Author: Emily Clay

Psychological safety is one of the most important factors for a team's effectiveness. Amy C. Edmondson, The Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School came up with the term “psychological safety” which refers to workplace dynamics and how people are treated when they go out on a limb.  She wrote, “psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for bringing up ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.”  At its core, psychological safety is about trust.  When someone takes an interpersonal risk by speaking up, it won’t be met with ridicule, a personal attack or bullying. If leaders encourage brainstorming and openly embrace failure, then it makes sense that employees will feel safe to take risks too and as a result, it leads to innovative solutions.  During the pandemic, complex problems are in full view, so encouraging everyone (no matter what their title) to contribute and voice their opinions and solutions will be needed for all businesses.

The Perfect Team

In a 2012 study at Google, they became obsessed with learning how to build the perfect team.  They studied their high performing teams and considered things such as personality type, industry background and whether or not the teammates were friends outside of work.  Using organizational psychologists and sociologists, their data revealed that the most successful teams were ones that showed empathy towards one another and provided a safe place to speak up, mess up and raise concerns without being judged or criticized. The single most important factor for their most successful teams was psychological safety.

Psychological Safety starts with leadership

Last week, Francoise Brougher, a former COO in her 50s was fired from Pinterest and her medium article about how she was treated went viral.  While her law suit is about gender discrimination, she also talked about the lack of psychological safety.  She said,  “Our advertisers found our tools difficult to use and lacking the basic features of our competitors’ ad systems. I sounded the alarm because it was my job to raise these issues. I was blunt and did not hold back. I told the team that we were making a critical mistake by ignoring the concerns of our advertisers. Ben, in addition to being CEO, was also head of product. Now suddenly I was disinvited from all the product team meetings.”  She took a risk by voicing her concerns and was punished for it.  If there’s an issue that an employee sees as a potential problem or obstacle for the company, they should feel comfortable voicing their concern without the fear of punishment or retaliation.  

This can get tricky when the problem being addressed is an idea that came from leadership.  A friend who worked for a media company had suggested an alternative idea to the one her manager suggested.  Instead of listening to her point of view and how the company could engage with customers and build trust, he said, “I disagree.  That’s a terrible idea”.  That type of response discouraged everyone on the team from speaking up.  Instead, they agreed with whatever he said.  Obviously, this kind of response destroys innovation.  Also, my friend was 53 at the time and knew it might be difficult to find a job with benefits so she decided not to confront him about the altercation and told herself it wasn’t worth it.

Being comfortable and open to ideas that are not your own is not only a sign of a strong leader,  it’s also a sign that the company values and wants new ideas.  When employees are encouraged to discuss all options without any threat of retaliation, the benefits are extraordinary. Consider the following:

Psychological safety’s measurable benefits

According to Gallup, psychological safety can lead to a variety of benefits including: 

• 27% reduction in turnover

• 40% reduction in safety incidents

• 12% increase in productivity.

Steps to Encourage Psychological Safety:  

There are several ways to ensure that a workplace environment can make it a priority for employees to feel safe. Professor Edmondson recommends 6 ways to encourage and create an environment of psychological safety.  If you’re in a leadership position, pay close attention to numbers 5 and 6 in order to be effective.

1. Gather people’s opinions on important decisions in writing before you meet to discuss them (weekly check-ins are recommended)
2. Ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to put forward their ideas before you announce which ideas you support
3. Always try and experiment using multiple plausible arguments/ideas, rather than settling for one option
4. Hold group discussions in meetings if there are disagreements rather than keeping things between two or three people
5. Appreciate when team members take the time and effort to challenge your views
6. Make a point of ensuring that other team members who have less authority on paper have their voice heard – adding a “no interruption” rule can help quieter team members have their say as well.

As a result of making psychological safety a priority at work, it empowers people to take risks, have open discussions, and brainstorm.  This is badly needed in a time of massive change.  Oftentimes, having a psychologically safe place to work leads to teams that outperform their company’s goals.  

Reviewed & Recommended:

Amy Edmondson | TEDxHGSE | Building a psychologically safe workplace 

Harvard Business Review, High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It

The New York Times, What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

Being adaptable is one skill that’s in extremely high demand. In a time when things are uncertain and unemployment is at an all-time high, hiring managers are looking for people who have an open mind and aren’t afraid of change.  Companies are constantly modifying the way they do business in order to thrive and survive in this environment.​ As a result, they will need people who are flexible and embrace new business ideas and procedures.  

Having the ability to quickly synthesize information and recognize more efficient ways of doing things is critical. Embracing new technology, new organizational structures, and new collaboration tools are a few examples.

