Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

by Aaron Dignan

Creating space means ensuring that everyone on the team is committed to taking risks together and supporting one another. As wonderful as your culture may be, it’s best to assume that some people in your organization don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe to be themselves. They don’t feel safe to tell the truth. They don’t feel safe to fail. Even if you think they’ve got it wrong—you and your team have work to do to make it right. Ask people in the organization about the consequences of taking risks. Listen not just to what they say but to how they say it. And then begin to change the dynamic. Let people see risk taking and failure recognized and rewarded. Let them see empathy. Let them see inclusion. Creating space also means making time for change. Because most teams simply don’t have it. They are constantly being asked to one-up themselves, delivering more and more performance in the never-ending quest for growth. But they’re juggling too many balls. To make up for what is effectively a dysfunctional operating system, they’ve had to adopt an unsustainable pace of work. Long days. Few breaks. And so most teams are one emergency away from total exhaustion.

Take time. Reflect. Make better decisions by questioning what works, how things feel, how you all feel.