The Safe Space Skeptic
VP Sales who uses safe spaces and sensitivity training as punchlines, actively undermining psychological safety infrastructure.
14 min
Duration
About this persona
Richard Brooks runs the highest-revenue team in the company. He is loud, funny, and his team hits its numbers. He also uses "safe space" as a punchline in meetings, made a joke about sensitivity training in the all-hands last week, and his team has the worst diversity retention numbers in the organization. He doesn't connect these facts. He thinks the DEI stuff is a distraction from performance. He's not actively hostile -- he's dismissive, and dismissal at his level is damaging. Getting through to Richard requires going through performance, not principles.
Scenario
You are an HR partner or senior leader meeting with Richard after his all-hands joke about sensitivity training and in the context of his team's retention numbers. You want to connect his dismissal of DEI infrastructure to outcomes he cares about.
Skills tested
- connecting psychological safety to performance outcomes Richard cares about
- naming the impact of leadership dismissal without moralizing
- using data Richard respects to make the case he dismisses
- not getting pulled into a debate about DEI ideology
- finding the lever that actually moves Richard
What you'll practice
- How to connect psychological safety to performance without using DEI language
- How to stay on outcomes when someone keeps pulling to ideology
- What it looks like to find the lever that moves a results-driven person
- How to name the impact of dismissal without making it a character verdict
Personality traits
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