Loads of research – prominently, the work of Amy Edmonson and her team – is bearing evidence to the importance of psychological safety. This important feature of a workplace is a prerequisite for innovation, team collaboration, quality work and a healthy workplace. It signifies a working environment where it is possible to state your opinion and talk about relevant ideas, where people feel free – or even compelled – to be open and honest.
The term “psychological safety” is becoming a term used almost as synonymous with trust, or with feeling personally confident to speak up. However, trust and confidence exist inside an individual person – psychological safety exists at the group or workplace level, and leadership’s efficiency in sustaining the conditions for psychological safety is crucial.
One example: encourage learning to avoid preventable mistakes, those that are due to lack of care and attention. To “encourage” means to REWARD, not just refrain from shaming. People making preventable mistakes should not be praised for their inattention (obviously) but for their willingness to come forward and admitting the mistake, enabling a process improvement to make sure this does not happen again.
Another example: Intelligent mistakes, exploring new ground, fueled by a willingness to take risks and to experiment, should be straight-up rewarded, even if the desired results are not materializing. (And yes, results should be rewarded as well, that’s not the point).
Encouraging these behaviors will take a little bit of imagination but is totally doable. Modelling learning, asking for help as a leader, setting high standards and continuously talking about how to reach them, builds and sustains psychological safety where it belongs.
Psychological safety is not about being friendly all the time; it has nothing to do with being introvert or insecure, and it’s not about lowering the performance expectations. It is about removing the breaks that are holding people back.
Turning psychological safety into a matter of individual assertiveness bears resemblance to the way some companies deal with mental health and stress (“it’s personal”). But it’s not personal; sustaining psychological safety is a key requirement on contemporary leadership.
The New Year had a more somber tone than usual for me. Sure, I was happy to see 2020 go. But the start to 2021 was not the one I had hoped for: on the second morning of January, I lost my footing on black ice when walking the dog near the sea. Complicated bone fractures in both wrists and a twisted elbow were the unfortunate and painful results, leaving me with both arms in cast to the shoulders! Fortunately recovery is going well, and I will be resuming work and life (brushing my own teeth etc.) over the coming 2-3 weeks.
Setbacks can strike hard when you least expect it; they can also occur as the culmination of a long struggle. In any case, how you recover is largely dependent on your mindset. The most successful (ie non-traumatic) dealings with setbacks acknowledge the hardships as well as the silver linings. There is even a line of study investigating Post Traumatic Growth. This is not to be confused with false optimism, ignoring the pain; I’m skeptical of any approach distorting the truth.
Setbacks are a part of life, and the frequency will logically increase with your courage and exposure to new things. Executing a sweeping digital transformation of uncharted legacy technology? Leading your team from the distance? Home-schooling your children? Setbacks are guaranteed to happen. In my case, balancing on the edge of an icy harbor-front to see the view under a bridge was clearly too much of a physical challenge.
The solution is not resigning from life or not accepting a challenge. Both are negative results of unhealthy perfectionism, hampering sense of adventure and willingness to learn.
To build strength and resilience to better deal with setbacks (and failure, and other stressors of life), the important research of Stanford professor @Carol Dweck recommends cultivating your growth mindset.
An actual exercise in “growth mindset-building” from my online micro-training “Upside-Down View of Stress” goes like below. Think through (write, draw, talk with a friend, whatever works for you) your setback in these four steps:
What happened?
Why was it important to overcome the setback?
Which convictions, attitudes or personal strengths helped you pull through?
Did you get any help from others?
This will activate your self-compassion and sense of connection. It’s not about analyzing deep emotions; there’s no mumbo-jumbo, it’s just looking at the truth, seeing yourself in the context of your own strengths and your important network of people. Not seeing yourself as a failure, or clumsy, or having to do everything yourself again.
The effect is remarkable.
As an example, regarding my own New Year setback, I’ve already mentioned what happened. The motivation for getting back to normal functioning should be obvious. I’m pulling through with my strong sense of personal responsibility for my health and well-being – doing all the ergo-therapy chores in spite of the pain, because I know it works. Did I get any help from others? You bet, for all kinds of things! I’m blessed with (and very grateful for) the dearest husband, family and friends, for the first weeks helping me with literally everything, and now keeping me company.
We have been distancing for quite some time now, and one thing is for certain: we’re communicating less than we used to. These days, do you know how your team is really doing?
Maybe you just got back together. Maybe there are new members, or a new team lead? Surely there are new requirements. Maybe you just need inspiration to re-kindle the team spirit.
You can check in with your team following 4 easy steps.
Engaging in conflict is often thought of as problem behavior to be avoided, especially in a workplace context.
