Saturday, September 19, 2020

Psychological Saftey in Spotify Model is built-in.....




People are very much sensitive to power and hierarchy within an organization or within a team.

The act of fear in the hierarchy is ages old story.

Most individuals are completely conscious of where they land in the power hierarchies at work. After joining any organization or team, everyone looks into the power map and relative position where they are. This creates a map of how far and how much they should maneuver. With whom they should ally and with whom they can debate!

their position shapes their attitudes of how safe it is to take interpersonal risks within their team or group

research shows that those with a lower position in a group or department generally enjoy less psychologically safe than those with higher status

This drives them less likely to check with others when they are dubious about something, more frightened that mistakes will be held against them, less adequate to bring up tough problems, and less certain that others value their skills

Though the leaders often preach empowerment, they may be uninformed of the fear generated by disparities in rank or status and, accordingly, may not do sufficient to safeguard that a message of empowerment is expressed in a psychologically safe environment.

Fear has long been adopted as a mechanism for retaining control

If people lower in the rank are afraid of those who have power, it continues to infer that they will act what they are expected to do.

Hierarchically embedded fear is not so natural to shrug off or change with psychological safety just because it is a wonderful thought.

Fear in those with subordinate roles leads to an inclination to conceal one’s tentative thoughts.

When individuals in authority speak authoritatively and speak first, it usually appears in greater self-censorship by others, even if this was not the initial purpose. Likewise, without meaning to, managers often reduce willingness to participate in meaningful dissent by seeking approval, rather than a genuine search, of their views.



Why tolerate such a situation especially in the knowledge industry where rapid ideation and implementation are need of the hour.

The beauty of structural change which proposes by Spotify enables Psychological Saftey built-in into the system.

In the normal Hierarchical model, we have seen top-down command and control leadership is built in.

Due to the character of the structure itself but in the Spotify model, the shift of power to capability building and People to value generation line is different.


Decouples people-leadership tasks, generally implemented by one manager into two sets of tasks implemented by two different managers, each of which is equally significant ( Chapter Manager & Tribe Manager).

One boss(Chapter Manager) provides and makes decisions about one set of objectives (such as employing and terminating, promotions, training, and competence building);

The other boss(Tribe Manager/Leader) makes decisions about another set of things (such as prioritization of goals and work, regular administration of task execution, and quality assurance).

Because the two roles are so distinct, there should be less need for the power struggles, tensions, and conflicts often encountered in more conventional structures.

Importantly, even though, the two managers—one of which we’ll call the “capability leader,” the other the “value-creation leader”—have to admit on a volume of situations: who and what to deploy to projects, initiatives, and business units, for example, and how considerable these individual and other resources are going to cost. (Value-creation leaders must compensate for them out of their budget.) - Mckinsey

What do you say? Have you seen such instances?




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