Simon Sinek uses a personal anecdote from a Las Vegas stay at the Four Seasons to illustrate what psychological safety feels like in the workplace. He contrasts genuine, emotionally-driven engagement ("love" for a job) with merely transactional or enforced behaviors, arguing that authentic care from employees signals a psychologically safe environment.
Yeah. When we talk about safe, we're talking about psychologically safe. That's right, yeah.
And you can be psychologically safe and still trip over a court. That's right, yeah.
So it's a great story. I had a business trip to Las Vegas a bunch of years ago, and the client was very generous and put me up at the Four Seasons, which is a lovely hotel. And the reason it's lovely is not because of the fancy beds. Any hotel can buy a fancy bed. It's because of the people who work there that when you roam the halls and somebody says hello, you get the distinct feeling that they wanted to say hello, not that they were told to say hello. You know, we're highly attuned social animals. We can tell the difference. Your idea of being the Nordstrom's, it's like people can tell the difference whether they're forced to give good service or they want to give good service. Anyway, they happen to have a coffee bar at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. And one afternoon I went and bought myself a cup of coffee. And the barista working that day was a kid named Noah. Noah was funny and engaging and charming, and I stood there for far too long just to buy a cup of coffee. And so, as is my nature, I asked Noah, do you like your job? And without skipping a beat, Noah said, I love my job. Now, in my line of work, that's significant because like is rational. Right. I like the people. I like the challenge. I get paid well. I like my job. Love is emotional. It's a higher order connection. Like, do you love your wife? I like her a lot. Right.
It's different. It's not the same. Right. So Noah said, I love my job. So immediately my ears perk up. This kid has an emotional connection to his job. So I followed up and I said, can you tell me specifically what the Four Seasons is doing that you would say to me, you love your job? And without skipping a beat, Noah said, throughout the day, managers will walk past me and ask me if there's anything that I need to do my job better, anything they can do for me. Not just my manager, any manager. And then he said, I also work at Caesar's Palace. And there the managers walk around and just catch us when we're doing things wrong. There they're just trying to drive performance. He says, there, I just keep my head below the radar. I just want to get through the day and collect my paycheck. And then he said something magical. He said, only at the Four Seasons do I feel I can be myself. So think about that for a second. This is the exact same human being in two different jobs. And yet our experience of him will be profoundly different. Not because of him, but because. But because of the leadership environment in which he works. In one experience, it'll be amazing. In one it'll be terrible. Right? And I think so often I hear this all the time. Leaders ask, how do I get the most out of my people? Well, people aren't a towel. You don't wring them out, right? How do I get the most out of them? It's a flawed question. When it comes to leadership, the question is, how do I create an environment in which my people can work at their natural best? And the Four Seasons has figured that out, right? It's by giving him agency. It's by giving him control to do the job that he wants to do the way he wants to do it, and checking in to make sure that leadership isn't there to do his job for him. Or to overly control, but to offer guidelines, but also offer support. And the same goes in any profession. You can take a cop in one agency who will be high performing, a valuable member of the team, a valuable member of the community because of the culture. You can change the agency they work for and they can be a terrible member of the team because of the leadership environment in which they work.
