Troubleshooting Agile Fear: The Original Sin of Unproductive Conversations
Jun 3, 2020
They explore why fear became our default reaction and how it now sabotages conversations. Evolutionary stories and cognitive biases explain defensive reasoning in teams. A simple phrase —"I'm afraid"— is presented as a way to surface hidden concerns. They warn about mislabeling signals as harmless and the risks that creates.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Fear Is Our Default, Not Always Helpful
- Humans default to fear because ancestors who avoided risks survived more often than risk-takers.
- That ancestral bias misfires in modern work where opportunities often outweigh threats.
Cave-People Story Explains Fear’s Advantage
- Douglas Squirrel tells a cave-person story to explain why fear dominated survival choices.
- The cautious ancestor lived and reproduced while the risk-taker sometimes met a deadly bear.
Knowing Good Conversation Doesn’t Prevent Fear
- People endorse productive conversational values but act defensively under threat.
- Defensive reasoning replaces collaboration whenever embarrassment or threat feels possible.
