Change doesn't break teams. It reveals the cultural dehydration that was already there. Here's why psychological safety is the infrastructure of change, not the soft side of it, and how to build it before disruption arrives.
I've been saying it for years inside boardrooms, leadership workshops, and keynote stages.
Silence isn't peace. Silence is dehydration.
When I came across Rebecca VanDerveer's article on psychological safety and the Tuckman model, I didn't just nod along.
I felt it.
Because what she's articulating through the research lens is exactly what I watch play out inside organizations every single week.
The slow, invisible erosion of trust that happens when people don't feel safe enough to speak up.
After 35 years inside organizations, I can tell you that employee silence is one of the earliest warning signs of cultural dehydration.
It shows up long before your engagement scores move.
And when psychological safety is missing from your workplace, change doesn't just get harder.
It becomes impossible.
I agree with her takes. Fully.
And I want to add a layer to the conversation, because I think there's something culture builders need to hear.
Rebecca uses Tuckman's stages to show how even high-performing teams can regress during change...
Sliding back from Performing into Storming when disruption hits.
She's right.
But here's what I want you to sit with.
That regression?
It happens because the culture was already dehydrated before the change arrived.
Think about it this way.
When your body is properly hydrated, it can handle heat. It can recover from exertion.
It has reserves.
But when you're running on empty, even mild stress can trigger a crisis.
Your culture works the same way.
Teams with a strong foundation of psychological safety, where people already feel seen, heard, and trusted, move through change differently.
They don't stall at Storming. They process the disruption and move forward.
Teams without that foundation? The change doesn't break them. It reveals the dehydration that was already there.
The Gallup data Rebecca cites, only 20% of teams are fully engaged, isn't just a productivity statistic.
It's a dehydration reading. It tells us that 80% of teams are running on insufficient levels of connection, trust, and safety.
Rebecca outlines three practical starting points for leaders navigating change.
I want to reflect on each one through the lens of what I call the Flow-State Culture Framework.
The approach I use with my clients to detect cultural dehydration before it reaches a crisis point.
1. Build Self + Other Awareness
Before you can create psychological safety for others, you have to understand your own triggers, defaults, and blind spots as a leader.
Self-awareness needs to be strategic.
And understanding how the people on your team process change, some need time to sit with it, others need to act immediately, is the difference between a leader who creates calm and one who unknowingly creates chaos.
2. Clarify Rules + Processes
Ambiguity is one of the fastest ways to dehydrate a culture.
When people don't know how decisions are made, who has authority, or what "good" looks like right now, they fill the gaps with assumptions and anxiety.
Clarity is a form of care. Be explicit. Say the quiet part out loud. Give people the structure that allows them to move forward with confidence instead of paralysis.
3. Create Space for Voice
You don't have to hold a town hall or launch a listening tour (although those have their place).
You need to create consistent, low-stakes opportunities for people to speak, and then respond in a way that makes them want to speak again.
The goal is not just to hear them. It's to make them feel heard.
Here's what I'd add to Rebecca's list: track that silence.
Start noticing who isn't speaking.
Notice when questions stop.
Notice when meetings feel smooth in a way that feels rehearsed.
That silence is data.
These are the silence signals I train leaders to recognize, the early warning signs of cultural dehydration that your dashboard will never show you.
I've spent 35 years walking into organizations where the scorecards looked green but you could feel something wasn't right.
Within 20 minutes, sometimes less, I've got a read on it.
Not from the numbers.
From the silence, the body language, the energy in the room, the questions that aren't being asked.
These are the same patterns that predict employee resignation months before it happens.
The quiet quitting. The disengagement. The slow withdrawal of voice.
You can learn to read these flight risk indicators if you know where to look.
That's the difference between measuring culture and detecting it.
Rebecca's central argument is one I've made in every boardroom I've sat in: most change initiatives don't fail because the strategy was wrong.
They fail because the human conditions weren't there to support it.
This is why change fails even in organizations with brilliant plans.
Psychological safety in the workplace is not the soft side of change management. It is the infrastructure.
Without it, your best strategy will stall in a room full of people who are nodding but privately opting out.
And here's what I know to be true from working inside organizations navigating exactly this.
You can't create a high-performing culture in a dehydrated environment.
The research supports it. Rebecca's article supports it.
And if you've ever watched a talented team quietly fall apart during a major shift, you've seen it firsthand.
The question isn't whether psychological safety matters.
The question is whether you're actively building it or accidentally destroying it.
I'd encourage every leader in my community to read Rebecca VanDerveer's full article...
Why Change Fails Even When the Strategy Is Right.
She brings a research-grounded, practical perspective to a conversation that desperately needs more voices at this level.
And then I want to hear from you.
Where is your culture thirsty right now?
Is psychological safety something your team is actively building, or just something that appears on a values poster on the wall?
If you're sensing that something isn't right, even when the numbers look fine, that instinct is worth paying attention to.
Start a conversation with me and let's figure out what your silence is telling you.
Creating cultures that thrive,
Shelley Smith, CEO
Rebecca VanDerveer, "Why Change Fails Even When the Strategy Is Right" (referenced in original LinkedIn newsletter)
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace report (20% team engagement statistic cited via VanDerveer)
What are the signs an employee is about to resign?
The earliest signs are behavioral, not metric-based. Watch for high performers going quiet in meetings, questions stopping, energy becoming flat or rehearsed, and linguistic shifts like "we" becoming "they." These silence signals often appear 9 to 12 months before a resignation shows up in your data.
Why does psychological safety break down during organizational change?
Psychological safety doesn't break down because of the change itself. It breaks down because the culture was already dehydrated before the disruption arrived. Teams with strong foundations of trust, belonging, and voice move through change. Teams without that foundation regress because the change reveals the dehydration that was already present.
Why do high performers go quiet before leaving?
High performers go quiet because they've stopped believing their voice will change anything. When people don't feel safe enough to speak up, they withdraw. That silence isn't peace. It's a leading indicator of disengagement. By the time it shows up in an engagement survey, the departure decision has already been made.
How can you predict flight risk without surveys?
Start tracking silence instead of scores. Notice who stops asking questions, who disengages during meetings, and when conversations feel smooth in a way that seems rehearsed. These behavioral patterns are leading indicators that traditional engagement surveys miss entirely. Linguistic shifts, energy changes, and withdrawal of voice are the earliest predictors.
What is cultural dehydration in the workplace?
Cultural dehydration is the slow, invisible erosion of trust, connection, and psychological safety inside an organization. It happens when people stop feeling seen, heard, and valued. Like physical dehydration, the damage accumulates quietly. By the time symptoms appear in your metrics, the culture has been running on empty for months.
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