Psychological Safety: Yogic Philosophy

Yogic Philosophy: Ahimsa and Satya 

You’ve probably realised by now that I love drawing together ideas from diverse fields and disciplines to examine what they can teach us about psychological safety. I’m also interested in how ideas that come from a range of traditions and philosophies often align around similar principles; I believe there is great wisdom to be found in ideas that have stood the test of centuries of practice, and what I learnt from my time training to be a yoga teacher is no different.

In late 2017, I qualified as a vinyasa flow yoga teacher, when I trained with Frog Lotus Yoga in Andalusia. I wanted to deepen my own yoga practice, learn more about the philosophy of yoga, and gain a skill that would allow me to teach classes whilst travelling Europe and Asia for a year.

It was an incredible experience, staying for a month at the Suryalila Retreat Centre. Each day was packed with meditation, vinyasa yoga, shared meals, classroom learning, and homework. It was intense, but I learned so much about yoga, and about myself. We dived into the philosophy of yoga, and one of the core teachings which resonated with me were the Yamas and Niyamas. These are ethical teachings (kind of guiding principles) that come from the Vedas, a large body of religious texts that originated in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism.

In Yogic tradition, according to the sutras of Patanjali, the Yamas (restraints) are:
Ahiṃsā (अहिंसा): Nonviolence, compassion & kindness.
Satya (सत्य): Truthfulness.
Asteya (अस्तेय): Not stealing.
Brahmacharya (ब्रह्मचर्य): Marital fidelity and sexual restraint.
Aparigraha (अपरिग्रहः): Non-stealing, non-possessiveness.

And the Niyamas (observations):
Shaucha (शौच): cleanliness and tidiness of mind, speech and body.
Santosha (सन्तोष): contentment, acceptance of others and of one’s circumstances as they are.
Tapas (तपस्): self-discipline, persistent meditation, perseverance.
Svadhyaya (स्वाध्याय): study of self & self-reflection, humility.
Ishvarapranidhana (ईश्वरप्रणिधान): contemplation of the Ishvara true reality and supreme consciousness.


The first two of these, Ahimsa (non-violence) and Satya (truthfulness) are, it turns out, especially relevant to psychological safety and communication. In particular, because of the order in which they are taught, with Ahimsa coming before Satya. According to yogic philosophy, when communicating, we want to aim to start from a place of non-violence, kindness and compassion. Satya, or truthfulness, is important and teaches that we should avoid speaking untruths, but before we try to speak the truth, we need to ask ourselves whether we are speaking out of compassion, or we have another motive? Just because something is true, doesn’t mean that we have to say it. Yogic wisdom teaches us that compassion takes priority. This concept is a precursor to ideas such as Non-Violent Communication (NVC) from Marshall Rosenberg, as well as management books such as Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.

Diving further into the concept of Satya also means examining what it means for something to be “true”: is something true because you believe it is? Is an opinion “true”? Or is thing simply your truth, but not necessarily somebody else’s? Linking back to talking about feedback in issue 45 and 74 – I believe that feedback should always be well intentioned, solicited, timely, specific, in context, non-anonymous, a two-way street, and *true* – as far as we can say that something is objectively “true”. Indeed, if we study Vedanta further, we begin to examine the existential nature of the world (similar, though less reductive, to Descarte’s existential interpretations of consciousness), where the “Brahman” or “Ishvara” is the ultimate reality, whilst the physical world (Prakriti) is ever-changing and (I’m oversimplifying here) an illusion functioning for the Ātman or Jivātman (the individual self). So: who’s to know what is “true” anyway?

There is a risk, in toxic or dysfunctional group cultures, that honesty can become an excuse for cruelty. Yogic philosophy has this covered; we cannot be practising Ahimsa as well as Satya if we speak truth and intentionally or recklessly cause harm to others.

Psychological Safety In the Workplace:

Thanks to Adam Gask for sending this gem in. The expected behaviours list included in a job spec include the line (at the very top of the 40 separate behaviours), “I make sure I make no avoidable mistakes.”

In the interests of assuming positive intent, I’m absolutely sure the authors mean well, but rather unfortunately, this screams “blame culture” to me, and begs a number of questions. What does “avoidable” mean in this context? Who decides what is “avoidable” and what isn’t? What are the consequences for me if I do make an “avoidable” mistake? Where are the systems, processes and tools that help minimise mistakes – or do we just rely on telling people not to make them?

