Participatory Leadership and Developing a Culture of Psychological Safety

Cuon London 2025 and Engineering Culture

• Cuon London will return from April 7 to 9, 2025, featuring world-class leaders who will share actionable insights from senior software developers working on real-world projects across multiple domains (10s).
• Shane Hastie is the host of the InfoQ Engineering Culture Podcast, and his guest is Nick Takava, who has experience facilitating discussions around psychological safety (30s).
• Nick Takava recently became an Australian citizen, but he was born and bred in Zimbabwe, where he started his career in software development in the early 1980s (1m4s).
• Takava's early experience in software development involved working with computers, playing around with code, and learning through trial and error, as there were no certifications or formal training programs at the time (1m26s).

Nick Takava's Early Career and Leadership Journey

• Takava worked with one of the biggest software companies, collaborated with governments, and was fortunate enough to be offered a job after qualifying for a COBOL programming course (1m40s).
• He worked with old computers, used Visual Basic and BASIC 2C, which later became the NA Aqua programming language, and ran programs on a 286 computer with dongles (2m5s).
• Takava was involved in various organizations, including running a software house, Microsoft Best, where he had a big team reporting to him, but he struggled with handling people and managing his team (2m44s).
• Despite having industrial studies and Industrial psychology studies, Takava found that his experience as a dancer and his participation in a retreat with a contemporary dance company helped him develop listening skills and discover participatory leadership practices (3m40s).
• Takava was introduced to the art of hosting by Mayan K from Kunda Ling Village in Zimbabwe, which unveiled his eyes to participatory leadership practices, and he began to incorporate these practices into his software organization (4m6s).
• At the time, Takava was trying to create a less hierarchical and more empowering approach to working with developers, but he had not yet discovered Agile, although the Agile manifesto was already in existence (4m32s).
• Takava went on a journey to learn more about participatory leadership practices and incorporated them into his team, which led to a more collaborative and effective approach to software development (4m51s).

Participatory Leadership and Decolonizing Organizations

• Participatory leadership is about how individuals show up in the workplace, flipping the traditional industrial hierarchical structure into a more secular and equal system, similar to ecosystems and traditional indigenous systems, where collaboration and seeking permission are key, and everybody has their power (7m5s).
• This approach can be seen as the decolonization of organizations, where meetings and decision-making processes are changed to prioritize collaboration and equality (7m55s).
• For team leaders, especially those transitioning from individual contributors to leadership roles, it's essential to focus on the overall value of delivery, including capacity building of the team, alignment within the team, and alignment with organizational goals and client objectives (9m5s).
• Effective leadership in this context depends on listening skills, allowing teams to be liberated, and enabling talents to shine, rather than just focusing on individual contributions (9m57s).
• The concept of participatory leadership encourages leaders to value the work itself, rather than just the outputs, and to consider how the work can be more valuable than the results (10m9s).

PAB Organization and Entrepreneurship

• The PAB organization, where the speaker is from, operates as a worker-owned cooperative with a shared leadership model, focusing on conscious, courageous, and creative collaboration, and experimenting with new ways of working and governing (5m52s).
• The speaker is also involved in promoting entrepreneurship among African Australians and is an active member of the multicultural community in Australia (6m29s).

