I had the honor of sharing my learnings about psychological safety and thriving yesterday at the Northwest Diversity Learning Series. This blog goes a little deeper on why it’s impossible to unlock the benefits of DEI without psychological safety.
The benefits of DEI cannot be realized without a commitment to ensure psychological safety.
I’ll never forget that day. I was asked to coach the leaders of a fairly large team. I introduced the idea of psychological safety. I’d talked with a number of team members and it was clear to me that the team had an opportunity to improve psychological safety. I convinced everyone to try a psychological safety retrospective. The anonymous results were deeply troubling..this team was definitely not psychologically safe.
One member had courageously posted an anonymous item. They indicated that what hindered safety was a fear of being alone in the office, a fear that their physical safety was at risk because they’d previously received verbal threats because of the color of their skin. The research is clear. When a teammate doesn’t feel safe it literally reduces IQ…sometimes by as much as 50%! Because of this person’s courage the leaders were able to see a previously invisible problem, enabling them to act.
The leaders took swift action with HR, and committed to regularly conduct psychological safety retrospectives with a core commitment to achieve 100% psychological safety. If it weren’t for the willingness of these leaders to ask about psychological safety, this employee’s voice would have never been heard, their physical and psychological safety wouldn’t have improved, and their ability to fully contribute and bring their perspective would have been lost.
The benefits of DEI cannot be realized without a commitment to ensure psychological safety.
Psychological safety is a critical component in the workplace that allows individuals to express themselves without fear of negative consequences to their self-image, status, or career. This concept is especially important when considering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, as it can significantly enhance the effectiveness of these programs.
Diversity is the presence of differences within a given setting. In the workplace, this means having a team composed of people with varying characteristics, including but not limited to race, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural background. Equity involves ensuring fair treatment, equality of opportunity, and fairness in access to information and resources for all. Lastly, Inclusion is the practice of creating environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued.
An environment of psychological safety fosters a culture where employees feel comfortable being themselves, which is essential for DEI to thrive. When employees don’t fear being judged or penalized for their ideas or questions, they are more likely to participate in discussions and contribute unique perspectives that can drive innovation and growth.
Research has shown that psychological safety allows for more creativity and innovation since each employee feels safe to voice new ideas. It also increases employees’ commitment to their organization, therefore increasing the retention of employees. Communication, engagement, and the sharing of knowledge improve too when psychological safety is present in the workplace. Employees tend to become more open to learning, including learning from failure since their failures are not held against them.
Creating psychological safety in a DEI context means valuing diversity and actively working to include all voices in decision-making processes. It requires leaders to acknowledge their own biases and work to create an environment where those biases do not inhibit the contributions of others. Leaders must also be willing to listen and respond to the concerns of their employees, creating a dialogue that promotes mutual respect and understanding.
Implementing psychological safety within DEI initiatives can lead to a more positive, open-minded, and better-performing workplace. It can help in breaking down barriers that prevent marginalized groups from fully participating in the workplace. Moreover, it can lead to higher levels of employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention.
To foster psychological safety, organizations can start by training leaders and managers on its importance and how to cultivate it. They can also encourage employees to speak up without fear of retribution, and ensure that there are channels available for them to do so anonymously if they prefer.
In conclusion, psychological safety is not just a nice-to-have in the context of DEI; it is a must-have. It is the foundation upon which the full potential of DEI initiatives can be unlocked. By creating an environment where employees feel safe to express their true selves and are encouraged to contribute their unique ideas and perspectives, organizations can reap the benefits of a truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace.
References: Amy C. Edmondson Ph.D. “The Role of Psychological Safety in Diversity and Inclusion,” Psychology Today. “Psychological Safety and DEI – Toward a Respectful Workplace,” Michigan State University. “What Happened to You” book by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Berry.
Here’s the truth. If it weren’t for a peer who I felt psychologically safe with as well as the skills I learned as quality manager on Xbox 360….
I might be dead today.
At the very least, my quality of life would be dramatically worse than it is. Read on if you’re interested in the whole story…..
Five years ago, I felt a lump on my neck that turned out to be cancer. I just got the call from my doctor, I’m cancer free, and long term prognosis is very good. I’m virtually free of side effects, an outcome that she tells me is unheard of for this type of cancer. Today, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude as I reflect on how I got here.