Unfortunately, many mid-career professionals combat stereotypes about being “stuck in their ways”. Being able to illustrate adaptability through storytelling is one way to overcome this bias. Most importantly, having experienced more different twists and turns in their career actually positions older professionals to recognize and adapt to new circumstances more effectively than their younger counterparts.

If you’ve been in the same position for a significant amount of time, highlight times when you’ve faced obstacles at work, and succeeded. Focus on a time when you needed to iterate quickly or a time when you introduced an idea for greater workflow efficiency. Talk about how being flexible and the enjoyment of being challenged motivates you.

The Top 3 Characteristics of Adaptability:

1. Resourcefulness: Being willing to experiment and being open to new methods. Being calm during a crisis and the ability to monitor one’s emotions and prioritize.
   
2. Curiosity​: Driven by wanting to learn new things inside and outside of work is one characteristic of adaptability. Illustrate how your curiosity led to new learnings and accomplishments.

3. Attitude: ​ Showing gratitude and talking about possibilities and solutions as opposed to focusing on negative aspects of a situation is key - now and in the future. It’s not about avoiding talking about pitfalls but rather discussing a problem that needs solving and collaborating with others, all part of adaptability. Bring a positive outlook when collaborating with others, and that attitude will show your colleagues you’re willing to be adaptable.

Even though setting goals in 2020 may sound like a bad joke, there are several steps a mid-career professional can take in order to gain traction and be successful.

Goals rely on two things; willpower and self-discipline. As Charles Duhigg wrote in The Power of Habit, “Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.”

What if the willpower is not there?  For most people, it’s been a challenge to be as productive as they used to be and that takes willpower. How can we refocus to achieve our goals?  

First, BJ Fogg, Director, Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University and Author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything recommends that we should not call them “goals” at all. Instead, he recommends calling them “aspirations” or “outcomes”.  He believes that having a big goal is great but the way to get there is by approaching it in small and consistent steps. Otherwise, we tend to give up. New Year's resolutions anyone?

BJ Fogg encourages people to ask, “what is the long term outcome I want to accomplish?” That way, you can develop a model and method to adopt an ongoing habit instead of a giant goal that won’t be accomplished. Too many people rely on the myth that repetition and frequency creates habits. He encourages people to apply simple habits first then add more habits as you accomplish them.  

BJ Fogg Tiny Habit Model Example: 

He explains his process and research findings:

• Get clear on the outcome you want and create “golden behaviors” for each one.  Place the main outcome/aspiration in the middle of a piece of paper and then create all the tiny behaviors as offshoots that will get you there. For example, if you want to write a book, commit to writing 200 words a day. It's an achievable goal and can be done in half an hour.  He calls this phase of identifying golden behaviors as “magic wanding”. It’s an opportunity to describe all the behaviors that are best suited for you. If that doesn’t work, change the behaviors.
• Look for ways to fit a tiny habit naturally into your daily routine. These action prompts are called “anchors”.  As an example, a routine such as brushing your teeth could be your activity prompt. After brushing your teeth, maybe you decide to do a two-minute plank. If you do this after you brush your teeth twice a day for months, you’ll have a stronger core and feel better.
• Tiny habits should be things you want to do so it will be more sustainable and lead to lasting change. The simpler the behavior, the easier it will be to grow your new habit. It’s like planting a small seed. And if it’s not working, ask yourself, “what’s hard about it?” Revise it to adjust to what feels natural and easy to do.

Importance of Celebrating

It’s important to celebrate tiny habits so go ahead and fist pump yourself or do a little dance.  People tend to discount celebrating, but it’s a critical part of the process. Fogg writes, “when people feel successful, even with small things, their overall level of motivation goes up dramatically, and with higher levels of motivations, people can do harder behaviors.”  Recognize your successes and feel good about what you’ve accomplished. This is one way to reinforce good behaviors and encourage new ones.  Envision yourself feeling awesome after your two-minute plank. There is a direct connection between how you feel when you do a behavior and the likelihood that you will repeat the behavior. It’s key to remember that emotions create habits. If you want to achieve serious outcomes and aspirations, start tiny and allow those small steps to grow over time.

Reviewed and Recommended:

All the methods and models he recommends are in his book,  Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything 

If you’re interested in learning more about BJ Fogg’s human behavior research, listen to him on the Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish podcast.  Behavior scientist and author of Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg, discusses improving decision making, motivation trends, the role of emotion in sense of self and so much more.

#86 BJ Fogg: Create Lasting Change, Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish