The Pac-Man rule

One of the main reasons to go to a conference, event or meetup is to meet people and have interesting conversations. I’ve found myself at day-long conferences where I’ve not attended a single talk, and instead found myself having lots of great conversations with people instead.

I first learned about the “Pac-Man Rule” at a tech meetup in 2017. I don’t know for sure, but I think it was conceived by Eric Holscher, who observed that at conferences and other events, groups of people tend to form circles for conversations. This is great for the conversations, but those circles also make it very difficult for anyone else to join, since they form something like a defensive wall to any outsiders. 

Psychological safety is the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk taking: that is, it is safe to interact with other people in the space. But that’s pretty hard to do if you’re physically excluded from the conversation, and excluding people is exactly what those closed circles of conversation do. This is where the Pac-Man rule (also known as the Open Circle Principle) comes in. 

The rule, quite simply, is: “When standing as a group of people, always leave room for one person to join your group.”

And of course, when another person joins your group, the group simply readjusts to make room for one more. In practice, it often looks like this:

Hence: the Pac-Man rule! 

It’s often hard enough for people to build up the courage to talk to strangers at events, and closed circles of conversation make it even more difficult. The Pac-Man rule makes it a little bit easier, especially if it’s made clear as an explicit part of the social contract or code of conduct. The Pac-Man rule provides the actual physical space for someone to join a conversation, and it also sends a strong signal that you are welcome here. That signal that you’re welcome to join and contribute to the conversation is a strong driver of psychological safety, and we’re far more likely to get involved as a result.

Of course, the Pac-Man rule isn’t just for formal or work events like conferences – it’s a great principle to adopt for social gatherings such as birthday parties, weddings or any other gathering. 

Finally, this isn’t just a practice, it’s a principle. When we talk about psychological safety and inclusion, we shouldn’t just be talking about the concept, we should be practising it. Inclusion means making space for people. Are you unintentionally excluding people from the group, or are you creating space for new people to join? The Pac-Man rule is one way of doing that.

Related reading:

Psychological Safety, Diversity & Inclusion
How to Run Psychologically Safe Meetings
Behaviours that Foster Psychological Safety
Top 10 Ways to Foster Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Version 3 of the Psychological Safety Action Pack!

Our comprehensive Psychological Safety Tool Kit is designed to help you study, measure, build, and maintain psychological safety in your teams and organisation. It’s perfect for team leaders, managers, HR and People professionals, and facilitators and trainers. Version 3 has been updated an improved as a result of four years of experience using it in organisations around the world, and feedback from over 3,000 practitioners using it with their teams.

What’s new in Version 3?

• All the content has been refreshed and updated, with improved links to online resources and further reading.
• A clearer structure for you to work through with your team, structured around the Psych Safety framework of Study – Measure – Build – Maintain – Reflect
• A completely revised and updated section on Measuring Psychological Safety, including a comprehensive question bank of 30 questions to choose from, as well as ideas for alternative approaches to data collection and analysis. 
• Resources that were previously part of the Psychological Safety “Managing Teams and People” Playbook have now been been updated and integrated into the Action Pack, including:
  • Personal User Manuals
  • Manager Manual
  • Social Contract
  • Team Charter 
• There are also brand new resources and tools, including:
  • Psychologically Safer Meeting Practices
  • The Andon Cord 
  • TRIZ
  • Do / Discuss / Decide
• Improved and updated self-reflection and coaching exercise
• Refreshed poster images to reflect our values around diversity and inclusion

Download the Tool Kit now

Psychological Safety in Practice

Weaponised “compassion”

Rachel Clarke has written an excellent piece in the Guardian about the potential risks of “physician associates” – clinical practitioners with just two years of training, who are supposed to work under the supervision of doctors. There are concerns that physician associates are taking on the role of doctors without patients being made aware. As professionals in the NHS are raising concerns about this, they’re being accused of bullying and protectionism, whilst “Bradford District and Craven Health Partnership… thanked those doctors who had shown “care and compassion” when giving feedback. In so doing, it deployed a tactic increasingly used to try to silence frontline staff when we warn the public of the potential risks of addressing NHS workforce gaps by replacing highly trained doctors or nurses with less well trained (and cheaper) doctor or nurse substitutes.”

This is the absolute opposite of psychological safety. This is toxic positivity, weaponised compassion; the strategy adopted to avoid hearing things we don’t want to hear and silence people we don’t want to listen to. Whilst it’s the opposite end of aggression and punishment, it has the same effect: a suppressive silence that can result in serious harm to patients. 

Thanks to Steven Shorrock for the share.

Novels about (or relevant to) psychological safety

We maintain a list of the best books about psychological safety at psychsafety.com, which includes the excellent Unicorn Project by Gene Kim. Our friends at The Psychologist recently got in touch to ask if I knew of any other novels or fictional works that address psychological safety.

I wondered if The Circle by Dave Eggers might count, or maybe Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Do you know of any novels that address psychological safety? Reply and let me know if so, and we can add them to the list!

The Psychological Safety Community

After relaunching a few weeks ago on our new Discord platform, we’re now at over 160 active members and we’ve already had an online meetup for folks in North America and similar timezones. Thanks to all you wonderful community members for contributing, sharing, learning from each other and generally being wonderful people. Join the fun here! 

Being Judgemental or Curious

This is a wonderful illustration by @researchdoodles on the spectrum of being judgemental to curious. Thanks to Jade for finding this gem whilst deep in the depths of PhD research!

Politeness and Civility

We’ve previously covered the Civility Saves Lives campaign, and explored the evidence that shows how basic civility not only improves our experience at work, but also saves lives. This is a great episode of Start The Week with Adam Rutherford, featuring Professor Louise Mullany of the University of Nottingham, on Politeness and Civility. It’s particularly interesting how what is considered “polite” changes significantly over time and contexts.

Accountability

My spidey sense tingles when I hear the word “accountability”, because it’s all too often used as a synonym for “blame” or “punishment”. I love this cartoon from Work Chronicles about the double standards we sometimes see in organisations when it comes to “accountability” and leadership.

Psychological safety and silence

In this Add Insight podcast episode, Emma Stenmark and Johan Rinman talk about psychological safety and silence. Why does it exist, what are the consequences, and what can we do about it? (In Swedish)