Paralyzed with fear, I found myself unable to focus on work, but I also felt guilty about taking any more “sick time” from work. I had a co-worker, Erinn, who I fully trusted. I felt psychologically safe with her, so I walked to her office. The ensuing conversation may have saved my life……
“Do you have a second to talk? I’m struggling, I don’t feel like working and I don’t feel like I’m sick, so I don’t know what to do.” I said as I entered her office.
“Damon, you have cancer, you’re sick! Don’t feel guilty, take the time you need. Use your strengths, research it and figure out how to beat it!”
I quickly felt the stress leave my body, and my fear was quickly replaced with a desire to solve the biggest problem I’d faced in my life. I jumped in my car and drove to the Commons at Microsoft, a comfortable place to research. I grabbed a piece of carrot cake, knowing this might be one of the last times I would enjoy my favorite sweet, and I began researching.
I’ll never forget it. I found a presentation with a “Kaplan Meier” plot for patients experiencing the same type of cancer I had. There were 2 lines on the plot, one line for “known primary source” and another line for “unknown primary source.” I’m betting 99 out of 100 people wouldn’t know how to interpret this statistical plot. But I knew because I’d learned about this plot as the quality manager for Xbox 360.
My heart quickly began racing.
The plot indicated that I had a 50% chance of being dead in 2 years!
However, if they could find the cancer, I’d have a greater than 90% chance of being alive in 5 years!
Pick up a coin and flip it. The odds of it being “heads” were the same odds of me being alive today. This plot shows the 2 lines (I overlaid the explanations to simplify interpretation).
I vowed to never share this data with my wife or family, knowing the fear it would induce.
As dug further, I discovered TORS (Trans Oral Robotic Surgery). This relatively unheard of technique was very successful at finding Cancer of Unknown Primary source.
The raw data was at the end of the article. I went back to work and imported the raw data into Power BI and within an hour built a report that convicted me that my situation wasn’t as dire as I thought. The report revealed that 72.3% of the time TORS discovered the source of cancer! Furthermore, it indicated that 50% of the time the source was at the base of the tongue, an area that only TORS could locate and remove. The report showed that 89% of the population in the study were males, and the median age was 56. I was 52 and literally the identical characteristics of the candidates in the study! Finally, the median tumor size was .9 cm (a little more than ¼”)! No wonder the blind biopsy done during my original surgery didn’t locate anything!
My skills in building Power BI reports and analyzing data brought me incredible hope.
I wasn’t going to die in 2 years. I was going to research TORS, have the surgery, find the cancer and remove it!
A closer look at the data revealed that the University of Washington had more than twice the patients in the study! UW was literally 20 minutes from my house!!
My visit to the radiation oncologist didn’t go as well as expected. She wasn’t as versed in the studies and data that I’d discovered, and recommended we proceed with the previously prescribed radiation treatment.
I was livid. I told her I’d seen the data. My chances of survival were 50% in 2 years, and I wasn’t ok with that. She indicated that the odds were significantly better for me than that. When I asked her for the source of her data she couldn’t recall.
“With all due respect, I need to pursue this path. Can you please refer me to the University of Washington Head and Neck Cancer Center” I requested.
2 minutes later she returned with a referral, but warned me that they were busy and it might be weeks before I heard back. Those weeks might result in the cancer growing and she wanted to make sure I was sure.
“I’m 100% sure I want to go see them” I said.
I went home and anxiously awaited the call. It didn’t come. So, I did what I’d learned to do so many times in my career. I located the phone number for the UW and I called! My first call was a dead end. They had no records of my referral.
I took a different tactic on my second call. “Can you please put me through to Dr. H’s office?” I’d researched TORS at the UW and discovered that Dr. H was the resident expert.
“Here’s the number Mr. Stoddard” they said.
“Thank you, you might have saved my life” I responded.
The next morning, I heard back from Dr. H’s assistant. There were no appointments for weeks. I didn’t give up. I shared the research I’d done, and I shared how I’d identified Dr. H.
“Just a moment, Mr. Stoddard” his assistant said.
A few minutes later she said “Dr. H. has tumor board this afternoon. He’d like to see your case.”
“WAHOO!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!” I said.
“We’ll call you after tumor board. Let’s schedule an appointment a few weeks out” she said.
