What If Your Slack Got Wikileaked?

Picture this: imagine that whatever you and your team use for private communication (Slack, Teams, long rambling email threads, texts, etc.) became public knowledge. And when I mean public, I don't only mean to other internal team members, but also clients, prospects, job candidates, etc.

Yes, even Charlie. He's...horrified. And hurt.

That mental image that's giving you the willies is an uncomfortable truth: a huge part of our work life happens in the gap between what we really think and what we actually say.

This gap, if made public, isn't just a PR nightmare. It's a silent tax that a lack of candor places on teams every single day:

• The great idea that never gets shared because someone- and probably not the most "important" person in the room- was afraid of looking foolish.
• The simmering frustration with a process that never gets fixed because no one wants to be the complainer or the complaint-fixer.
• The gentle feedback that's swallowed, and then swallowed again, and continues to snowball into a choking hazard.

Wonks like me call this "psychological safety." It's a broad abstract term for feeling safe to take risks and be vulnerable. It's an important ingredient to a high-functioning agency, but it's also kinda broad and abstract.

The thought experiment from above, though, feels pretty visceral. That image of Charlie going home alone, crying into his pint of Brownie Brownie Batter ice cream, is a very real example of what happens when you lose psychological safety.

To be clear, this isn't about policing your private thoughts. It's about consciously deciding to cross the unspoken boundary between private opinion and public awareness, constructively. It’s about building a culture where candor is not an act of conflict, but an act of trust.

It's saying, "Can I offer a different perspective on that?" or "I'm concerned about this part of the project, can we talk it through?" or even, "I’m feeling overwhelmed and need support."

When we build teams where feedback is a gift and honesty is the default, we don’t have to worry about what’s being said in the DMs. The important conversations are already happening out in the open, making the work better, the team stronger, and the agency more resilient.

Charlie is still going to need to hear the difficult feedback. However, the difference between Charlie "unintentionally discovering" and you "intentionally sharing to help us all improve" is incredible. At least one pint of ice cream different.

What’s the one thing you’ve thought but never said out loud to your colleagues? The one piece of feedback, the one idea, the one concern that stayed in your head?

I've shared a confessional of mine on LinkedIn about how I should have spoken up but didn't...and then I did and screwed up again. Join me in the comments, unburden your soul, and share your own story. You might be surprised how alone you aren't.

A TL;DR from the CRO

Dan, I have some difficult feedback I need to share...I hate wearing the clothes you put on me.

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer

TL;DR From the Archive: The Comprehensive Guide To Resetting A Team Culture

Has the invisible psychological safety boundary grown too large at your agency? Perhaps it's time to unplug your business, blow out the dust in the cartridge, and reset your team culture. Get started by crafting a Leadership Mandate.

ROCK TUMBLING UPDATE

Don't tell my partner while she's on a vacation in Ireland that I bought a display case for my dumb rocks.

One night, after some whiskey, I decided that if I was going to go true Rock Nerd then I needed something better than a tupperware for my collection of cool rocks. These are noble, entrancing, crystalline examples of Earth's geological beauty and they're sitting helter-skelter in an ugly bin underneath a coffeetable.

Such disrespect.

With that in mind, I made my first Temu purchase: a simple acrylic display case.

It arrived this week and I'm trying to figure out how to best arrange my collection. Do I get display stands? Should I arrange a Before/After of tumbled stones? What do I do with my non-tumbled minerals: do I display them in the same case or do I need to buy another one? What about labels?!

I have five more days to figure this out before she sees what I did to our bookshelf.

TL;DR- I'm eagerly accepting tips for display case organizing schemas.

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Furiously re-organizing,

Dan from Learn to Scale

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PS. Strap in, this roller coaster is Defying Gravity