I read a book called The Science of Failure (Japanese title: 失敗の科学).
Roughly speaking, it analyzes causes of failure using examples like medical errors and plane crashes.
What stuck with me most was that social hierarchy itself can be a cause of failure.
For example: an emergency incident during surgery, the attending doctor panicking — a nurse has an idea of what might help, but can't say it to someone higher-ranking, or assumes the doctor's approach must be right because they're more specialized, and stays silent.
In that case, it's generally obvious the nurse isn't to blame; the doctor may bear technical responsibility, but that doesn't mean they wanted to shut nurses up.
The goal is to get through the incident, so they'd likely accept a correct idea from anyone.
(Of course I know the world also has far too many people stuck in a chosen-people mindset that doesn't fit this.)
The point is: when you see cases like this, landing on shallow takes like "psychological safety matters" or "speak honestly regardless of rank" is dangerous.
Especially in startup circles (no mockery intended), you see that claim a lot. I've fallen into it myself, and I can't swear I never will again.
My personal conclusion: pressure like this on speaking up to seniors or bosses should be treated as something that absolutely occurs. Absolutely.
It absolutely occurs. So you can't fully prevent it.
That's why when founders or managers say "let's talk honestly about everything" or "please say any opinion you have," it doesn't work. Better to assume that's simply impossible.
So what do you do? I think the only answer is to keep relentlessly documenting and formalizing things into rules.
People will criticize that rules make things stifling — but to strip out unnecessary person-dependence, I think you only escape social pressure once principles are fixed and people follow them.
Out of order a bit: another claim you hear in startup circles about as often as "speak honestly" is "let's keep it simple."
Along with "speak honestly," "keep it simple" is probably an antithesis to big companies that can't do that.
The result of simplifying: operations never settle, work gets tossed back and forth as dumping, and someone ends up burning excess hours.
From personal experience I think you have to add rules from a whole-system view — but when you propose it, nine times out of ten the people involved won't immediately buy in.
People basically dislike change, and even if it's for the whole, they don't want their own hours to grow in areas they used to dump on others. (Though dumping should always come back to the person who dumped — but anyway.)
Even so, I personally think you have to formalize and push through — and that's how I'm proceeding. Asked if I'm 100% right: no. But it's the result of weighing many factors, and I'm proceeding with confidence that it's right.
"Speak honestly" and "keep it simple" sound correct at first glance, but you have to ask whether they're extremely surface-level and someone's unnecessary positioning talk.
If it's positioning talk that isn't facing the problem, your own thinking shouldn't be interfered with by that — you should push back.
This is an antithesis to the antithesis that startup circles hold against big companies.
Again: I have zero intent to mock startup circles. As I keep saying, I'm in them myself.
I'm simply saying: social hierarchy absolutely affects what people say in those roles, and I believe the only way to address that is to rule-ify like crazy.
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