Your Bench Is Breathing Different Air Than Your Starters
Issue 142- Jason Payne, CMPC
When Amy Edmondson coined the term "psychological safety" in 1999, she administered her survey to individuals in a work setting. Not teams.
That detail is easy to miss, and it changes the conversation.
What Edmondson found, and what Google’s Project Aristotle reaffirmed a decade later in its five-year study of 180 teams, was that two people on the same team would routinely give wildly different answers about whether the room felt safe enough to take a risk in. The captain felt safe. The new hire didn’t. The senior engineer was relaxed. The intern was watchful. Same team. Different sense of safety.
I would almost guarantee your team is the same.
Psychological safety is a shared experience that spreads like a virus. It lives in the relationship between an athlete and the group around them. Unlike a virus, you can have one player who feels safe and secure, but not the player sitting next to him on the bench.
For a long time, I missed that. The people I used to measure the health of my team's culture were the ones for whom my culture was easiest to be part of. The captain who spoke up in the film. The starter who laughed at my jokes. The senior who brought me hard feedback. I read those signals, and I told myself the room was safe.
But the eighth man was operating in a different climate, and I had no idea.
Three patterns I had been blind to.
The bench player does the gut-check your starter never has to do. Before he says the hard thing, he runs the math on whether saying it will cost him his minutes, his spot, his place in the program. He is no less honest than your captain. He is spending energy that your captain does not have to spend.
The new player reads your room through old wiring. Whatever happened in his last program, he is still calibrating to that. If he was punished for speaking up on his team, he will be quiet at yours for a year, sometimes longer, while you wait for him to “open up.” That is not a personality defect. It is a learned behaviour.
The bench player learns from how the whole bench gets treated. Your eleventh man does not just read your team handbook. He reads how you talk to the tenth man when he loses a ball. Whether you bring the walk-on into the huddle. He reads what happens to the kid who asks a question after the whistle. The climate at the bottom of the roster is what the whole roster is actually navigating.
Most of us were measuring our culture by the people for whom the culture was easiest. That is the trap.
The harder question is one I now ask myself midseason, when there is still time to do something about it.
If I asked the last three athletes off the bench to describe me as a coach, would their answer match the description my starters would give?
Most of us, if we are honest, know the answer is no. Not because we are bad people. Because the starter has been around our care, our feedback, our humour, and our patience for years. The bench is reading us from a different distance and through a different filter, and the filter is calibrated for self-protection.
The fix is not to lower the standard for the bottom of the roster. The fix is to deliberately do for the bench what time has already done for the starters.
One concrete thing. Audit your last week of language for the eleventh man. Did you use his name in a huddle? Did you correct one of his reps with the same care you would give a starter? Did you ask him a question about his life this week? If you cannot remember, that is your answer.
Another. Watch how your leaders treat the bottom of your roster. Culture in any team flows down from the top of the pecking order. If your captain treats the walk-on like a peer, the room is safe. If your captain treats him like they are less than, the room is not safe, no matter what your value posters say.
A third. Notice who corrects you publicly. When you make a mistake on a clipboard or in a film clip, who in your room is willing to say so out loud? If it is only the same three voices, you have a depth-chart problem in your culture, not just your rotation.
Psychological safety is not built at the top of the roster. It is built at the bottom and trusted at the top. The starters benefit from a climate built for someone else.
If you get to ask yourself only one question this week, ask the one your eighth man is already living the answer to.
Does this team feel just as safe for him as it does for the player next to him?
Then start there.
Build something lasting.
🎧 The Ultimate List of Coaching Podcasts
For years, I kept a list of my favourite coaching podcasts. Somewhere along the line, I stopped updating it. But I took some time and added to it. Over 160 hours of top-notch professional development for free.
One of the simplest ways to sharpen your thinking, broaden your perspective, and stay connected to the best ideas in leadership and performance is by listening to podcasts. They give you access to world-class coaches, sports scientists, and leadership minds, often during the time you were already going to spend driving, walking, or working out.
Over the years, podcasts have become part of my own development rhythm. Some challenge my assumptions. Some give practical tools I can use the next day. And some simply remind me that the best coaches are lifelong learners.
That’s why I’ve put together The Ultimate List of Coaching Podcasts. It's a curated collection designed to help you:
✅ Build stronger culture
✅ Improve how you teach and communicate
✅ Deepen your mental performance toolbox
✅ Stay current with modern player development
✅ Grow your leadership from the inside out
Whether you’re a veteran coach or just getting started, there is something in here that will stretch your thinking.
👉 Dive into the list and pick one new voice to learn from this week.
Because the best coaches don't stay static…
They keep evolving.
Are you or your athletes struggling to be their best?
Let's find a solution together.
I help coaches thrive.
As a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and a basketball coach with 25 years of experience, I understand the barriers to peak performance for both you and your athletes.
I would love to help you or your team build a competitive advantage. Here are a few ways I can help:
- Consult with your team or coaching staff
- Teach mental skills to your team via Zoom
- Work 1-on-1 with coaches
- Work 1 on 1 with athletes
Book a Free Discovery Call
If you’re feeling the weight of expectations, pressure, or burnout, you don’t have to figure this out alone.
A discovery call is simply a chance to talk through your season, your goals, and your process with another coach who’s been there. No pitch. No obligation. Just a meaningful conversation.
Schedule a discovery call here.
Shoot me an email at jasonpayne@evolutionmpc.com. I love talking about coaching and seeing how I can help you.
Coaching is hard; let's make it easier.
Check out my website at http://jasonpayne.ca
Thanks for reading, and have a great week.