Why This Is Important, A Story About Psychological Safety Exercises
Psychological Safety Exercises can have a profound effect on the people you're working with. Not too long ago I was working with a very large international tech company. After our session, on creating trust and psychological safety at work, a woman came up to me.
She says, “Thank you so much. This is the first time I've been able to actually articulate the issues and the challenges that I have in the workspace. I want to start figuring out how can I talk to other people about the biases that they have against me as a woman of color. This is the first time I identified the language in which I can talk about this stuff. I've been working with organizations in the U.S. for over 20 years and I've never felt like I've had a space to actually talk about any of my experiences.”
These types of experiences happen quite often during my psychological safety exercises. Someone feels safe enough to have those kinds of conversations with me. These exercises can help you get to the heart of the team issues, where people don't feel comfortable to open up and share.
7 Key Benefits To Psychological Safety Exercises
Psychological Safety Exercises - Key Benefits
In this section of the blog, we are going to talk about the more tangible benefits of psychological safety exercises.
Not About Being Nice, It’s About Having Productive Disagreement
The first thing I want you to know about psychological safety is that it’s not just about being nice. It’s about creating a space where we can actually have a productive disagreement. That's one of the biggest benefits of creating psychological safety. To use these exercises to create safe spaces where you can talk to your colleague and have a very different opinion.
Where you both can come together, without harming one another, and start looking at these different perspectives to get a clearer picture of reality. That's going to be one of the beautiful things when you do psychological safety exercises. You will feel more comfortable having a productive disagreement.
It's not about just being nice and creating toxic positivity, where everyone says everything is good, but no one challenges each other because they fear the consequences. It's really about being honest, being able to disagree, and knowing that it's gonna be okay. That the relationship is fine, or even better than before.
Now you have a better understanding of the other person. Now we're able to empathize with each other. Now you get to be honest with one another.
Opens Up The Conversation
These psychological safety exercises start opening up the conversation. When you start feeling safe to have difficult conversations, you can start opening up the conversation.
For example, when you open up, you become aware of the different incentives for the different departments and how they might conflict. You get to open up the closet, pull out those skeletons, and have a full conversation about everything that's happening. When you have the right psychological safety exercises it really allows for the conversation to open up fully.
Increased Creativity
When you focus on creating psychological safety at work, people start feeling more creative. One of the elements of creativity is just the sheer number of ideas. So if you don't feel comfortable sharing you’re not going to give all the ideas that you have. And it's in having all those ideas where creativity happens.
When you feel like you can actually share without being put down or judged, that's where you start thinking outside of the box. Because you are now open to new, weird, interesting, different ideas and you’re not going to be judged. When this happens you are more likely to do something innovative rather than just doing what's obvious.
Take More Risks
When you have done psychological safety exercises, you feel comfortable taking more risks. You know you could try something new, something a little different to really grow as a team, organization, and especially as a person. You get the opportunity to try new things and take risks.
If you're not in a safe environment you're not going to feel secure to take risks.
There's a great study done by Amy Edmondson where she looked at the high-performing teams in hospitals. The question that she was trying to figure out is, do high-performing teams make more mistakes or fewer mistakes? What they found was that high-performing teams made more mistakes, which was really odd to her. So she dove deeper into the research. She learned that it wasn't that they made more mistakes, it was that they were willing to admit and be more open about those mistakes because they felt comfortable taking risks.
Speeds Up Learning
People start learning from one another. Since you feel more psychological safety at work, you feel more comfortable sharing those mistakes. When you share with the group it speeds up the learning process.
So if you made a mistake, you feel comfortable enough to let your team members know - “Hey I tried this and it did not work”. Now everyone gets to learn from those risks and mistakes. Because now you are more open and willing to share the flawed-ness of who you are and what you’ve done.
Then everyone gets to learn what didn’t work. Now they don't have to go and make that mistake. The team can work to find something that might be a little bit more creative, a little bit riskier, and potentially a lot more valuable because you used those psychological safety exercises.
Reduction Of Turnover
When you create psychological safety at work, there is often a reduction in turnover. People are less likely to want to leave when they feel safe.
