Safety, Strategy & Shifting Rhythms

Festive traditions: Festivus lunches and Icelandic book nights

Chuck shares his 15-year tradition of hosting a “Festivus” lunch on December 23rd for fellow remote workers and solopreneurs, born from having no office holiday party to attend, while Jenni describes her Christmas Eve tradition of Jólabókaflóð, the Icelandic custom of exchanging books and hot chocolate, which she and her husband have observed for 15 years after watching Die Hard.

Psychological safety as a strategic resource, not a perk

Covering new HBR research from Amy Edmondson and colleagues surveying more than 27,000 hospital workers before and during the pandemic, Chuck explains that psychological safety functioned like a “resilience savings account,” with 2019 safety scores predicting who was still with the organization two years later. Jenni argues most leaders genuinely don’t know how safe their teams feel because organizations remain fixated on a single engagement number, and suggests the concept has become somewhat “weaponized” and drifted from its original meaning, while Chuck points to Cooper University Healthcare’s “good catch” program as a concrete example of building psychological safety into everyday culture.

Strategy versus plans: why internal comms gets stuck in task mode

Discussing a LinkedIn post from Regine Nelson arguing that comms teams default to plans instead of strategy, Jenni says resetting from chaos to clarity doesn’t have to be a lengthy process — she’s done it with clients in about two weeks, starting from one question: what is the actual purpose of this function? Chuck agrees, proposing that comms professionals apply Nelson’s own test to themselves — if you can’t state your strategy in a single sentence, you only know the content calendar, not the strategy — and both hosts note that plans should flex quickly while strategy stays comparatively fixed.

Leesman’s Rhythms report and the risk of overloading Thursdays

Presenting Leesman’s Rhythms report, based on 1.5 million employee responses, Chuck highlights that short commutes drive satisfaction (90% for sub-15-minute journeys) and that Thursday has emerged globally as the new peak office day. Jenni notes Thursday has effectively been London’s peak office day for two decades already, and warns against comms teams scheduling every town hall and social event on the same day just because people happen to be in the building, arguing events should be scheduled strategically rather than around office attendance alone.

A real disagreement: is AI anxiety just ordinary change anxiety?

Covering an HBR piece arguing AI anxiety at work is a rational response to fast, messy change, Jenni pushes back firmly that this is simply change anxiety with the word “AI” swapped in, and that organizations experiencing AI-related anxiety are really just demonstrating poor change management generally. Chuck disagrees, arguing this particular change carries a named, specific fear of personal obsolescence that distinguishes it from past shifts like office relocations, and that AI is uniquely visible and openly discussed as a threat to jobs in a way most prior workplace changes weren’t — the two hosts continue disagreeing good-naturedly through to the end of the segment.

Freak-outs: doors, milestone birthdays, and what’s ahead

Jenni’s freak-out reveals her dedicated Instagram account, “jennifinds_doors,” for photographing interesting doors she encounters while traveling, while Chuck reflects on recently turning 50 — an age his father never reached — describing genuine excitement rather than dread about the decade ahead, including watching his children finish college and start their own lives.