I was a bit disheartened that I’d have to wait to talk to Dr. H., but I was elated at the opportunity.
The next morning my phone rang. “Mr. Stoddard, we’ve had a cancellation. How quickly can you be here?”
“I’ll be there in 30 minutes” I excitedly said, my heart racing out of my chest.
An hour later I was talking to one of the pioneers of Trans Oral Robotic Surgery, Dr. H. He shared that I had a 50/50 chance of finding the tumor in my tongue and that there would be almost no long term side effects. But if they found it, my long term prognosis would be very very good, and I wouldn’t experience many of the major side effects.
“Let’s do it” I said.
2 weeks later as I entered the operating room I confidently boasted
You are going to find the cancer in my tongue and you are going to remove it!
I was right. They found the cancer, just a few millimeters from the needle biopsy, and they removed the margins! I was cancer free!!!
I re-learned another valuable lesson, the same lesson I’d learned years earlier as the quality manager for Xbox. We’d spent months pulling the data together trying to understand what was driving the 3 red light failures, but weren’t any closer. I had a few friends at SAS, including the founder and president of JMP, the statistical software that I used for most of my career to understand and solve significant problems. I was giving a keynote address at one of their conferences and decided to take an extra day to fly up to their headquarters to get their help on how to statistically analyze the data from the Xbox red light failures.
“That’s easy. Dr. Meeker, the world’s best in reliability, talks about this in his book. He recommends using Kaplan-Meier. We have this built into the JMP software, let me show you how to use it.” Brad said in his office.
A few short hours later I was on a plane, analyzing the failure data using this technique. Over the coming weeks we uncovered incredible insights and quickly improved the quality problems.
All because I asked for help from one of the best in the world….
I originally wanted to do my radiation treatment close to home to avoid the extra 20-minute commute. After talking with the radiation oncologist, however, I quickly changed my mind. She wasn’t going to change her protocol for treatment even though they’d identified and removed the cancer. I would lose my taste buds, my saliva, and would only recover about 70%. I’d no longer taste sweets, I’d struggle with dry mouth, and I’d have to take extra care of my teeth to avoid any potential of potentially life threatening cavities.
I was livid. It made no sense. The cancer that was once unknown but now removed didn’t change my treatment at all?
I respectfully declined her treatment plan and returned to the UW to be treated by one of the nation’s best, Dr. P.
My radiation treatment would be significantly less severe than if they hadn’t discovered and removed the cancer. The treatment would be very painful, but the UW dropout rate was <5% versus nearly 30% for non-University programs. I would lose my sense of taste for a short period of time, but a few months later I’d be at 90%, with only a slight degradation in my ability to taste sweets. My chances of survival were significantly better than 90% because they’d found and removed the cancer.
When I asked what his recommendation might have been if they hadn’t found the cancer, he said they would have had to dramatically increase the radiation dose and my quality of life would have been dramatically worse.
My wife and I were elated. We made a fact-based decision and chose the expert for my radiation treatment.
I was warned, the next 6 weeks would be very difficult.
I went to the UW every weekday for the next 6 weeks. My head was strapped to the table, and my head and neck were radiated to kill any residual cancer cells.
The promise of great pain never came to pass. I continued riding my bike almost every day, believing that the extreme exercise brought life giving blood to the areas the radiation was killing.
I decided to celebrate my last day of radiation treatment by riding my bike 15 miles from my house in Woodinville to the UW. I arrived at the UW on my bike, tears flowing down my face. Not only had I beaten cancer, but I was healthy and strong. Dr. H. saw me and said he’d never seen a patient fare as well as I had through radiation treatment.
That was almost 5 years ago. I’m still cancer free, and my quality of life is almost the same as before cancer. I’m filled with gratitude and left to wonder:
Where would I be if:
I didn’t have a co-worker I felt psychologically safe with when I was trapped in fear?
I hadn’t decided to own my own treatment?
I hadn’t learned the power of data driven decisions years ago as quality manager of Xbox 360, after a co-worker saw my passion for data and problem solving?
I hadn’t taken a growth mindset when I feared the worst from cancer and began researching options?
I hadn’t intentionally built my professional network to include world experts in statistics?
I didn’t know how to interpret p values on Kaplan Meier plots, learned while being a member of a team of brilliant co-workers at Microsoft?
