Psychological Safety, high-performing teams and self-actualisation.
Ian Cormack 17.3.21 writes about how you can get a high-performance team, psychological safety and maximum creativity and engagement - all by setting up a humanised approach to culture.
“There’s no team without trust,” says Paul Santagata, Head of Industry at Google. The tech giant’s massive two-year study on team performance revealed that the highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety.
The highest-performing teams also have trust as a result of the freedom that psychologically healthy cultures provide.
Trust is the bedrock of psychological safety — the belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake. Those who are familiar with the LSI also know that this is also the basis for self-actualisation and high personal performance. Self-actualisation allows for moderate risk-taking, speaking your mind, creativity, and innovation - all the modern-day soft capabilities that create value. To create the conditions for self-actualisation (the state where humanity is at its best) there must be safety. Self actualisers are learners. You cannot learn if you are fearful simply because you won't take the risk. Self-actualisation is killed if there is fear in the room, team, or culture. The very opposite of self-actualisation is avoidance - what humans do to stay safe if they sense danger.
So where you start? Psychological safety is a kind of nirvana. Of course, all of us want it everywhere, for everyone, always. In practical terms, it is actually better to ask - "where in this Company are there fears and doubts" and who is presiding over that. Follow that and you will find your psychological safety alarm bells and the practical first steps. Humans are literally built to process and sense emotions. The oldest parts of the brain are in the business of sensing and responding to emotions. I am referring to the lymbic system which is a set of 4 structures built around the brain stem in the middle of the brain. The limbic system senses the emotions in the environment, identifies opportunity and risk, and prepares the body to act. It's automatic. We feel first and think later.
This is also why emotions are contagious any why one bad apple, especially a boss-apple, can ruin a culture very fast by spreading unpleasant emotions and causing people to dis-engage.
Humans are very sensitive to even small suggestions of threat, danger and risk - including the psychological risks involved in dealing with other humans. It was like this when we were living in caves and is still like this now that we have fancy clothes and words and fancy offices. This is why the blood goes to your legs even before you are conscious of the fear, and why it goes to your hands and face even before you are aware that you are angry.
Positive emotion, which allows us to solve complex problems and foster cooperative relationships. Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina has found that positive emotions like trust, curiosity, confidence, and inspiration broaden the mind and help us build psychological, social, and physical resources. We become more open-minded, resilient, motivated, and persistent when we feel safe. Humor increases, as does solution-finding and divergent thinking — the cognitive process underlying creativity.
When the workplace feels challenging but not threatening, teams will broaden the minds and build the future. Oxytocin levels in our brains rise, eliciting trust and trust-making behavior. This is a huge factor in team success, as Santagata attests: “In Google’s fast-paced, highly demanding environment, our success hinges on the ability to take risks and be vulnerable in front of peers.” So how can you increase psychological safety on your own team? Try replicating the steps that Santagata took with Google:
1. Approach conflict as a collaborator, not an adversary.
We, humans, hate losing even more than we love winning. A perceived loss triggers attempts to reestablish fairness through competition, criticism, or disengagement, which is a form of workplace-learned helplessness. True success is a win-win outcome, so when conflicts come up, avoid triggering a fight-or-flight reaction by asking, “How could we achieve a mutually desirable outcome?”
2. Speak human to human.
Underlying every team’s who-did-what confrontation are universal needs such as respect, competence, social status, and autonomy. Recognizing these deeper needs naturally elicits trust and promotes positive language and behaviors. Even in the most contentious negotiations, the other party also wants to walk away happy.
Here is a fun game called “Just Like Me” :
This person in front of me has beliefs, perspectives, and opinions, just like me.
This person has hopes, anxieties, and vulnerabilities, just like me.
This person has friends, family, and perhaps children who love them, just like me.
This person wants to feel respected, appreciated, and competent, just like me.
This person wishes for peace, joy, and happiness, just like me.
3. Anticipate reactions and plan countermoves.
“Thinking through in advance how your audience will react to your messaging helps ensure your content will be heard, versus your audience hearing an attack on their identity or ego”.
Skillfully confront difficult conversations head-on by preparing for likely reactions. For example, you may need to gather concrete evidence to counter defensiveness when discussing hot-button issues. If I position my point in this manner, what are the possible objections, and how would I respond to those counterarguments? Looking at the discussion from this third-party perspective exposes weaknesses in my positions and encourages me to rethink my argument.
Specifically, he asks:
What are my main points?
What are three ways my listeners are likely to respond?
How will I respond to each of those scenarios?
4. Replace blame with curiosity.
If team members sense that you’re trying to blame them for something, you become their saber-toothed tiger. John Gottman’s research at the University of Washington shows that blame and criticism reliably escalate conflict, leading to defensiveness and — eventually — to disengagement.
The alternative to blame is curiosity. If you believe you already know what the other person is thinking, then you’re not ready to have a conversation. Instead, adopt a learning mindset, knowing you don’t have all the facts.
Here’s how:
State the problematic behaviour or outcome as an observation, and use factual, neutral language. For example, “In the past two months, there’s been a noticeable drop in your participation during meetings and progress appears to be slowing on your project.”
Engage them in exploration. For example, “I imagine there are multiple factors at play. Perhaps we could uncover what they are together?”
Ask for solutions. The people who are responsible for creating a problem often hold the keys to solving it. That’s why a positive outcome typically depends on their input and buy-in. Ask directly, “What do you think needs to happen here?” Or, “What would be your ideal scenario?” Another question leading to solutions is: “How could I support you?”
5. Ask for feedback on delivery.
Asking for feedback on how you delivered your message disarms your opponent, illuminates blind spots in communication skills, and models fallibility, which increases trust in leaders.
What worked and what didn’t work in my delivery?
How did it feel to hear this message?
How could I have presented it more effectively?
6. Measure psychological safety.
Google asks their teams how safe they feel and what could enhance their feeling of safety. In addition, his team routinely takes surveys on psychological safety and other team dynamics. Some teams at Google include questions such as, “How confident are you that you won’t receive retaliation or criticism if you admit an error or make a mistake?”
If you create this sense of psychological safety on your own team starting now, you can expect to see higher levels of engagement, increased motivation to tackle difficult problems, more learning and development opportunities, and better performance.
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