In our post describing the scary side of psychological safety, we consider why some leaders are nervous about cultivating a more open culture in the workplace. Now we’d like to spend some time thinking about what each of us can do, from wherever we are in the organization, to promote psychological safety, regardless of where the boss is in the process.
We all want psychological safety, don’t we? Logically we know (and the research confirms) that groups with norms that allow all members to contribute frankly and openly without repercussions or retaliation perform more effectively and efficiently. Psychological safety also benefits individuals in obvious ways, inviting people to share their perspectives and ideas – to be heard at work in ways that are meaningful.
So why are many leaders either unconvinced of the importance or unskilled at achieving psychological safety in their work groups? Well, if you’re a leader, there may be good reasons to be nervous about this. Here are six reasons leaders might find psychological safety scary:
Last month, Katherine Sanders and I offered a webinar about campus innovation. The case we looked at was one in which a large abandoned industrial building became available for Lehigh University to purchase and how we might use elements of transparent communication (the topic of our webinar) in gathering input, making a decision, and taking supporting actions afterward. At the end of the webinar, participants asked questions so I thought I’d share some of the highlights of this multi-year campus innovation.
We see kindness as a foundation for increasing change capacity in organizations. Let’s go a little deeper into what influences kindness and change capacity.
It might seem odd to talk about kindness as a strategy to increase capacity for change, but we see it as a practical necessity. Kindness at work is often thought of as a friendly attitude, a considerate mindset or civility. However, those aren’t the definitions we have in mind. Those are great attributes, but we are thinking of even more.
By Patrick Farrell and Katherine Sanders
Organizational (or company) culture is a difficult topic to wrap your arms around. We all know it’s important, but it’s hard to define exactly what we mean by it, much less how each of us can work to improve it.
Part of that difficulty is because culture isn’t singular. There isn’t one culture that we all experience in the same way. We each live and work within multiple subcultures, and we bring with us our own personalities, preferences, histories and intentions.
It’s also helpful to remember that organizational culture isn’t generated by a single source. A list of corporate values doesn’t create a company culture. It can be tempting to declare an overriding organizational culture and expect it to supersede all others. That never works and can lead us in an unhelpful direction. Oversimplifying what culture is makes it more difficult for us to improve it.
We might draw the cultures people actually experience as a Venn diagram of interconnected circles. Some of the circles (subcultures) are completely enclosed in larger circles suggesting some shared beliefs and practices. Other subcultures might only partially overlap—or not overlap at all, suggesting that some beliefs and practices might be distinct to a particular group.
We see nine levels shaping company culture. These nine subcultures interact to shape employees’ daily working lives.
The first four levels are external influences on a company’s culture. We need to be aware of them and understand their impact, especially if we want to create healthier subcultures within our company. If our organization is challenging the larger cultural context, we should know that at the outset and design the rest of our work system accordingly.
We see levels 5-9 as intervention points for improving company culture. To shift organizational culture, change can (and should) be initiated from multiple places.
When we understand the many possible intervention points, including C-suite declarations, grass-roots movements and everything in-between, we have a better chance of success.
Sanders Consulting and Farrell Consulting help teams implement humane and practical change initiatives.
Note: this is a five-part series. Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3| Part 4
By Patrick Farrell and Katherine Sanders
People need a sense of autonomy and agency in order to be healthy. We expect our actions to help shape our experiences. When we start to feel helpless, or that what we do doesn’t change our lived experience, we become depressed and anxious.
When leaders are dealing with change, there can be a tendency to try to limit uncertainties and control outcomes in order to feel “safer.” As human and understandable as that approach is, it is misplaced. Approaching change by trying to establish certainty about outcomes isn’t effective for two reasons: first, because it is not possible. We can’t know what’s next. Secondly, trying to control outcomes decreases our organization’s change capacity.
Most change incorporates external factors that come to us, and some internal factors we may control. We don’t get to determine what comes to us. We only determine how we respond to what comes, and through that process of responding, we start to affect how easy it will be to respond to whatever happens next. So the question becomes, “How can we be prepared to adapt and be flexible so that we can address issues that come to us?”
To make this work leaders need to lead differently. Leadership moves away from trying to control outcomes and instead focuses on the preparation of people to be able to engage effectively when the next situation arises.
This is why a Healthy Foundation is a critical first step. The process of building this healthy foundation will show us what our people are most concerned about. Responding to their concerns in a transparent and timely manner builds trust and mutual respect. In turn, leadership’s transparency helps people understand the constraints (e.g., budgets, market, challenges) the organization is working with.
With this healthy foundation, we can lead differently. We can charge local groups to resolve issues as they arise, before they lead to resistance to change.
When we lead differently, empowering local groups to address issues as they arise, the leader’s job changes from trying to control outcomes to focusing on preparing people to meet whatever challenges arise in the near term and further out on the horizon. Local autonomies can address everyday challenges as they arise, reducing people’s frustrations and increasing their capacity to engage in large-scale change initiatives.
Sanders Consulting and Farrell Consulting help teams implement humane and practical change initiatives.
Note: this is a five-part series. Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5
by Katherine Sanders and Patrick Farrell
When we have a healthy foundation to build on, we can anticipate resistance before we encounter it. We call this skill proactive anticipation. Proactive anticipation makes it possible for us to move forward with more ambitious initiatives, more quickly. We build it in stages:
These four stages build upon each other, increasing change capacity along the way. We described Healthy Foundation in a previous installment. We’ll now focus on the other three stages.
Note: this is a five-part series. Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5
by Katherine Sanders and Patrick Farrell
A common view of efficiency encourages leaders to focus on the initiative at hand and its immediate results. That approach to efficiency can prevent leaders from noticing the foundational work that would make results easier, more effective, or even possible. Resistance to change, when seen through that lens of efficiency, has leaders focused on it only in the context of a major change activity.
This part of our Resistance to Change series focuses on the seemingly “inefficient” work of building a healthy foundation for change in an organization. With a healthy foundation we are better prepared to take on emerging change initiatives because our entire community can anticipate resistance with less fear and defensiveness. The healthy foundation positions well-posed resistance as helping to make the change initiative better.
Note: this is a four-part series. Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4
by Patrick Farrell and Katherine Sanders
Organizational capacity for change is the overall capability of an organization to either effectively prepare for or respond to an unpredictable environment (Saylor Academy, 2012). We’d add that change capacity is also accepting the challenge and responsibility of intentionally helping to shape our future environment.
Our previous posts explain why we need to take strategic action and how to get started. These first steps will eventually build capacity for your group to act on the “big ideas” of your plan. Read more