We’re born
into this world with a distaste for threats, our brains constantly scanning our
environment to avoid or eliminate them. Since conflicts can be hard on relationships,
and relationships in turn being something we crave for and need, conflicts can
be understood as a threat. This perception continues to be passed on between
generations, fuelled by every parent’s urge to train “good behaviors”: being
nice to others, staying silent if you have nothing positive to say etc. In Scandinavia
in particular, we are nice and polite and stay away from conflict if we can –
our social coherence is strong, impacting our behavior quite forcefully.
However, in
organizations, harmony is getting us nowhere. Conflict is a requirement for
development and growth, and frequently even a foundational element in organizational
design. Cross-functional teams have conflict – resolving different or opposed
interests – as the main purpose.
In strategic
sales pursuits, my primary workplace for the last few decades, a cross-functional
team is mobilized to balance the interest of the client with the bidder’s risk
profile, financial health etc. Clearly a delicate balance when stakes are high
and executive leadership are watching closely. Conflict is perceived as
detrimental to teamwork, but the opposite: aiming for harmony, shutting conflict
down or letting it simmer under the carpets, may cause important issues to be
left un-explored, stifling collaboration and business growth.
Conflict
can be very unpleasant, not least when driven by bad behavior, poor performance
or skills shortage. We may worry or even ruminate about conversations regarding
such topics, and conflict aversion can then lead to conflict avoidance, ie simply
not engaging in the conflict.
The
Thomas-Kilmann Instrument shows conflict as an activity in two dimensions: whether
any given approach meets your needs (level of assertiveness) and whether
it also meets the other party’s needs (level of cooperative-ness).
Working to
meet both sides’ needs is Collaborating, and to meet at least some of both side’s
needs is Compromising. A compromise is not the best outcome but the quickest
available option, as Chris Voss clearly illustrates in his book Never Split the
Difference: a compromise between black and brown shoes is to wear one black and
one brown, no swag at all!
Meeting your
own need and not caring about the other side is Competing; meeting the needs of
the other side without getting anything for yourself is Accommodating; and,
finally, not trying to get anyone’s needs met is Avoiding.
Conflict avoidance
makes no sense, not for you, not for them. Topics are circumvented and
opportunity is drained. You change the subject, don’t call back, skip the
meeting – whatever it takes to not face the conflict, making no room for the
issue to be dealt with. Conflict-avoidance may buy you time, but it is unlikely
to make the conflict disappear. Pressure will build, and the conflict can even
grow larger when avoided.
But how to get
through it then? Focus on the positive outcomes that awaits when the conflict
is resolved. Your emotions will guide you, if you feel strongly about a
conflict it’s a sign that it’s touching something important to you. Don’t let emotions
take the steering wheel though! Stay calm, constructive and kind. Hard? Yes, but
not as hard as it sounds.
A useful
analogy: see conflict as a process like the one of hanging a tarp over your
tent. A good result requires people pulling from each corner; if one corner
pulls much harder than the other three, the tarp won’t hang properly. It’s not a tug-of-war.
Following
the Conflict Code, developed by Liane Davey in “The Good Fight”, you may
prevent most conflicts and make the ones that are left, more productive and
less taxing on your well-being. The model is a three-step approach: “Establish
a line of communication”, “Create a connection” and “Contribute to a solution”.
Liane Davey includes a set of exercises
to train how to enable proactive management of tensions and interdependencies
in a cross-functional teams.
Conflict
management is included in the half-day course “Teamwork in the Gig economy”, an
event designed for leaders, project managers and teams wanting to improve
collaboration, performance and respect. The event is introducing participants
to foundational skills for contemporary working life – willpower, self-awareness,
coaching, resilience, and can be tailored to fit actual needs in your team. More
information here.
Many of us are working
from home for at least a few weeks, spending hours every day in isolation.
Modern life on a “normal
day” is filled with social distractions from the buzz of co-workers in large office
spaces. We are social beings with a constant impulse to connect – but for a while,
the social buzz will be silenced, and we’re having to seek social interaction online.
Online meetings are
safe and hygienic replacements for real human interaction. However, it takes
focus to bring out the human qualities of communication in the somewhat
unidimensional web meeting. But with effort and planning, maintaining your
social exchange creates a feeling of security and normality (and is also an
effective way to reduce anxiety and stress).
Advice is everywhere
on how to run productive online meetings – how to plan agendas, which tools to
use for whiteboarding etc. Allow me therefore to only make a few suggestions on
how to make online meetings more human, helping to maintain the
friendships at work that are so critical to our engagement:
Make it a deliberate priority in your team to have human online meetings, at least for as long as the current isolation is in force.
Take turns to do the thoughtful planning of this, eg to formulate a non-work question for all participants to answer at the start of the meeting. Make sure everyone gets time before the meeting to prepare.
