Work: Psychological Safety -- an ingredient, not a recipe

This was a while back, early in the year, when someone on my team email an article published by Google about what make a good team.  The one buzzword that got thrown around was psychological safety.  Basically,the ability to express thoughts without being shamed and fail without being blamed.  If you have not read about it yet, try reading it at NYTimes or reWork

• http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html
• https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/how-to-foster-psychological-safety/

I do think psychological safety is an essential part of a good team.  Innovation requires a lot of experiments and failures.  Getting blamed for each and every failures is very detrimental.  It would be like living with a family member who points out all your imperfection on a daily basis -- that dish is not clean, you are driving too slow, the housework is not done yet, the bill is still unpaid, there is dust on the table, the grass is (few inches) too tall now, the food is too salty/sweet/tough/bland/cold/unhealthy, etc.  Yeah... nothing said love than being reminded about every troubles and flaws.

At the same time, I have a feeling that psychological safety will ended up being the grand philosophy to create a perfect project instead of an ingredient of a good project.  Eventually, it will be re-interpret, exploited, and deemed as a wrong idea.  I like to compare this to a sugar in any cake.  Yes, all cakes need sugar, but it is not the only ingredient and too much can be bad...

After reading the articles, I have been thinking for a while about my own situation in life, and came to the conclusion that the three ingredients that make a good team are...

1. Knowledge -- the logical thinking and technical ability to get things done.
2. Passion -- the drive to bring people together and motivation to get things done.
3. Compassion -- the openness to changes and acceptance of failures.

From my own 11 years in software development, I have worked on 12 teams (the privilege of being in a Tiger Team), two of my top three managers have nothing to do with Computer Science major.

In shortness of time, I have to stop this post now...  Who know when will I ever blog again...