I hadn’t taken the time to learn Power BI, then applied those skills for an extra hour to build that Power BI report that revealed my path to recovery?
I hadn’t continued to reference the data, giving me the credibility and confidence to challenge the doctors and ultimately leading me to the best possible treatment at UW?
I didn’t have a manager that cared about me as a person and didn’t let me return to work full-time, even though I felt fine physically?
I might be dead
Sometimes we get so caught up in the busyness of email, chats, meetings, and our computer screen that we forget how important it is to stop, reflect, and be grateful for everything we have.
I’m not dead. I’m alive because of psychological safety and the skills I learned on Xbox 360
I want to challenge you to take some time in the next few days and reflect on what you are grateful for. I promise you it will have a profoundly positive impact on your own well-being in a time that it is desperately needed.
It all started with psychological safety. I had a co-worker I felt safe talking to when I was trapped in fear. How about you? Do you have any co-workers you feel psychologically safe with? Would you be psychologically safe if someone came to you with a similar issue?
“We found a very strong statistical relationship between the sleep debt of a leader and the psychological safety of their teams.” – Kristen Holmes, VP Performance at Whoop
Last week was pretty tough, but I’ve just discovered a scientific explanation of why, and this learning is worth the struggles! Read on if you’re interested…
I started this year super excited, determined to be intentionally intentional in living my purpose, “…adding value to people’s lives by vulnerably sharing my life experiences and learnings”. I was invited to speak at a conference in March about How Psychological Safety Enables Everyone to Thrive. As I prepared the talk, I found a level of passion and excitement, believing that the opportunities I’ve had to learn, practice, and teach psychological safety would be enormously impactful to everyone who attends. The opportunity to share how I’d personally grown by becoming psychologically safe to my children, wife, and friends was truly inspiring.
Unfortunately, this excitement quickly eroded into a feeling of deep hypocrisy. My wife and I rarely argue, but on Monday we had one of those rare arguments, culminating in raised voices and anger towards one another. My motivation to write and teach about psychological safety came to an abrupt halt. In that single argument, I was not psychologically safe. I didn’t listen, I didn’t empathize, and I invoked fear into my wife that her voice wouldn’t be heard. All of my learnings about psychological safety felt meaningless, and I began hearing that voice in my head saying “You’re a hypocrite. You have no right teaching about psychological safety when you continue to fail at being psychologically safe.”
Unfortunately, Monday’s argument was only the beginning. We had another argument on Thursday, and this argument ended even worse than the first, we both agreed we needed a few hours to cool off. After the call, the voice in my head got louder, “You’re a hypocrite.”
The day progressed, and I found myself in another situation. I became angry and frustrated with one of my children, and I immediately knew that my behavior had damaged my explicit goal of modelling perfect love toward my children. The Bible’s definition of psychological safety is in 1 John 4:18:
Perfect Love Casts out Fear Because Fear Expects Punishment
The voice became louder. “You’re a hypocrite, you don’t have a right or the credibility to teach others about psychological safety when you failed three different times this week!”
Fortunately, the voice didn’t last. I practiced what I’ve practiced a thousand times before, what Dr. Talley calls Integrity “Minimizing the time span between mess up and fess up”. I asked for forgiveness, and my wife and children quickly forgave me, but unfortunately it will take them a while to feel psychologically safe with me again, and it’s on me to learn and grow from my mistakes.
Integrity is minimizing the timespan between mess-up and fess-up
A wise counselor of mine, Pam, specializes in addiction recovery. I’ll never forget the time when a client of mine who struggled with addiction was beating himself up with shame. This client had stumbled and didn’t know what to do. Pam asked the question, “Do you know the purpose of a relapse?”. The client didn’t have an answer. “The purpose of a relapse is to learn. Never waste a relapse.” She asked the client what he learned, and he shared the events leading up to the relapse, and committed to make changes based on these learnings.
The purpose of a relapse is to learn. Never waste a relapse
In a sense, the arguments from last week with my wife and one of my children were relapses. I’ve spent the last few days trying to learn from these stumbles, and last night all the pieces came together.
On my drive home from skiing I listened to a podcast with Kristen Holmes, VP of Performance at Whoop. She mentioned a study her team had recently conducted on the impacts of sleep debt on executive function and psychological safety. The takeaway from the study?
