3 posts tagged with "psychological-safety"

If you've watched Resident Alien, you know the core premise: Harry, an alien, crashes on Earth and spends the series pretending to be a human so he can complete his mission (and eventually repair his spaceship). He's brilliant at it. He studies human behavior obsessively. He nails the performance. He says and does all the right things.

And he's absolutely miserable.

The alien's constant act of "being human" — perfectly mimicking behavior while feeling fundamentally separate from it — is actually a masterclass in imposter syndrome. And what's wild is how closely it mirrors something I see constantly in development teams: brilliant people who excel at their jobs while feeling like complete frauds.

The difference? The alien's situation is literal. He's actually not human. But the developers I know? They are good at what they do. Yet they're convinced they're faking it, waiting to be exposed, performing competence while feeling like imposters.

Resident Alien shows us why this matters and what healthy teams do differently.

Spoilers ahead.

After writing about what Ted Lasso taught me about being a Scrum Master, someone asked if I had any other TV shows that shaped my thinking on teams. I hesitated before answering "Yellowjackets," because unlike Ted's relentlessly optimistic football club, Yellowjackets is about a high school soccer team that crashes in the Canadian wilderness and descends into Lord of the Flies-style chaos. But here's the thing: I've seen more development teams operating like the Yellowjackets survivors than I'd like to admit. And the show's unflinching look at what happens when teams break down under pressure offers lessons that Ted Lasso's feel-good narrative can't.

So yes, we're going from biscuits and believe signs to cannibalism and cult behavior. Welcome to the darker side of team dynamics.

Massive spoilers ahead for Yellowjackets seasons one and two.

You know the signs: minimal participation in standup, delayed deliverables, and that thousand-yard stare during retrospectives. A disengaged team member can derail sprint momentum faster than a production bug on Friday afternoon. But before you escalate to management or start documenting performance issues, remember that disengagement is often a symptom, not the disease.