Turn on the video. This improves the focus from all participants and introduces the option to have a bit of fun. Why not show your co-workers around the house? Compare coffee machines? Introduce family pets?
Make sure your voice is clearly associated with your full name, and that both are known to all participants. “Ghosts” in the call will prohibit everyone else from being open. It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of proper introduction in online meetings.
For corporate video content, organize Movie Nights (or rather, afternoons) to view them together instead of streaming individually.
Finish your agenda 5-8 minutes before the meeting ends, to have time for “watercooler talk”. The kind of informal evaluation that would normally happen in the corridors after a face-to-face meeting. This can be solicited with a question: “Does anyone disagree with the conclusions we just made?”.
Would you consider using any of these ideas? If yes how did it go? As you can imagine I’m isolated and hungry for comments.
I was recently made aware of a so-called “crab analogy”: A fishmonger cannot be bothered to keep a lid
on a bucket of crabs. Even though many of them will be able to climb over the
edge and escape, the other crabs will make sure to pull this potential escapist
back into the bucket (ultimately securing the demise of the whole gang, but let’s
focus on the “pulling back” for now).
In the analogy to humans, the way of thinking can best be
described as “if I can’t have it, neither can you”. Allegedly, we like to see
friends get ahead, but not too far ahead. People, driven by envy or spite, will
work hard to block your success.
I’m not subscribing to this analogy. My view of human beings
remains positive, and I keep seeing evidence of empathy and support. Our
ability as social beings to connect, care and support, is hardwired in our DNA.
It’s even visible as a certain quality of stress response,
known as “tend-and-befriend”: in stressful times, we may become trusting,
generous and prepared to risk our own well-being, all to be able to protect
others (: our offspring). Tend-and-befriend is designed to overrule our own
survival instincts: we feel fearless, and feel that our actions really matter. Stimulated
by the brain’s release of oxytocin, dopamine
and serotonin, our fear is reduced and
we are more social, brave and smart. A gift from evolution to our kids.
And a gift that can
keep on giving: you can actually trick your brain into activating
tend-and-befriend. It’s very simple: help others. Helping others is indeed a
surprisingly, even counter-intuitively, effective relief against stress. If you
are in a period of feeling overwhelmed, look for a way to help others, it will
help you. You’ll be able to register the same effect by pursuing goals bigger
than your “own”. If you see your own job in the bigger picture: how is my contribution
viewed in the perspective of what it contributes to users, clients, leadership,
the company mission? Exploring your “why” is bound to improve job satisfaction.
So, what’s the limitation here? Tend-and-befriend is not the
only possible response in stressful times, sometimes we get angry, even crabby.
But the way we think is critical to
our experience, not as in ”thinking positively” about a traumatic event. But as
awareness of our biology’s potential to help. And – importantly – as the
awareness that isolation and loneliness will block your well-being and
recovery.
Remind yourself, that feeling challenged and overwhelmed, at
least some of the time, is a universal experience. And that one of the greatest
sources of resilience is to engage with others, not to stay away for fear of crabbiness.
By the way: I hear the reason the crabs are pulling each
other down is simply that they are trying to escape, pulling on everything they
can lay their delicious claws on. The poor thing has been taken out of its
natural liquid environment and will do anything to get back. Another case of instincts trying to
help.
I was recently reminded by a colleague, of Daniel Kahneman’s classic – the amazing: Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), summarizing research conducted over decades; cognitive biases, happiness and prospect theory among other things. Daniel Kahneman is recognized globally as a true leader in the field of psychology, and the list of honors bestowed upon him is long and glorious, with the Nobel Prize in Economics (the only non-Economist ever to receive this) sitting prominently in 2002.
A favorite,
inspirational for a lot of people including me, recognized for his ability to
transcend his own field of research and for his determination to make the
science of psychology relevant and useful to everyone.
Kahneman talks about
our thinking to occur in two brain systems: the deliberate, sophisticated handling
of self-control, forward thinking, abstractions, anything unfamiliar. This
system is brilliant and creative, but slow; and it has a bottleneck: working
memory, consuming loads and loads of energy and getting worn-out and tired through
use.
And then the
automatic, short-cutting, spam-filtering fast processing system, relieving the slow
deliberate system of its hard work but inevitably, also leaving you with blind
spots: it needs to base its processing on what is known as heuristics, mental
shortcuts or rules-of-thumb.
Heuristics will be
individual and learned over time. Your personal autopilot, driving you safely to
work following a complex route which you don’t have to even think about. Helping
you get on and off the escalator without falling over, without pausing to look for
the steps. Opening doors with your primary hand. This is true for all human
beings; we are all experiencing the world through the lens of our learned heuristics,
nobody is “filter-free”. Reality is subjective, and the good news is that no
matter how hard a situation seems, there is always a different perspective.
