Performative Safety
Everyone is speaking. Nobody is saying anything true.
Wisdom is discerning the truth in whatever is said, by whomever it’s said. Valluvar didn’t say “hear what people say.” He said find the truth behind it. Now walk into your next team meeting and try that. Someone says “it’s fine.” It’s not fine. Someone says “no concerns.” They have three. Someone says “I agree” while their posture says they’ve already checked out. Everyone is speaking. Nobody is saying anything true.
Activision Blizzard published its values on the corporate website. ‘Commit to a diverse and inclusive workforce.’ I then read the California Department of Fair Employment complaint filed in 2021. Women were subjected to ‘cube crawls’ where male employees drank and crawled through cubicles. A female employee took her own life during a business trip with a male supervisor who had brought sex toys. The values statement stayed on the website throughout the lawsuit. Values theater means the performance continues even after the audience has seen backstage.
This is what happens when safety becomes a production. In immunology, an autoimmune response occurs when the body’s defense system attacks its own healthy cells. The machinery designed to protect you starts destroying you. Performative safety works the same way. The mechanisms built to create trust, the check-ins, the “how are you really doing” rituals, the anonymous feedback forms, they become the very things that suppress honesty. People learn to perform safety for the safety mechanisms. The immune system is attacking its own tissue.
In your next one-on-one, don’t ask “is everything okay?” Ask: “What can’t be said in this team right now?” Watch the pause. Time it. If they answer immediately, they’re performing. The truth lives in the hesitation.
That rehearsed comfort has a name. Performative Safety. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Untie The Knot
Uproot
Safety became a ritual. The team learned which phrases to use, which emotions to display, which check-in responses would satisfy the system. Nobody designed it this way. But once safety became measurable, it became performable.
Navigate
Every team member can surface a hard truth without rehearsal. When someone says “I disagree,” the room gets curious, not tense.
Tool
CORE / Identity: the compass that distinguishes performed behavior from authentic behavior. The CORE framework asks whether safety is a practice or a production.
Implement
In your next retrospective, replace “what went well?” with “what can’t be said in this team right now?” Time the silence. That pause is your measurement.
Emerge
When safety is real, feedback becomes bi-directional, mistakes become learning moments instead of liabilities, and the team stops performing trust and starts practicing it.