Kristen and her team partnered with McKinsey and conducted a study of 70 CEOs and their direct reports. They measured daily sleep debt in the CEOs. In conjunction, they asked each of the CEO direct reports to fill out a daily survey of the level of psychological safety they felt that day when interaction with the CEO’s. The results were fascinating.
45 minutes of sleep debt resulted in a 5-10% reduction in mental control (known as executive function, neurologically based skills involving cognitive control and emotional regulation).
45 minutes of sleep debt resulted in a significant reduction in psychological safety as measured by their direct reports
The relationship between sleep debt and psychological safety is linear, meaning the more sleep debt the lower the psychological safety, culminating in as much as a 30% reduction in psychological safety!
The leaders themselves were unable to cognitively realize that they had sleep debt, yet those closest to the CEOs experienced the impact of their sleep debt by the way the CEO’s interacted, how they physically looked, and how effective they were at creating an environment of psychological safety, an environment where everyone on the team felt safe for interpersonal risk taking, Amy Edmonson’s definition of psychological safety.
Unfortunately, according to a study by McKinsey, nearly 66% of business leaders are dissatisfied with the amount of sleep they get. Furthermore, according to a 2022 study by US News and World Report, only 13% of people report regularly waking up feeling rested. Given that psychological safety is the #1 predictor of team success, and around 10% of teams have all members feeling psychologically safe, ensuring adequate sleep may be one of the most significant things we can do to improve!
After listening to this podcast, I reflected on my previous week where I’d struggled to be psychologically safe with my wife and children. As I reflected, I remembered that my sleep was terrible last week! Every day of the week I woke around 3 in the morning and was awake for 2-3 hours! Everyday last week I felt tired, lethargic, and edgy. My sleep debt (the gap between needed sleep and actual sleep) was off the charts last week, and as a result I wasn’t psychologically safe!
BOOM. The purpose of a relapse is education. These learnings make perfect sense and now I get to practice what I learned and vulnerably share my failures with others so they can learn! I’m recommitting myself to pay more attention to my sleep, and to experiment with different mechanisms to improve the quality and consistency of my sleep!
Questions to Consider?
Do you have a desire to improve the performance of your team?
How psychologically safe do members of your team feel?
Are you proactively improving psychological safety on your team?
Are you getting sufficient sleep to ensure that you are psychologically safe and your brain is functioning optimally?
If you’d like to learn more about how psychological safety can enable you and your team to thrive, I’m writing a book to help you. Click below to get a free copy!
If you’re ready to proactively improve psychological safety on your team, I’d love to help. You can schedule time to talk by clicking the link below.
I’ll never forget the day. It was May 8, 2023. I logged onto my computer, excited for the upcoming week of learning at Microsoft. I had no idea what the meeting titled “Urgent Business Meeting” meant, but I joined, excited to hear about any new changes. I joined the meeting, shocked to hear that my role and numerous others had been eliminated. My last day at Microsoft would be July 7, 2023. Ironically, 8 years prior, on July 8, 2015, I was also notified that my job had been eliminated from Microsoft.
In 2015 I was full of gratitude and wrote a blog “Thank you Microsoft and Goodbye“. The blog went viral, I spent the next 5 months writing my first book, Pain Drives Change, in 45 days and enjoying my family. I loved Microsoft and reached out to a friend. This friend mentioned her GM had seen my blog and “wanted people like me” on the team. A few weeks later, I interviewed, and a job was created for me. I was ecstatic!
My next 8 years at Microsoft were unquestionably the most meaningful years of my career. When I was notified in 2023 that my job was eliminated, I was once again filled with gratitude, and wrote another blog with the same title, “Thank you Microsoft and Goodbye“.
I’ll be forever grateful for the 20 years I served at Microsoft. I tell people that Microsoft is the best company on the planet, and I still believe this with all my heart, despite the temporary pain of being suddenly let go. Pain drives change, and I vowed to let the pain of this layoff change me and set the direction for the rest of my life. I’ve watched God’s hand work in my life and so many other people’s lives in the midst of pain, and I’ve learned to find joy in the pain as the Bible speaks to:
James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
My wife and I went to lunch after I was notified of my layoff in 2023. Once again, she was in disbelief. I told her we’d be fine, but that I was going to reach out to the inner circle of men in my life, a group of men that I’d trust with my life, the group of men that I’d selected years earlier to be a part of a men’s group where we could encourage and inspire one another to live a life of significance.
