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Comment by altras | Hacker News Reader

This is rather interesting, thanks for the feedback!

I suppose you never participated in support groups, mastermind groups or others where there's psychologically[1] safe space for "opening up"?

I agree that if not done properly it will become creepy and insignificant and will burden the meeting making it toxic :(

So I suppose in your teams you rely on 1:1 conversations but aren't you afraid of guarding[2] too much information this way?

[1] https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_silo

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not the OP, but a second opinion from someone with the same reaction -

1) "safe spaces" for emotions is inherently at odds with corporate culture, point blank. They exist to use you. They pay you, you provide them a service and/or your time as written in the contract. It is in your best interest to not be the nail that sticks out from the wood if you wish to keep the money coming because ultimately the power exchange lies heavily with them.

2) I don't do support groups, though this is more of a personal decision. Keeping vulnerable facets of my life completely air-gapped from cash flow and from other untrusted and un-vetted individuals has never failed me.

Now - water cooler-ish 1:1's a la "hey, you hanging in there?" can be done with tact and sincerity by select individuals if there's a previous rapport. But there is an art to sniffing out whether it's meant with a sincere no-bullshit-humanity-centric angle, versus "can we optimize this individual's output" angle. It's demeaning to think one can be the other.

You nailed my feelings on the matter - I love the concept of 'air-gapping' as applied to personal truths here.

Precisely.

Thanks for the eye-opener! :bow: I'm far away from corporate culture as I'm part of a cooperative[1] so I appreciate your knowledge and your time to share it ️

[1] https://camplight.net/

Information about the private emotional states of my team members is precisely the sort of information I'm supposed to be guarding, and work is not a safe space for opening up. If they wish to share frustrations with process, the state of their morale, etc, in a group setting, there is no problem. But frankly, if they found out I was keeping a log of how they were feeling day to day over the course of working with me, I would hope they would have the self-respect to confront me and then leave.

It's inappropriate to keep emotional dossiers on your co-workers and I can't imagine that "for their benefit" is anywhere near the median use case for a tool like this.

What guarantees would someone have that this information would not be shared, intentionally or not, with interested third parties in the future?

Thanks for taking the time to write and authentically share your point-of-view :bow: ️ I deduce that you don't have some process in your team for increasing the team's EQ other than 1:1 conversations? But you have a process for sharing frustrations/morale/etc. in your group? Do you do it usually in your weekly meetings or it piles up and it's discussed in some kind of reflection meeting?

for the record: I agree that if there's no consensus from the team to volunteer to create habits for psychological safety, it will become a recipe for disaster if it's made mandatory. People will leave, lie or disengage totally.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with this as well. I've struggled with my mental health and had days where I could barely drag myself into the office. If this were implemented at my company, I would have spent the better part of a month beginning these meetings with 'well, I'm experiencing near-constant despair.'

Afraid of guarding? My mental state is my own business. I may choose to share it with my manager or my coworkers (in fact, I have), but to have it become a required part of a meeting? No. No. No. Especially on a remote team where I just don't know the other people. This is not the right way to build rapport.

It's telling that so many of the comments on this post at the time of my writing are negative. Please heed them.

And please keep in mind that as the team lead, or manager, or whatever your role is, there is a power imbalance. People will not have an easy time saying no to this activity, even if they want to.

I think that this angle can't be stressed enough. People's emotional state is part of their health, and, like any other health-related issue, it is never appropriate for one's employer to ask about it.

I would honestly feel more comfortable with my employer taking everyone's vitals at the start of a meeting, because physical health is so much less stigmatized than mental health.

Yup, I've read every semicolon in this thread, very thoughtful comments and I'm deeply grateful for people sharing their experiences. I couldn't ask for more :pray:

It struck me that you don't know your remote peers. In what setting are you working? I suppose you have a physical office with colleagues and a remote extension of teams with whom you occasionally collaborate?

about my role: I'm part of a digital cooperative and we too have power imbalances but not that direct as in a hierarchy. Our power dynamics stem from seniority but we all volunteered 2-3 years ago to do something about our team mental state and we're continuing to do it. Now it's part of the culture and this, of course, will alienate newcomers who dislike deeper harmonization but at the same time, it's strengthening the core team. Like everything, it has pros and cons :D

Consider also: I might feel a certain way and not want to let people know; but my face / expression / other nonverbal cues might let people know that's the situation without giving them further information. How can you convey a feeling of guardedness without declaring it? Declaring it would violate your own feeling of not wanting to declare your feelings.

Also, when you've declared something explicitly, you're now tied to it. Emotions are fluid and changing; nobody wants to have to establish some artifact, some fencepost of where they're at and then be tethered to it for the entire conversation.

You cannot make a "safe space" just by declaring it. You have to actually do the emotional labor of visibly understanding someone's individual perspective and building over time a particular type of trust: The trust that you are going to gracefully handle even their unreasonable emotions.

Expecting to do that before every meeting with your employees just makes you sound like an aerospace engineer who's never hear of "O-rings".

Those groups are voluntary, which you join if you are in the need for opening up, and you know everyone else joined for the same reasons. It's totally different from a work team.

A support group will always be at odds with an employment situation, the motives are inherently disaligned. "Not being emotionally overexposed" absolutely does not equate to "hiding information", that's ridiculous.

If my boss would arrive in a support group or some other psychologically safe space for "opening up" then that would be a gross violation of the environment prerequisites that's required for that group/space to function properly - one of us would have to leave.

It would be like like bringing a parent or spouse to psychotherapy (pair/relationshop therapy is structurally different) - that simple presence automatically destroys the possibility to "open up" properly.

Funny enough...I go to support groups (not really) for support, and I go to work for work.

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