Emotional hygiene on teams
Why "helping" can weaken your team
“Messy Humans” is a love story to all the people I have worked with in various agile environments. The analytical thinkers, insecure geniuses, passionate creatives, inundated middle managers, posturing wannabes, nervous new scrum masters, and proud leaders feeling their oats or making big bets. The never-ending flow of people new to both software and agile methods, who so quickly decide they understand, then realize they don’t, and then spend years fumbling around until “something clicks” into place… well, it never ends.
On a good day, working in software feels like a large cocktail party. On a bad day, because of all the messy humans with competing needs, it’s more like a tense protest march.
Since I came to coaching with PTSD-induced hyper-vigilance, interacting with all these varied folks was really intense for me, until I got a little better at closing up my porous boundaries. Coach training and experience have helped a lot with this, and now I can sit back sometimes and appreciate the dance. So today, I want to share a little about what this dual perspective of hyper-empathy and objective distance reveals—especially about what power you have to influence people. Or not.
Why talking about psychological safety isn’t enough
At this point, nearly everyone who works in a corporate environment has heard about and discussed psychological safety on teams. Harvard scholar Amy Edmondson made a splash with her research, which built on the work of psychologists over the past 70 years. Amongst other valuable contributions, she found a strong correlation (not causation) between psychological safety and high-performing teams.
As Edmondson puts it, psychological safety is “felt permission for candor.” This means the team feels it’s OK to take risks, to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences.
Sounds great. But talking about it doesn’t make it so.
Be honest: When was the last time you worked in an environment where it felt safe to speak openly about risky things, every day?
When we’re talking about how to “create high-performing teams,” we’re often really asking “How to do I make other adult humans behave differently for the benefit of the organization?” I hope that phrase gives you a little touch of the heebie-jeebies. Not only is it controlling (“make” suggests force), but it is disrespectful (adults are responsible for their own selves, thank you).
This doesn’t mean we can’t encourage, request, inspire, set expectations, and engage in other behaviors that help people find their way. But since work is fundamentally a trade of time for compensation, we often go astray thinking that people need to do what they’re told, and we start trying to push people in a particular direction — because “the company / boss / market requires it.”
Admit it. You’ve had these urges. I know I have. We’re all messy.
More about behavior
And it gets even more complicated. Even if we actually had it, psychological safety alone wouldn’t necessarily create high-functioning teams. Remember, it’s a correlation, not causation.
Recent research suggests more forces at play, particularly behavioral integration.1 This means the team engages with mutual collaboration, rich and accurate information-sharing, and shared ownership in the decisions being made. Intuitively, you can see this is a more direct path to better outcomes than just talking about risky things — and it applies to all sorts of teams in complex environments, whether software, HR, marketing, or management. Psychological safety is a (significant) helper along the way.
The integration of behaviors — I imagine a well-trained soccer team or group of dancers in a ballroom — is a group-level phenomenon. As such, the things people do in the moment to adapt are always shifting a bit and it’s likely to look different in different groups.
With just a little imagination, you can see that people working in parallel on relatively discrete tasks are not going to get there. In fact, they may not need it at all. This is why we call this a work group, not a team.
Soapbox moment: If you are leading or coaching a group of people working on discrete tasks, please stop wasting their time by talking about psychological safety. This probably also means stop spinning tales by pretending that “inspect and adapt” is anything more than micromanagement. The intent of inspect and adapt in agile is to help a team as a whole integrate feedback and — as a whole — use their collective intelligence to figure out how to adapt to new information or changing conditions. A work group doesn’t have the needed social and emotional structure to do that effectively.
And now for emotional hygiene
The term “emotional hygiene” is one I thought I made up, but you can find it all over the interwebs. Generally, it refers to being tuned in to and taking care of your own emotional health. Now that I’ve had decades of working with teams and because of what happened at my kitchen table when I was growing up2, I extend this idea to team dynamics.
Team-level emotional hygiene is about understanding and actively managing our place in an emotional social system. From my perspective, few of us engage in these behaviors at work, and we pay the price.
Everyone reading this has probably felt the impact of someone else acting out their feelings in a group. It could be anger, fear, sadness, or passion — but generally, it impacts everyone else in the room. Often, the person acting out feels justified behaving the way they do. They may have been raised to believe that intense expression is ok, or that they have a right to be heard, or that excitement is fun. They may be emotionally flooded and not have much skill holding back. They might believe that someone else is being inappropriate and needs to be corrected. They might be testing out their new positional power. Or perhaps they have a “bouncy brain” like mine, or a highly analytical brain, or a strong need to protect others from unfairness.
See yourself here, by any chance? Sure you do, Messy.
But if we’re trying to accomplish that delicious feeling and productive power of a group of humans collectively solving problems, we can’t have too many episodes of people acting out. The cost to teamwork is too high.
People are perpetually in conflict
At work, we’re balancing a lot of needs, and they’re often in conflict: The need for basic mutual respect from / for our co-workers, the need to feel competent, the need to please our bosses, the need to fulfill our ambitions, the need to get sh*te done, the need to collect a paycheck to feed ourselves and our Pomeranians. We also have fundamental needs to belong and feel like the many hours we put into work are meaningfully spent. Add to that differences in personality, upbringing (what’s polite), gender (socialized and hormonal), generation (often tied to work ethic), professional discipline (who knows what), and how our bodies handle stress.
