The Executive Voice

Relevance of Psychological Safety Today

In tech, we’re feeling the pressure to deliver innovative services and solutions at a ridiculous pace to better compete or not get left behind in the AI race. On the other hand, this mad dash to some invisible finish line that, of course, doesn’t exist has to be tempered by security, guardrails and governance.

And that’s why I’m dusting off the old psychological safety topic and giving it a bit of a 2026 refresh.

Everyone is rushing to execute faster and achieve more, in, frankly, an environment that is hard to predict and where you can barely see what's in front of you. Many new projects will be rash or wrong. But leaders know that indecision and doing nothing are not the answer either.

Hard, fast action is needed, but there’s a chance you’ll veer wildly off course, even crash and burn, resulting in a severe loss of trust from employees, customers and investors.

Therefore, it’s important to give people in the company the freedom to push back, question choices, and challenge the status quo without fear of being shut down, mocked, ignored, or ostracised – that is, to work in an environment where psychological safety is high.

The Communication Framework That Builds Psychological Safety

Here’s how to turn psychological safety from a nice idea into a performance driver:

Here’s a cool idea: Conduct a premortem. “Take a decision you’re about to lock in, ask the team to imagine it’s a year later and it failed, and have them explain why. Speaking up then becomes part of the process instead of an act of courage.”

The key is to commit to embedding the above approach across the organisation so you can keep innovating without silencing the people who can see the risks, flaws and better ideas.

POSITIONING: Get This Wrong, Lose Market Share

What is positioning, and why is it important to reconsider it before the second half of 2026 gets moving?

I like April Dunford’s explanation for Positioning, which is:

“Positioning defines how your product is a leader at delivering something that a well-defined set of customers care about.”

Dunford also explains what Positioning is not: “Positioning is not the same thing as messaging. It isn’t a tag line. Positioning is not your brand story, nor is it your vision or mission.”

Here’s the thing: how much has your company changed in the last 12-15 months?

It might be time to ‘reset’ your positioning if you answer yes to any of the questions below.

If the business has evolved but the positioning hasn’t, sales and marketing are probably still describing an older version of the company. That creates problems quickly.

Marketing attracts the wrong buyers. Sales explains the offer differently from one conversation to the next. Stronger capabilities get buried, and the real reasons customers should choose you become harder to see.

Your sales strategy may also have changed. You might be targeting larger accounts, selling to more senior decision-makers or trying to move from project work to longer-term, higher-value relationships.

But if the positioning hasn’t moved with the strategy, the message won’t support the sale.

That’s why it’s worth reassessing your positioning before the second half of 2026 gets moving.

To help you, download the Positioning Reset Worksheet below. 👇

Throw out your vision & mission statements

Instead lead with a message how your company will think, decide and adapt in the second half of 2026.

The three biggest story in tech this past week, and what they mean.

Meta admits its AI restructure hasn’t gone to plan

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly acknowledged at an internal town hall that AI agents hadn’t advanced as quickly as expected and that the company’s major restructure, including significant layoffs and thousands of staff reassignments, hadn’t been handled as cleanly as it could have been. He also conceded that executives had misjudged the timing of the changes.

What’s Really Being Communicated
Moving aggressively doesn’t guarantee faster results. Meta’s admission suggests that when leaders restructure the company around an anticipated technology payoff before the capability is ready, they risk damaging morale and organisational stability without achieving the expected gains.

Anthropic’s most powerful models are cleared for release

The US government has lifted restrictions on Anthropic’s advanced Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after the company introduced additional safeguards. The models had been suspended over national-security concerns, including the risk of foreign access and the possibility that safeguards could be bypassed.

What’s Really Being Communicated
AI companies can’t treat security as something to add after release. Access to the most powerful models is increasingly contingent on developers demonstrating that governance, safeguards, and oversight have kept pace with capability.

AirTrunk accelerates Australia’s data-centre build-out

AirTrunk has secured Oracle as a major customer for its expanding western Sydney data-centre operations and is progressing additional large-scale sites in Sydney and Melbourne. The growth reflects the enormous infrastructure demand created by AI, although it also intensifies concerns about electricity, land and water use.

What’s Really Being Communicated
The AI race is becoming a contest over power, land, infrastructure and capital, and Australian leaders will increasingly have to explain who carries the cost of supporting that growth.

Phrase of the Week

Voice Calculus: The process of deciding whether to speak up by weighing the expected success and benefits of speaking up against the risks.

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The 10-Minute Message Check

Before you send an important or crucial message, announce a big decision or walk into a room filled with people, take 10 minutes to answer these seven questions:

Moving quickly doesn’t mean communicating carelessly.

This 10-minute pause helps you stay intentional, tell the truth clearly and give people what they need to respond.

If this helped you think differently about communication, forward this newsletter to someone who leads, sells or explains complex ideas in tech.