I worked with an international organization where within the first six months of a new hire, their turnover rate was 106%. They were losing more people than they were able to keep. A lot of that turnover was because many people did not feel comfortable around their managers. They didn't feel like they could be honest with them. They didn't feel like their managers had their best interests in mind.
So we worked with them to change that. To help people feel more comfortable with their managers. To help managers learn the skills of creating a safer environment with these psychological safety exercises. Within several months there they reduced it to 95%. For a large international organization, that's a big change. It shows that we were moving in the right direction.
That's the beauty of using psychological safety exercises with your teams. You work with one another so that everyone feels safe. You’re less likely to start looking on LinkedIn and Indeed for another job because you feel safe here. But if you don't feel safe you're probably going to look for another place to go.
Builds Trust
Psychological safety exercises help people feel safe to build trust with others. Not only do I feel like I can open up, but now I can start relying on this person. Now I can be aware that if they say they're going to do something I have more trust, faith, and confidence that they'll be able to do it.
Trust builds when you work on building psychological safety at work with your teams. People have more trust rather than not really feeling confident about one another. With that trust comes more collaboration and confidence in one another. Instead of working in silos and being disengaged.
Those are the benefits of working with psychological safety exercises to help create more safety with your team.
Now let's dive into the principles behind the psychological safety exercises.
7 Principles Behind Creating Psychological Safety Exercises
Psychological Safety Exercises - The 7 Principles
These are principles to keep in mind when creating psychological safety exercises.
Curiosity Before Judgment
Being curious before creating judgment. When we hear something that we don't like it is so easy to call it dumb, talk about how it won't work, and shut it down. A lot of times what happens is our brain is making a very quick, incomplete assumption.
If you ever read the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. He was the first psychologist to ever win a Nobel peace prize in economics.
He talks about how our brain works in two ways. One part of the brain is very fast at making decisions and creating complete stories. Which is really helpful for survival. If an animal is coming at you, you don't really want to think about it, you want to get out of there.
Then there's the second part of our brain that's slow, processing, and working really hard to understand what is going on.
Often, most of us will respond to things using that quick part of our brain. We want to understand what is going on while using as little energy as possible. The brain's really good at making up and filling up the holes to create complete stories, even if it does not have all the pieces.
So instead of allowing our brains to jump to that judgment right away, you can take a step back and be really curious about what's going on.
Here is a great way to exercise that curiosity. Whenever you disagree, turn it into a question. So for example with my old manager who would often belittle me and say, “What’s wrong with you”. She could have asked me, “What do you think could be the first steps to figuring this out”.
If she came with curiosity rather than judgment right away it would have been a very different experience. So when you're thinking about the different psychological safety exercises and behaviors in creating a psychologically safe space, try to come with curiosity first and then decide later. Rather than make quick judgments at the first moment.
Separate People From The Problem
Taking time to separate the person from the problem or the challenge, when working in a group. This is not saying to not keep people accountable. This is when you are having an open discussion with a group of people. This is to help people share with one another the problem they see.
So let's say you have a problem with onboarding in your HR department. It’s difficult to get good people during the pandemic. You want to work as a team to figure this out. Instead of blaming the HR manager right away, you can meet with your team to try to understand all the challenges.
This allows the team to be upfront so we can focus on the issues, instead of the people. When we focus on the issues. people feel more comfortable being upfront and honest about what is going on. I've seen a lot of organizations adopt these methodologies because it helps their people know they are not going to be attacked. We're going to be on the same team and attack the problem. So instead of you versus me, it's going to be us versus the problem.
Clarity Of Process And Structure
There have been plenty of times when I worked with organizations and they did not have a clear process around how people collaborate. I worked with a non-profit and the leadership team was having challenges with one another. The big issue was that there wasn't a clear structure around how decisions were made. People felt like their toes were being stepped on and they weren't being heard.
It’s important to give people a clear structure of the different processes they can go through.
What’s the process if I feel threatened about what someone said? What's the process I go through to give my manager feedback? When people don't know the process they don't know where to go. They start getting anxious and become worried about looking dumb, doing the wrong thing, or losing their job.