I called Dave, one of my most trusted friends. He’d retired only a few months earlier, and I’d walked with him as he prepared for retirement the year before and was navigating the early months of retirement. His words were profound. “Damon, welcome to the liminal season of your life. I’ve been walking it for a year, and it’s been one of the most painful and rewarding years of my life. You’ll be tempted to jump into something new to avoid the pain, but don’t. Give yourself at least 6 months and wait on the Lord. When the time is right, He’ll reveal to you what you are to do for the rest of your life. But prepare yourself, it’s going to be one of the most difficult things you’ve ever done. I’m walking the same path but I’m a few months ahead of you. Feel free to reach out at any time for emotional support. I don’t think your layoff was a setback, I think it was a set-up by God so you can bring the wisdom from your life experiences to the world.”
WOW. Dave, your words couldn’t have been more true. I’ve taken your advice, and I took the last 7 months off. For the first time in my life, I chose to intentionally be unintentional, a foreign concept to me.
I’ve been intensely intentional for my whole life. In a conversation with another one of the men in my group, Chuck, he said “Damon, you’ve been maniacally intentional and focused ever since I met you“. I’m going to share some examples of this maniacal intentionality, not to boast about my accomplishments, but to shed light on how difficult it would be for me to be intentionally unintentional.
In high school I realized that if I wanted to go to college, I’d have to figure out how to pay for it. So, I intentionally pursued every extracurricular activity I could find because I knew these activities were critical to winning scholarships to college. As a result, I won 7 scholarships which paid for my first 2 years of college.
After 2 years in college, I realized an internship was my only path to paying for the remainder of my education, so I moved to Seattle to attend UW. A few months later, I found that internship at Sundstrand Data Control. I loved working there so much that I worked 30 hours per week AND obtained my Mechanical Engineering Degree.
I continued working at Sundstrand and intentionally pursued promotion. I became the youngest engineering manager in the company.
When I learned about Six Sigma, I intentionally focused and became the fastest person to certify as a Master Black Belt in 13 months.
When my second daughter, Noelle, was born I took 6 weeks off from Microsoft and built an addition on my house with my brother.
When I was 39, I was asked to lead the small groups ministry at my church. I worked full-time, had a young family, and successfully built the small group system from 3 groups to 33 groups in 18 months.
When I turned 40, I decided it was time to permanently lose the extra weight, so I intentionally began running and biking 5-6 times per week.
A few years later, I decided I wanted to do a triathlon, but I didn’t know how to swim. I intentionally focused on swimming, and a year later I swam across Lake Roosevelt and back (2.4 miles!)
When I was laid off from Microsoft in 2015, I wrote my first book in 45 days.
When I turned 50, I intentionally built Change YOUniversity while working full-time, raising a family, and acting as the VP of Culture for one of the premiere junior football programs in America.
When I got cancer in 2019, I intentionally kept exercising and wrote my second book as I went through cancer, riding my bike 15 miles to the UW on my final day of radiation treatment!
As you can imagine, the idea of living without intentionality, even for a season, was terrifying. After all, up until this point in my life, I’d allowed myself to be defined by my accomplishments, and I’d unknowingly allowed the pursuit of my accomplishments to become a sometimes-addictive agent, numbing the devastating pain that my body still held from a childhood of extreme trauma (I’ll write about this in depth in the future).
The liminal space is defined as “the space between what is and what will happen next”….and according to experts, “it has a major effect on our mental health” and “when you are in a place of unknowing, that can be massively scary, uncomfortable, and create anxiety.” I’ve simplified this statement as follows:
Uncertainty produces anxiety, but predictability brings peace.
I’m going to be brutally honest and vulnerable here. The last 7 months of being intentionally unintentional and remaining in the liminal space have easily been some of the most difficult but rewarding times of my life. The uncertainty about my future has produced enormous, almost unbearable anxiety. My fear of my unknown future has been debilitating at times. But I’ve chosen to listen to the counsel of the people in my life that I trust and remain in the liminal space until God showed me the path out. In these dark times I’ve found enormous hope in the stories of countless people that God has put in the liminal space (many times referred to as the wilderness) before using them for His glory.
