At my favorite local coffee shop, someone ran across the room to help my 4-year-old open the door... then they realized I was on the other side of the door, easily within reach, but not helping.
They looked at me a bit confused... and I smiled and just said, "I like to let him struggle a little bit."
This situation reminded me of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. The premise has stuck with me:
We've overprotected our children in the physical world while leaving them underprotected in the digital one.
It got me thinking about the spaces we create—not just for children, but for our teams in hospitality.
The Power of Unstructured Play
Have you ever noticed how different animals develop?
A giraffe is born and within hours is walking beside its mother. Humans, by contrast, require years of development before we're truly independent.
This extended development isn't a design flaw—it's a feature. Those years are meant for learning through social interaction, through unstructured play, through experiencing the world and discovering its nuances within a community.
We learn by doing, by trying, by failing, by seeing that nothing bad usually happens when we don't get it right—and most importantly, by sharing those experiences with others.
High Stakes vs. Low Stakes
When I was at Hilton, I noticed something interesting about team performance. The departments that consistently innovated and solved problems creatively weren't necessarily the ones with the smartest people—they were the ones where people were open to try new approaches.
Here's what I came to understand: when the environment feels high-stakes—where mistakes are punished and perfection is the only acceptable outcome—people operate from their sympathetic nervous system.
I know sympathetic sounds good, but it means that they're in survival mode. And when you're in survival mode, the creative, problem-solving parts of your brain shut down.
You're exhausted quickly. You become protective rather than generative.
So, how can we as leaders work to create low-stakes spaces where people can play, experiment, and learn without fear?
Building Safety in Your Team
Here are some things that work for me:
Celebrate learning, not just success. In our weekly meetings, we don’t just share wins—we share what went wrong and what we learned. "Here's what happened with a guest this week. Here's what worked well. Here's what didn't. Here's what we're going to do differently next time."
Model vulnerability. At one of our company retreats, each team member wrote down something they were afraid of on a piece of paper. We each threw those papers into a fire together. Some shared aloud, some didn't. But that simple act sent a powerful message: it's okay not to know everything. It's okay to have fears.
Eliminate unnecessary competition. When team members feel they're competing against each other rather than working together toward a common goal, defensive posturing becomes the norm. Make it clear that you value collaboration over individual heroics. The core tenet of our company is to “take care of each other,” and that requires attunement over individual accomplishment.
The Neuroscience of Safety
There's science behind all this. When we feel threatened—even by something as simple as potential criticism from a colleague—our brains shift from the parasympathetic "rest and digest" mode to the sympathetic "fight or flight" response.
In that state, our ability to conceptualize, to think creatively, to connect with others—all the things that make for exceptional hospitality—dramatically diminishes. We're too busy trying to survive to truly care for others.
This is why creating psychological safety isn't just a nice-to-have; it's essential for teams that want to deliver truly exceptional experiences.
Your Turn
Take a moment to reflect: How safe do people feel to learn, grow, and make mistakes on your team?
If someone tries something new and it doesn't work perfectly, what happens? Is the focus on placing blame or extracting learning?
What's one small step you could take this week to create more "space between"—that psychological environment where your team feels safe enough to bring their full, creative, problem-solving selves to work?
Reply and let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Take care,
Josh