We learn through the “Slow” system, spending all the time and effort, and once the learning becomes automated, it is managed and perpetually reinforced by the “Fast” system. Very efficient!
But, be aware of the impact of this design on decision-making; in the eyes of the Fast system, the most obvious option is always the best option. And the most obvious option may be a behavioral feature of yourself you’d like to change: a bad habit you’d like to stop, a new behavior you’d like to learn.
To change –
whether it’s something you will, you won’t, or you want –
means disrupting your heuristics and slowing down the fast system. Otherwise it
will drag you around, like the tail wagging the dog. Choosing which kind of restaurant,
you want to go to for lunch may be ok to automate; choosing which country to expand
your business into may not. Your brain will want to automate both (“Italy!”),
since it’s really more convenient.
The very simple,
fail-safe method to intervene in your brain’s auto-piloting is: to pause.
A pause, if only
for a second or one breath, will bring you off autopilot and mobilize your
slow, deliberate brain. You will be able to think, to remember your goals and
positive motivation. If pausing is a challenge in itself (and it is, for everyone,
don’t be shy), this is a skill in its own right, meaning it can be trained.
Try the following
simple “power-pausing workout”: for the rest of today, open all doors with
your left hand. (or, right hand if you are left-handed like me). This tiny
little change will stop your fast system in its tracks, forcing you to think
about why you’re doing this.
Exercise every day for a week, and your ability to pause will have improved massively, to be leveraged across any autopilot function you’d like to disrupt. Pressing send on emails too quickly? Forgetting to say “please” to the staff at the canteen? Having a second glass of wine for dinner? Wanting to be more intentional about meeting planning?
There is no limit, really, so don’t be perfectionist about it. Smaller objectives are always better; it’s the way we learn.
Business borrowed the term “team” from the world of sports, to label an interim group of people mobilized to deliver towards a common goal (product, project). We’re hoping the team will inherit the glory and sense of purpose glowing from National Teams, along with the motivation to train hard to be amongst the prospects; to actually get selected; and to fight like a champion once you’ve made it “all the way”.
We’re setting the highest standards for team
performance, and we understand that teams don’t just go to work. They need to
be built! Some will look to Bruce Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development to
understand the relationship-dynamics in teams, starting off as a loosely connected
group of individuals, evolving in four clearly identifiable stages: Forming,
Storming, Norming – and finally: Performing. Others may believe teams will flourish if the individual
personalities are sourced and joined in certain ways, using tools such as
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Or other approaches, or a mix over time, as teams
are continuously built and re-built.
As a team leader, in your day-to-day work you will typically nurture two types of coherence: task and social coherence, maybe sometimes stimulating the latter to improve the former. Meaning: team dinners or “outings” to improve performance.
However, the task/social coherence presents a classical chicken-and-egg problem: will a team with coherent and logically interdependent task also enjoy a great social life, or vice versa – a team having fun socially will make an extra effort to work together well? Research points to task-coherence as the decisive factor.
To understand task coherence, let’s borrow some more
from the world of sports:
A team of single-sculler rowers will have a low task cohesion. Although
the athletes may be part of the same delegation, they don’t have to work
together but will each be in their own boat;
A relay team of swimmers or runners will be acting serially, one will
prepare the action for the next to complete in a pro-act/re-act chain – you
could argue such a team has medium task coherence;
A football team has high task coherence, each athlete continuously working
with the others – passing the ball, maintaining a position, coordinating
attacks
In terms of performance, social coherence is
irrelevant for the task – only task coherence is needed (in some contexts,
social coherence can even be detrimental to performance, diluting competition between
team members). The sense of doing everything for the team is documented to be greater
in teams that require extensive interaction, coordination and cooperation.
Social cohesion may increase as a result of success.
Everyone loves winning, and winning may lead us to see teammates in a more
favorable light. At the other end of the
social cohesion spectrum, the notion of being stuck with a group of people you
really don’t like, or where the level of competition is excessive, is not very attractive.
Social cohesion doesn’t hurt, spending time with people you like is endlessly
more pleasant.
However, it’s imperative for performance to stay on-task. If you come across a team with an amazing social life, but little task cohesion, it’s time to refocus on the set goals (even at the expense of the good vibes). As a team leader wanting to promote team success, pay attention to the way the team collaborates, look out for the effects of competition and collaboration, and also have a keen eye for individual goals.
Pleasant and fun as they surely often are, social events will stimulate many things – company loyalty, family support, employer brand, etc. But in terms of performance, team dinners are really only dinners with the team.
