Dr. Cat Hicks on the Psychology of Software Teams
Dr. Cat Hicks, author of The Psychology of Software Teams and founder of Catharsis, joins Charity Majors for episode two of Leading With Observability. They talk organizational trust in AI, identity threat among developers, and how leaders can create the structure that reduces anxiety in this new era.
By: Rox Williams
Leading With Observability: Scaling Fin to 2x Engineering Productivity
Darragh Curran, CTO at Fin (formerly Intercom), set out to double engineering productivity—and nearly tripled it instead, using AI-driven code, an AI-powered PR review system, observability as a trust mechanism, and much more hands-on leadership. In the first episode of Leading With Observability, Charity gets into the messy bits behind that transformation, not just the highlight reel.
Watch Now
What happens when a software engineer who has put their entire identity into being the resident expert of an obscure technology or language with ten years of experience and who knows the codebase like the back of their hand now has to compete with AI? Psychologically speaking, according to Dr. Cat Hicks, author of The Psychology of Software Teams and founder of Catharsis, that's called identity threat, and it's a surefire way to feel unsafe.
We were honored Dr. Hicks joined Charity Majors in episode two of Leading With Observability - When AI Joins the Team: How to Set Norms for a New Era. And if you missed the first episode with Darragh Curran, CTO of Fin, you can watch it here.
Watch the interview
Don't have 18 minutes? Keep reading below for a short recap on the conversation.
What are we, without trust?
A few weeks ago, Charity published a series of three blog posts, AI Norms & Values, in which Charity (with help from Manny Alves and Emily Nakashima) explained how we think about AI at Honeycomb (think “Where can AI help, and where should we stay human?”). Dr. Hicks, in turn, opined about fairness in the context of AI. Through her research consulting company, Catharsis, she's actually measured different facets of organizational trust and AI (for example: ‘I trust that my organization has adequate processes for reviewing AI before it's used,’ ‘my team has clear standards,’ ‘I trust the quality of output from AI,’ and ‘I trust that if I raise a concern, it will be heard’).
In this research, she notes that while there is a breakdown of trust with AI, she thinks it's repairable by realigning expectations, measuring the perception of organizational injustice, and being held accountable for bad behavior. Leaders need to create structure in order to reduce identity threat and anxiety. As is often the case, ambiguity is destructive to people.
Identity threat
Perhaps the most salient part of the interview was the section on identity threat. Dr. Hicks conducted research on the identity threat that developers feel from AI. In her words: “Psychologists have started to unpack what are all the little cues that you're getting, the signals that you're taking that are making you feel like, ‘Am I in or am I out? Am I gonna be safe or not?’ That's the threat piece. And the argument I usually put out to teams is, you need to think really carefully about having a durable source for your identity. Being really good at a single particular programming language in a single particular historical context is a brittle way to form your identity because you've loaded it with lots of really specific things. It's really scary to do that because you're gonna lose it at some point. It's gonna be challenged at some point.”
Don't fret, though—there is good news! As Dr. Hicks said, “There's huge space for learning in this era. Do not let people tell you differently.”
Got burning questions?
All in all, the conversation with Dr. Hicks was so enlightening that we decided to do it again, but live! We'll be able to answer your burning questions about how to navigate AI cultural norms in your own team.