If there is a structure around a certain process, then you know you can talk about it. People feel safer when they know what to do and how to do it.
Sharing Intent
Sharing intent is letting people know why you are doing something. For example, telling people why we are pivoting to a new product or service. Or sharing why they have to do more paperwork.
Sharing the intent of why we're doing something helps people feel more at ease because they don't create uninformed (back to Thinking Fast and Slow) stories in their heads. They don't have to feel fearful or worried because they understand it's not about them as individuals.
When you let them know why you’re doing something people get a sense of ease and calm. They understand the reasoning behind what's happening.
Reinforce Safe Behaviors
Oftentimes there is little to no reinforcement, and if there is, it is often negative. For example, you make a mistake and are yelled at about how you’re bad or wrong. What’s being reinforced is not sharing openly. You just learned that if you do share there are going to be harsh, unkind negative consequences.
Here is a simple example of how to positively reinforce others. When someone brings a problem or a challenge, you can say how much you appreciate them. You appreciate how they are being honest even though it may feel uncomfortable.
Look at how you can reinforce the positive behaviors. It can be done in small and big ways.
Everyone’s Voice Is Heard
Make sure that everyone has a voice. That doesn't mean that everyone needs to talk all day long and it doesn't mean everyone gets to make a decision. It just means that everyone gets to share their ideas.
There are a lot of cool different ways that you can make sure that everybody's voice is heard (which you will see later in this blog). If people feel like their voices aren't heard they won't feel engaged in the experience or in the process. They'll wonder what does it even matter if no one's going to listen to anything I say. What does it matter if I know I don't even get heard.
Again that doesn't mean then everyone makes a decision. Whoever has the responsibility of whatever you're working on gets to make the final decision. But it's about people feeling included in the process.
Be Mindful Of Social Cues
How are people responding in the space? Are people actively engaged or are they disconnected? Are they not speaking at all?
You can still be mindful of people's cues online especially if you have the video on. I know there is zoom fatigue. And that's why you also want to make sure the meeting that you're having is really purposeful. You have clear outcomes (going back to the previous principle of clarity) of what you're trying to get out of the meeting.
You can also be mindful of the tone of voice. For example, when you hear someone say yes but it doesn’t sound like they fully mean it. You can say, “I hear you saying you like this idea, but it doesn't feel like you like this idea”. There are many times when people are saying things because they feel they should, instead of what they really want to say. Whenever I use that technique people start opening up a lot more.
Being mindful of people's tone, their facial expressions helps you see where they're at. It gives you the opportunity to support them. Maybe they need a break? Maybe they need to be heard?
Google talks about in their research of their own 180 teams. One of the most fundamental factors for high-performing teams was psychological safety. And one of the big elements was being socially aware of people's cues, body language, how they are feeling in the moment, and being able to address it in the space.
These are the seven principles behind creating psychological safety exercises. You can be mindful of these principles when you're creating the exercise to develop psychological safety at work.
The Five Best Psychological Safety Exercises
Psychological Safety Exercises, - The Five Best
When you get your team to practice these exercises people are going to feel much more comfortable opening up. To share instead of holding back because they're worried about what might happen.
A great example of this was with a non-profit I was working with. Their organization was growing but they didn't get to talk about how to work with one another. There was a lot of misunderstanding. So we used several of these different exercises to help the team become more collaborative and work better together.
Here is an example of one thing that came out of it. When the leadership team went to ask questions to one another there wasn't a lot of clarity of what the person was really talking about or what they really wanted. So from the exercises, they gave each other permission to say, “Hold on what the heck are you trying to say” and they would have a laugh about it. The person asking would be like “Ooooooh right, okay” then boom, they would work to get clear on what they were trying to say.
It's because they did these different exercises to help them feel more safe and comfortable to be open with one another. Now I want to share these five different psychological safety exercises that you and your team can use to start feeling more open in the space.
Ask Clarifying Questions
People are going to come at you with a lot of things. It's so easy to come across as someone who knows it all and gives an answer right away. But a lot of times, if you are not careful enough, there will be miscommunication. People leave the conversation and still don't really know what they actually need.
