There you are again, perched on my nightstand reading glasses on the bridge of your long, pointy nose flipping through my resume and circling things in red. I recognize you well, old friend, the way you sharpen your pencil with teeth meant for fiercer things, ready to edit my worthiness. Let's sit together, you and I, share a few deep breaths. Your red marks are love letters, really - desperate notes from a well-meaning guardian who hasn't yet learned to whisper.
I’m guessing you, too, have your share of gremlins—those inner critics roaming your psyche, pencil sharpened. But what happens when these creatures take up residence beyond the nightstand and show up when we’re with our teammates?
And what about the collective beasts that roam our systems and our organizations?
When Creatures Roam the Conference Room
Teams and organizations create shared defensive patterns – it’s not only normal, it’s necessary.
Sometimes these emerge as gargoyles—protective guardians that say “we tried that before” to shield teams from repeating painful experiences.
But often they show up as gremlins—seemingly malicious troublemakers that turn code reviews into inquisitions, kill new ideas in collaboration sessions, and keep retrospectives safely superficial.
The challenge is helping teams transform gremlins into gargoyles through recognition and embrace rather than banishment.
Recognition
Start by noticing the patterns of language and behaviors and whether the team experiences the pattern as destructive (gremlin) or protective (gargoyle). The same ‘we tried that before’ can feel like sabotage or wisdom depending on how it’s delivered and received
Lines of inquiry to explore:
- What phrases do our team gremlins frequently say? What would the same concern sound like from a gargoyle?
- When do we become most mischievous or destructive as a group? What are we trying to protect?
- What past experiences is our collective troublemaker trying to prevent from happening again?
- Pick one of our team’s gremlins – If we could transform it into a gargoyle guardian, what wisdom would it offer?
Once you’ve recognized your team’s protective patterns, the next step is understanding where they show up.
Mapping Your Creatures
It is useful to map the creatures and behaviors (both gremlins and gargoyles) into four perspectives (adapted from Ken Wilber’s integral theory) to help see how protective patterns operate in different contexts.
Here are some examples:
Personal (I)
Individual critics that leak into team interactions: “I might look stupid,” “What if I’m wrong?” These personal gremlins influence how we show up in team settings, but can transform into gargoyles that help us contribute thoughtfully.
Relational (We)
Shared protective patterns: “We don’t challenge senior developers,” “We avoid difficult conversations,” “We always agree in public.” Gremlins that guard interpersonal harmony, but could become gargoyles that foster genuine collaboration.
Practices (It)
Process-protecting patterns: “Our way works,” “New tools are risky,” “We’ve always done standups this way.” Gremlins that resist change, but potential gargoyles guarding against unnecessary disruption.
Environmental (Its)
Organizational patterns inherited from company culture: “Leadership doesn’t like bad news,” “Innovation isn’t rewarded here,” “Failure isn’t tolerated.” External gremlins that constrain teams, but could become gargoyles that help teams navigate organizational realities with wisdom.
From Mapping to Movement
Once you’ve mapped your team’s creatures, each window suggests different experimental approaches for turning the gremlins into gargoyles:
Personal: Individual awareness experiments – self-observation practices, pairing for mutual pattern-spotting, personal retrospectives. These often show results quickly (days to weaks) but depend entirely on individual commitment.
Relational: Team interaction experiments – new conversation formats, feedback protocols, conflict navigation practices. Changes here can emerge rapidly when there’s collective will, but require ongoing attention to sustain.
Practices: Process and tool experiments – ceremony modifications, workflow changes, new collaboration structures. These often take 2 to 6 weeks to nudge change, but once embedded can create lasting behavioral shifts.
Environmental: Boundary and influence experiments – advocacy strategies, stakeholder education, organizational buffer-creation. Usually the longest timeline (months to years) but can dramatically shift team dynamics when successful.
Where to start?
Consider your team’s current psychological safety level. Teams new to vulnerability work might begin with Practices (concrete, less personal risk). Teams with established trust might tackle Relational patterns directly. Personal work often happens organically once people feel safe. Environmental changes typically require the team to be functioning well internally first.
Remember: Complex adaptive systems mean these are probes, not prescriptions. What transforms one team’s gremlins to gargoyles might not work for yours. The key is running small experiments, observing what emerges, and adapting based on what you learn.
From Mischief to Wisdom
The transformation from threat to care—from “editing worthiness” to “love letters”—mirrors Amy Edmondson’s shift from threat detection to learning orientation. It’s also the heart of the gremlin-to-gargoyle transformation. Instead of seeing questions as criticism, new ideas as threats, mistakes as proof of incompetence, we begin to recognize protective intent underneath the mischief.
That team gremlin sabotaging every new process might transform into the gargoyle that helps spot genuinely problematic changes. The gremlin of harsh criticism could become the gargoyle of quality advocacy. The gremlin of resistance might become the gargoyle of wisdom about sustainable pace.
The goal isn’t to banish our team gremlins—they often carry institutional wisdom and hard-earned caution. The goal is transformation: helping gremlins become gargoyles that “learn to whisper” instead of roar.
This happens when teams practice:
- Acknowledging the troublemaker: “I notice we’re being really disruptive about this new process. What are we trying to protect against?”
- Slowing down together: When the team gremlin emerges, pause. Take those few deep breaths as a group.
- Translating the mischief: “When we sabotage new ideas, what are we really concerned about?”
- Honoring the underlying wisdom: “What does our protective troublemaker know that we should listen to?”
Edmondson reminds us that psychological safety isn’t about creating a comfortable environment—it’s about creating a learning environment. Sometimes our team gremlins need to speak up about real risks or valid concerns. The difference is whether they’re allowed to transform into collaborative gargoyles or whether they hijack the conversation entirely.
That team pattern saying “we tried that before” might be communicating “we want to protect you from our pain.” The voice finding problems with new approaches might be saying “we care about our reputation.” This doesn’t mean ignoring legitimate concerns—it means understanding what our creatures are protecting before asking them to change.
The Well-Meaning Troublemakers
Every team has gremlins, pencils sharpened and ready to redline new ideas. The question isn’t whether these protective patterns exist—they do. The question is whether we’ll sit with them long enough to understand what they’re really trying to protect, and whether we can help them transform into gargoyles that whisper their wisdom rather than roar their fears.
Because when teams learn to breathe with their beasts together, something remarkable happens. The troublesome mischief of gremlins begins to transform into the collaborative wisdom of gargoyles who’ve learned that their job isn’t to prevent all risk, but to help the team navigate wisely.
And that transformation—from defensive protection to collaborative care—is where real psychological safety begins.
“The fearless organization is not one where people feel safe from any kind of threat or harm. It’s one where people feel safe to be vulnerable—to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” —Amy Edmondson
What gremlins have taken up residence in your team’s conference rooms? How might you begin to breathe with them rather than against them?