Participatory Action and Research (PAB) Practices

• Participatory Action and Research (PAB) has created small micropractices that are accessible to individuals and teams, such as the "Listen for Game Chain" which contains the seven domains of practice from the book "Going Horizontal" by Samantha Slade (10m26s).
• The seven domains of practice are not scientific categories but rather ways to look at and focus on learning and development, including autonomy, purpose, meetings, transparency, decision making, and learning and development (10m47s).
• Autonomy involves claiming personal leadership and clarifying one's purpose, which becomes the invisible leader that minimizes the possibility of negative conflict (11m45s).
• Purpose is essential for leaders to clarify early on, including their purpose for working, product, and relationships, which leads to a clear direction and minimizes conflict (12m1s).
• Meetings can be held using the "co-managed meetings" practice, where anyone can bring a topic and host or facilitate their session, giving everyone autonomy (12m41s).
• Transparency is also important, with a default to open being effective and efficient, and decision making can be done using the "generative decision making" process, which is a fast and efficient consent-based decision making method (13m23s).
• Generative decision making works on agile principles, such as "is it good enough for now" and "safe enough to try," allowing for flexibility and change (14m2s).
• Learning and development are crucial and should not be separated from work, with the work being the learning, and individuals and teams should focus on continuous learning and development (14m29s).
• Learning is self-directed and collectively held, allowing individuals to know what others are working on and providing peer support for development plans and relationships, as well as conflict resolution (14m40s).
• Micropractices such as checking in and checking out help to cover various aspects of work and bring harmony to decision-making and alignment within the organization (15m17s).
• Checking in with each other at the team and organizational levels is useful for the health of individuals and helps to develop psychological safety (15m43s).
• Psychological safety is not something that can be declared from the top, but rather it is developed through small practices that allow an organization to create a culture of safety (16m3s).
• To develop this culture, organizations need to unlearn and remember traditional ways of relating and valuing each other, and make space for new ways of working (16m16s).
• Building capacity within an organization is crucial, but the intention is to eventually get out of the way and allow the people within the organization to develop their own culture and make decisions (16m43s).
• This is a culture shift and a significant change for many organizations, requiring accessible tools to help people make decisions and develop their own culture (17m20s).

Psychological Safety and Organizational Culture

• A significant challenge is that many people may not feel they have the authority to make changes, and may withhold knowledge or ideas due to fear of vulnerability (17m33s).
• Developing a culture of psychological safety can help to break down these barriers and allow people to bring up and discuss radical ideas, such as the conscious economy conversations used at PAB (18m6s).
• PAB's approach to salaries and project work is an example of a radical idea that can be implemented through a culture of psychological safety and conscious economy conversations (18m22s).
• When engaging with organizations, it's essential to recognize that developing a culture of psychological safety is a journey, and many organizations may be caught between the traditional industrial way and a new way of working (18m45s).

Inner Development Goals (IDG)

• Development goals have led to the formation of the IDG movement, which focuses on inner and outer development, recognizing that who we are and how we show up is crucial to the products we develop (19m18s).
• IDG stands for inner development goals, which are not limited to development but applicable in all factors of life, and are categorized into five groupings: being, thinking, relating, collaborating, and acting (20m5s).
• These inner development goals are key elements to the products we develop and can influence the metrics we set for ourselves and our teams, such as introducing metrics like "will you work with this team again" as a measure of success (21m41s).

Expanding the Definition of Value in Software Engineering

• The software engineering industry has a privileged position in shaping the world and impacting people's lives, and it's essential to expand the definition of value to include people, planet, wellbeing, and those who are marginalized (23m48s).
• As software engineers, we have the power to create products that make a positive difference in the world, and it's crucial to consider the ethics of what we bring to the world and the impact of our work on people and the planet (22m35s).
• The use of AI will further connect and affect people's lives, and it's essential to create space for marginalized groups and consider their needs when developing products (24m5s).
• Tom Peters, who coined the phrase "the customer is king," is acknowledged for his work, and his ideas can be applied to the concept of expanding the definition of value to include people and planet (24m21s).
• The importance of people is emphasized, as they are the ones who make a difference, whether they are developers, customers, or anyone else affected, and this is highlighted by the phrase "it's the people" (24m34s).
• A New Zealand phrase, "it's the people," is mentioned, which is also known as the Maori term, emphasizing the significance of people in any context (24m51s).

Connecting with Nick Takava

• For those who want to continue the conversation, Nick Takar can be found on LinkedIn, where he is the only person with that name, and his username is spelled "t-a-k-a-v-a-d" (25m16s).
• Nick Takar also has a presence on Collab Au, which is easy to find, and although he may not respond instantly, he is always available (25m22s).
• Nick Takar expresses gratitude for the opportunity to talk and thanks the audience as well (25m41s).