A great way to mitigate all this is to be patient and just ask clarifying questions. To really get to the root of what someone's talking about. Rather than pretending that you know and creating answers to the wrong problem.
What you say might not be what this person needed.
Reflecting Back What Was Said
Just to be clear, when talking about reflecting, I don't recommend parroting. Parroting is just using the exact word someone said back at them. So it means you heard them but it doesn't necessarily mean you understand them.
Reflection is digesting what they said and giving it back to them with different words. It shows that you're really working to understand them. Rather than judging or trying to rush through the process.
A really cool moment is if you're able to reflect back on what someone said in a much more clear, concise way than they were able to articulate. It shows that you have a deep understanding of what they're talking about.
It also helps them get more clarity on what it is that they're trying to say. Combining reflection with asking clarifying questions is a really great dynamite duo when it comes to building psychological safety at work.
Give People Time To Self Reflect
Give them time and space to really get to process what's going on in the moment. Earlier I mentioned how our brain has different levels of processing. One which is very quick, straight to the point, but it's often inaccurate. Then there's the other type of mental processing where we slow down and put in time and energy to figure out what's going on. Which is often a much more effective, accurate process.
For example, give people three minutes to self-reflect and write down their thoughts about what they want to say. Then when it’s time to talk about the topic it's easier for people to start opening up. They feel like they have a well-informed opinion and are more confident to bring it up.
Also, some people are introverted, others process information at different speeds. When you give them time to reflect, to get their thoughts in order, they feel comfortable sharing. Instead of having 2-3 extroverts (like myself) dominate the conversation. Now all voices are heard which makes the conversation more inclusive and equitable.
Be Vulnerable First
This is especially important for those who are in a position of power. Executives, c-suite, directors, managers. Whoever is the person in power, be vulnerable first. Show, don't tell, how this is an okay space to share your mistakes, concerns, and worries. Lead by example.
If you're the one who's in the position of power, share about the worries you have, mistakes you've made, and the things you don't know. Let them see what happens when people do that. Show them how no one's yelling at each other, no one's belittling each other, no one's judging one another. Help them see how they could be vulnerable too.
Visualize The Conversation
Write down and put up on a wall what you all are talking about. This helps everyone stay on track and makes it really easy to refocus the conversation. So if the topic is how can we make our hiring process more diverse, write that topic down and put it up where everyone can see it.
If you feel the conversation is starting to go down different rabbit holes, then you can point back to the topic at hand. It also helps clarify what outcomes the team is looking for when they meet.
This can co-inside with the principles of making sure that all voices are heard. In meetings, you’ve seen how conversations get a little hectic and only a few people are engaged. To develop safety and have a more productive meeting, give people time to write down their thoughts about a topic and put them up on the wall.
Now you're visualizing the conversation and all voices are included. This gives people mental space to focus on the topic, rather than the person. It also allows the team to decide, without judgment or negative conflict, which topic they want to move forward with. When the team votes, they are not saying any of the ideas are bad or wrong. They are simply identifying which one is the best one to move forward with.
We are also separating the person from the problem. When you visualize the conversation, everyone's thoughts are up and the person is no longer attached to the topic. You can just look at the comments as objectively as possible.
I worked with a non-profit and they were having problems with identifying what topics should go on the agenda. They were worried about the different positions of power and many didn’t feel like they had a say on what was discussed. So before the meeting, everyone put their different agenda items into an anonymous survey.
Then during the meeting, they were able to look at all the agenda items and vote on which ones they really wanted to focus on. The group was able to pick a topic and not worry about being seen in a particular way.
So working to separate the person from the problem allows people to feel comfortable. To be honest about what it is that they see, feel, hear.
Those are different psychological safe exercises that you can practice with your team to help create a more open, collaborative, safe, engaging, happy team culture.
If you want to dive deeper into psychological safety exercises we have a really cool, free resource for you.
It's a free guide that shows you how to help people feel comfortable to open up and share more. You will learn a variety of exercises and processes you can do to have a safe space. Click below for your free guide.
So you become the person who helps bring people together to create a more productive and happier team. Instead of working with a team that struggles with collaborating with one another.