humans make terrible robots. We’re inconsistent, emotional, easily distracted, prone to fatigue, and we absolutely hate doing the same thing every day. Compared to a machine, we’re not just inefficient — we’re inevitably inefficient.

Even the most focused among us break down under the weight of sustained repetition. And when we fail in these roles — as receptionists, customer service agents, warehouse pickers, even paralegals — it’s not just a matter of poor performance. It’s a misuse of human hardware. We’re not wired for this. Our cognitive design is exploratory, adaptive, and improvisational. That’s the opposite of what repetitive jobs require.

And here’s the kicker: the people in these roles know it too. You can hear it in their voices. Stress. Frustration. Miscommunication. Burnout. That’s not personal failure — that’s a systemic mismatch between role and species.

Work That Demands Robotic Consistency Damages Us

There’s a kind of job that asks humans to suppress their very nature. These are jobs that reward mechanical repetition over creativity, consistency over insight, and endurance over intuition. Whether it’s typing, lifting, copy-pasting, fielding calls, or endlessly scheduling — this isn’t human work. It’s simulation. And the cost is real.

Physically, repetitive work breaks down our bodies. Mentally, it leads to disassociation and chronic stress. Emotionally, it disconnects us from meaning. Even resilience has a cost — just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

We put humans into these roles because, for decades, there was no better option. Now there is.

Let the Robots Be Robots

AI and automation are not just better at robotic work — they want it. Not in the way that people want things, of course, but in the sense that they were designed for it. Their ideal day is repetition. Their nature is consistency. They are the hammer that never misses, the clock that never slips, the operator who never sighs or gets sick or needs to pee.

Letting AI do these jobs is not surrendering something precious — it’s returning an unnatural burden we never should’ve carried. These jobs were always a mismatch for our species. They made us smaller, meaner, more tired, and — in some ways — less human.

Handing these roles over to AI isn’t just an upgrade. It’s a mercy. For them, it’s a task. For us, it was a trap.

 

And now, the inevitable next question:

 

What Will We Do When the Machines Take Over the Work We Were Never Built For?

This is the question trembling under every debate about automation. It’s not just “what jobs will be lost?” but what lives will be found?

Because if we stop forcing humans to act like robots… we might actually remember how to be human again.

Will we learn? Will we play more? Connect more? Will we create, invent, support, heal, laugh, explore? Will we finally have the time and space to do what humans do best — everything except act like machines?

Or will we panic at the loss of structure and productivity metrics, and flail in the silence?

No one knows. But I believe this much: the work we were never built for is collapsing. And that’s not just inevitable. It’s necessary.