On a team or within an organization, this means we’re living 40+ hours a week in a tangle of conflicting desires. Professional decorum is insufficient, if what we want is community and high-performing teams.
So how do we balance those needs for ourselves AND for our teams?
Role modeling and destigmatization
Teams practicing emotional hygiene handle stress better, navigate conflicts smoothly, and build strong, cohesive relationships. In team practice, emotional hygiene focuses on ongoing self-awareness, other-awareness, and proactive relationship maintenance. It means regular check-ins and addressing emotional reactions promptly. It involves being attuned to teammates' emotional states and responding with empathy.
Embracing emotional hygiene means committing to personal growth and proactive mental and emotional health. But remember that bit about not “making” other adults behave in new ways? As a leader or coach, you can’t force this. Your best hope is influence and cultivation, For this, your best tools are role modeling, removing the stigma, thoughtful feedback (with permission), and setting clear expectations.
Great things to role model
Talk openly about team dynamics
Yeah, I know, this probably makes your throat tighten up. But don’t make it hard. Phrases like “We take care of each other as a team so we can work well” can have a huge impact.
Also, ask an agile coach. They have been facilitating team working agreement sessions for decades, generally without injury. The best of those include behavioral agreements that answer questions like “How will we move forward in a healthy way when we disagree?” or “What makes you feel respected / disrespected?”
In the moment, asking a question from genuine curiosity can also open up a healthy conversation: “I think I’m noticing some tension. Do I have that right?” Follow that with “Can you help me understand?”
Self-awareness
When talking, I monitor my body's signals—tight jaw, chest ache, foggy vision—as indicators of emotional reactions. Recognizing these signs, I breathe, relax, or touch something to ground myself. If the situation is appropriate, I will openly say “I’m having a reaction to that. Could we slow down a bit to make sure I’m really getting what you mean? I know you mean well.”
Soothing internal noise
Turning down the volume on our inner voices allows us to tune into what other people are experiencing. This is a crucial ingredient in collaboration and group problem-solving because it helps ensure people stay engaged because they’re being heard.
Modeling this is powerful because people really feel it. If I can quiet my own internal noise, or at least tuck it away safely for the moment, my ability to empathize increases. I can focus better on how are they receiving what I'm saying, based on eye contact, body language, or just "feeling."
This is not about "hiding" my feelings or "pretending"—it’s about finding genuine calm and quiet within myself. This process can still be done with authenticity. In fact, it’s crucial to do so.
Act quickly
Don’t let things sit: Emotional hygiene also involves addressing issues as they arise. In the same way you brush your teeth regularly, it's important for the team to check in on your relationships and do any needed cleanup. In my experience, this cleanup goes better if you show up a little vulnerable and share your authentic experience (without blame). Once they have seen it from you, you can invite others to do the same.
Do NOT rescue people
There’s a whole lot to talk about here, not the least of which is the Karpman Drama Triangle.3 You don’t need to read about the triangle to recognize the Rescuer's line: "Let me help you."
The desire to “help” others at work is built into some roles, most notably manager, scrum master, coach, and team lead. If you ever talk about “helping the team,” take heed: you may be disempowering them. It all depends on whether you’re helping them because they are “victims” or not.
A classic enabler, a Rescuer helping a Victim feels guilty if they do not go to the rescue, and ultimately becomes angry as their help fails to achieve change. Sometimes they learned this behavior from their family or origin, but frankly, there’s enough free-floating destructive emotional behavior in our culture that people can just learn it through osmosis.
Another soapbox moment: If you as leader or coach consistently step in the middle of conflict to protect people from each other, you’re probably playing “Rescuer” and are actively hampering their ability to learn new behaviors. Cut it out.
Regardless of it’s origin, rescuing has negative effects: it keeps people dependent and doesn't allow them to fail and experience the consequences of their choices. You can help people by catalyzing their learning instead.
I love hearing your genuine thoughts, responses, and reactions. Make ‘em messy, humans!
“The Relationship between Psychological Safety and Management Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Behavioral Integration” Mogård, Rørstad, and Bang, Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan; 20(1): 406. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9819141
As I was growing up, my brilliant and hard-working single mom went through a BA in psychology, an MA in counseling, and thousands of supervised clinical hours that are required to become a licensed psychotherapist. She started working with battered women and ended up in a university counseling center, working with both individual clients and crisis situations.
My sister and I grew up as my mom grew professionally, so psychology was part of our upbringing. At family meetings, we had puppets to represent each of our ego states (child, adult, parent). We talked about our feelings and boundaries all the time. We talked about why other people behave the way they do. And as I got older, I heard age-appropriate stories about battered women, people with personality disorders, and some of the ins-and-outs of diagnosis and treatment. That and my own PTSD led me to a life-long curiosity and pursuit of classes in social psychology, abnormal psychology, animal behavior, neuroscience, adult learning, and team building.
My take-away: Damn, humans are messy, especially in groups.
I'm not sure how to leave a messy comment, as you requested in the email that pulled me here. In my experience all the messy human stuff is easy to forget about when pressure is high and deadlines are looming for delivering "stuff". I often wonder if we put the human stuff on too high a pedestal as well. Does one really need decades of training in psychology, counseling or coaching to be a good listener and to be curious about the experience of fellow humans? I sometimes think not. But what do I know?