I’ll write more about how God softened my heart and strengthened the most important relationships in my life during this season, but for now, suffice it to say that it’s once again abundantly obvious that only God could orchestrate this season so that He could do the work in me that only He knew I needed.
Ironically, the work that I’m most proud of at Microsoft happened over the last 3 years, ultimately culminating in a proven process enabling individuals and teams to thrive that is being used by hundreds of thousands of teams across the world.
And it’s the findings from this work on thriving that made my liminal season even more painful. The research is abundantly clear, thriving at work is best measured by the energy you feel from the work by asking the simple question “I was excited to work every day last week.” And the core drivers of being excited (energized) by your work occur when 2 things are present:
The work is aligned to your purpose (e.g. calling, reason to live, why you wake up in the morning). The Japanese call this Ikigai.
You are using your God given strengths at least 20% of your time at work every day.
Knowing your purpose can add 7 years to your life.
Belonging to a shared purpose can add 14 years to your life.
This statistic haunted (and inspired) me nearly every day of the past 7 months. The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became.
What is my purpose?
How can I use my strengths to fulfill this purpose?
How can I find belonging in this purpose?
And the most difficult question of all. “If I don’t find and pursue this purpose, will I ever be able to enjoy life with the anxiety I’m constantly feeling?”
I called Dave countless times, full of tears. He kept assuring me that God would reveal His purpose in His time, and not to rush through this season, but allow the season to shape my character. So, I kept waiting.
A few months ago, I started getting some signals of my purpose:
A former co-worker, Ellen, found me on LinkedIn and asked me if I’d be a guest on her show. She shared that my cancer story had inspired her.
A few weeks later, I was invited to speak at the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion on psychological safety. Effenus, the co-director, found me through a random search on LinkedIn. We had an initial call, and I watched the excitement grow as my passion for psychological safety exuded. I’ll be giving my talk on psychological safety in March!
A close friend reached out and asked if I wanted to co-host a podcast with him; a podcast whose purpose was not to sell, but to serve by sharing our experiences in life!
For the first time in months, I found myself excited and energized about the opportunities! I began thinking about how I could add the most value during these talks, and found myself dreaming about the opportunities again!
Ellin and I recorded our conversation yesterday on psychological safety. I shared my journey through cancer, and how Erinn, a co-worker who I fully trusted, listened as I shared my fears about cancer and work, and how her words inspired me to do the research that may have ultimately saved my life. I watched as Ellin listened in awe and was inspired by my story, and I experienced a level of energy and purpose unlike I’d felt in years.
Later that day, I told my wife that I’d felt dead emotionally for months, but today I felt alive.
God is finally bringing me out of the liminal space and into the promised land, and my purpose is becoming more and more clear.
Adding value to people’s lives
It’s the same purpose I’ve had since 2001, but this time it’s becoming even more clear to me…
I add value to people’s lives, inspiring them by vulnerably sharing the transformative impact of my life experiences.
My first book, Pain Drives Change, has inspired countless people to change because I vulnerably shared how God used the pain of a very dark season to transform me.
My second book, Apathy or Action, has inspired people by offering them hope and inspiration to take action because I vulnerably share my cancer story.
My third book on psychological safety will inspire people to change because I will vulnerably share my own story of how psychological safety has impacted my life and the lives of countless others.
My fourth book, From Protection to Connection, will inspire people to break the generational impact from trauma in their lives because I will vulnerably share my 25-year journey of overcoming childhood trauma and striving to break the generational curses in my family and the families of hundreds of men I coached in my organization, Change YOUniversity.
I’ve learned a lot as I’ve journeyed through the liminal space the last 7 months. The fear and anxiety I regularly felt because I’d forgotten my purpose and chose to be intentionally unintentional was debilitating at times. However, I won’t waste this pain, because I know there are countless people who have either forgotten their purpose or never discovered their purpose, and if my pain can add value to even one of these people’s lives it was worth it.
I’d love your feedback-did this blog add value to your life? How else can I add value to you?
I’ll be forever grateful for the 20 years I served at Microsoft. I tell people that Microsoft is the best company on the planet, and I still believe this with all my heart, despite the temporary pain of being suddenly let go. Pain drives change, and I vowed to let the pain of this layoff change me and set the direction for the rest of my life. I’ve watched God’s hand work in my life and so many other people’s lives in the midst of pain, and I’ve learned to find joy in the pain as the Bible speaks to: