I help teams and communities build emotionally stable cultures that optimize the decision-making process and get more done.
Jeffrey Stec, J.D.
Designing Meetings for Psychological Safety
Leaders who aim meetings at building connection, not just making decisions, create the psychological safety necessary for people to speak up.
In my experience, teams are not frustrated by a leader’s decision so much as by the process of making it. Meetings often fail to deliver what people need to feel good about a decision—rigorous thinking informed by all relevant perspectives.For two decades, I’ve been exploring how teams can improve their collective thought process—intellectually and emotionally—to make more informed decisions. My sense is that emotionally stable groups do the best work. Rather than allowing resentments and reactions to simmer, deeply connected teams can speak authentically about challenging perspectives without others getting reactive.Fostering Meetings with Compassionate Honesty
Even collegial teams can have meetings that feel tense before anyone speaks, where reactive patterns repeat despite training and goodwill – and where discussion and decisions are suboptimal.So, I’ve become curious about what’s happening before conflict surfaces and during conversations—particularly how the structure of meetings shapes emotions, relationships, and the quality of thinking. These dynamics are not failures of leadership, but signals of underlying anxiety. I’ve found, however, that simple meeting practices can help compassion replace defensiveness. 
Leaders who aim meetings at inclusivity and high-participation, not just efficiency, optimize discussion time and group thinking.