Fundamentally, how can anyone – even NASA shuttle pilots or expert brain surgeons – be expected to never make “avoidable” mistakes? Language like this doesn’t foster psychological safety, and I’m convinced ultimately harms outcomes for the team. Contrast it with this post we shared previously about a Belgian recruitment ad that specifically called out the expectation of making mistakes and learning from them.
 

I love this episode of Corporate Unplugged with Amy Edmondson. There are some excellent points that Amy makes in here, about wanting a more equitable world, old structures of power and the misapplication of metrics and KPIs, and the value of trial and error and experimentation. Amy also talks about Buckminster Fuller and systems thinking, which definitely warrants a future newsletter that dives into that topic 🙂
 

This is a great article by Kaitlyn Ramirez Borysiewicz and Doris Quintanilla – some …”leaders do not see the inseparable connection between the “work” and the people they employ who make that work possible.” They make the excellent point that even in organisations where the mission is ostensibly progressive and human-focussed, the behaviours of the leadership may not necessarily reflect that ethos. Workers are not destroying progressive movements.

I love this from P J Milani (@milanicreative). A series of small bets is not only less intimidating than one big one, but much more likely to result in success.

Helen Bevan (Transformation at NHS Horizons) and Göran Henriks, Chief Executive of Learning and Innovation at the Qulturum in Jönköping, Sweden, speak to Dr Na’eem Ahmed and Lara Mott in this episode of The Improver. This is a really powerful episode about the dramatic impact that the pandemic and economic pressures have had on healthcare systems, and how to empower people to make change happen within those organisations. I particularly like the emphasis on experimentation – because Everything Is An Experiment 🙂 

Thanks to Maren Gube and Debra Sabatini Hennelly for this piece in HBR about resilient organisations. The authors are (correctly in my opinion) using “resilience” as a thing that we *do*, rather than *possess* – which means creating the capabilities and skills in the organisation, such as fostering psychological safety (which, as the authors point out, is foundational for resilience). I think they make an interesting point about building accountability for psychological safety into performance metrics, and I like this line that encourages leaders to create an environment where “psychological safety rises to the level of a strategic objective rather than a “nice-to-have.””

Things to do and try:

This one’s simple, but extra powerful. For use at home or work, with your family or team. 

 Inspired by the Notre Dame football Play Like a Champion Today, the folks at Ritual Design Lab created this DIY touchstone for when you need a little boost, or you need to draw on those special powers that you normally kept stored away.

It’s also in the excellent book “Rituals for Work” by the same people (Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan).

This week’s poem:

Part of the Suktimuktavali, an anthology of Sanskrit poetry dating from 1257, commissioned by the Yadava general Jalhaṇa.
(loc. 131.59)

svārthārambhapraṇataśirasāṃ pakṣapātāt surāṇāṃ
dṛptātmānaṃ karajakuliśair dānavendraṃ nihantum |
siṃhībhūtas tribhuvanaguruḥ so ‘pi nārāyaṇo ‘smin
rāgadveṣapratihatamateḥ kasya na syāt paśutvam ||

When the gods (to whom he was partial)
started bowing to him
to save their own heads,
even Nārāyaṇa, the guru of all,
turned into a lion
to slay the proud demon-king
with his pointy fingernails.

I mean, if you were so
swayed by love and hate,
you’d become an animal too.


Thanks to Anand Venkatkrishnan for the translation.

Mission statement

The mission of this newsletter is to make the world of work a better, safer, more inclusive and equitable place. We work towards this by sharing, as widely as possible, new research and opinion, case studies, news, practices and methods related to psychological safety. 

This includes topics such as inclusion, human factors, facilitation, safety critical environments, systems thinking, leadership and management, diversity and equity, mental health, organisational dynamics, culture, ethics, and more. 

A core goal is to amplify the voices of minoritised groups and those who are less represented in this field. This includes (but is not limited to) voices of people of colour, neurodiverse people, LGBTQ+ people, women in leadership and tech, and more.

Another goal is to share insights and best practices across different domains: for example, so that those of us in tech may learn from healthcare, and those of us in education can learn from aviation.

I believe knowledge is worthless unless it’s accessible. A key principle of this newsletter is to only share content that everyone can access. This excludes content behind paywalls, research papers that are not open-access, and proprietary tools that don’t open source their algorithms (preventing us from observing how systems make decisions about us). There may be some exceptions to this principle in practice, for example, where authors are able to share original texts of papers.

Whilst this statement will evolve this over time, the core principles of equity, amplification, and progressive & humanistic leadership shouldn’t change.