The Softer Side of Psychological Safety
I’ve been experimenting with personal vulnerability as of late with my coaching clients. This intentional act may be radical to some coaches or agilists, but it is an act mindfully taken. I want my clients to see me as human, authentic and real, with all of the faults and warts and soft spots that come along for the ride. In a recent one-on-one session, I showed a very new client the graphed results of my recent Leadership Circle profile assessment. I wanted that person to feel safe in our work together, knowing that we would be working side by side. But this candid, vulnerable openness, could it help me to create psychological safety?
Psychological Safety Net
As agilists, as coaches, many of us know the importance of psychological safety with teams. It is not a new concept, and it has gained in popularity over the past ten years. Amy Edmondson, one of the predominant researchers in this area, defines psychological safety as a ‘‘shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.’’ In her words, psychological safety is "a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up,’’ Edmondson wrote in a 1999 study. ‘‘It describes a team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.”
Let’s not forget Project Aristotle, Google’s 2012 (gasp—almost ten years ago!) internal study to determine why some of its teams were successful and why other teams were…not. As an organization, Google wanted to find the secret sauce so that they could formulate success, helping other teams to apply that formula. What did they find? Successful teams, regardless of team size or gender or ethnicity or function, all had one thing in common: safety. More than any other factor, psychological safety was critical to a team being successful as a group. Successful groups had these things in common with one another:
Group members took turns speaking, making certain to listen to one another as well as giving members room to speak
Group members displayed empathy and social sensitivity towards one another
Group members felt that it was okay to be vulnerable with one another, that they would not be ridiculed or shamed by others
Openness leads to vulnerability leads to psychological safety, and the more we have of each, the more that psychological safety increases.
Experimenting with Vulnerability
My paternal grandfather, my dad’s dad, was a general surgeon in rural Montana. He was an excellent surgeon, careful and methodical, but his bedside manner, the way that he interacted with patients, was typical of that era: revered doctor, very little human interaction, and even less emotion. To some degree, my dad inherited this way of working, even though he worked with animals, not people. He was mindful, careful of client relationships. He wanted to be able to offer an objective opinion when called upon to do so, to never be in a position where others worried if he were playing favorites or picking sides.
And me? I am a product of a very different time and way of working. I’ve done (and still do) my time in a therapist’s chair, I read studies and self-help books and practice practice practice, I let my clients and teams see my emotions. I’m an open book. I very much admire my grandfather and most especially my father, but I cannot do my work in the same way that they did. Part of my strength as a coach is my willingness to be soft with those I serve.
View fullsize
Leadership Circle Assessment for Erin Randall, 2021
So, back to that one-on-one session where I showed my new client my Leadership Circle profile assessment. I’ve included it here so that others can see this, too. Stepping into full transparency, I feel like a bit of a freak show when looking at this graph. On one hand, “Yay, I’m responding, not reacting,” but I’ve also overcorrected. This graph is my imposter syndrome writ large.
But how did my vulnerability affect my client? They were effusive in how much they appreciated me sharing that graph with them. My willingness to be open started us off on equal footing. Because I had also stepped into vulnerability, it made it easier for them to wade into those troubled waters.
Openness works at the organizational and team level, too. During the autumn of 2020, I had my first on-site interaction with a small engineering organization, one that does excellent, high-quality work. For many of the engineers, they had only worked at this company, and many had been there for ten or even 20 years. (For someone who has predominantly worked with software teams, where we rotate companies on a regular basis, this was astounding to me. I felt like I had stumbled upon a forest of unicorns.) Some of the first work we did together was to practice asking and answering powerful questions. I was candid about questions being a learned skill for me, something that I had to practice in order to do well. The result? Vulnerability on my part made it easier for us to practice questions as a group, demoing coaching and mentoring sessions in front of the leadership team.
Things to Try: Vulnerability in Action
If psychological safety is about removing the fear from human interactions, replacing it with respect and permission, how do we go about making that happen? Here are some things that I have successfully used to encourage psychological safety, openness, and vulnerability on teams, in organizations, and with individuals. Bonus: you can do any of the work I mention here virtually or in person!
Constellations—This is an Organization Relationship and System Coaching (ORSC) exercise that I love doing with teams as it helps to unearth the voice of the system. It leans into vulnerability as it helps participants to step into, to own the voices they bring forth. Depending on the questions used by the facilitator and what comes up during the exercise, it can be incredibly vulnerable—and powerful.
Bullseye—Bullseye (which is my name for this exercise, meaning that someone else might call it something else altogether) is one that I use for teams in the norming phase. I assign everyone on the team an icon or avatar and then I read statements aloud. Depending on how much each person agrees or disagrees with that statement, they will move their avatar towards the center or away from the bullseye. I deliberately use statements that encourage honesty and self-reflection, and then encourage bravery and vulnerability in asking the team to show their responses to one another.
Conversation—I’m a big fan of paying attention to what is going on with teams, with people. If I notice that someone doesn’t say much, I’ll check in with that individual. Sometimes they are a bit more introverted, preferring to observe rather than wade in, and that is just fine. I use that one-on-one conversation as a check-in to make certain that something else isn’t going on.
Model the Behavior—If I’m going to ask others to be vulnerable, then I need to do so as well. I’m open about telling a team when I’m experimenting with something new, letting them see when something has affected me emotionally. (Example A: go look at that Leadership Circle graph above.)
What Next?
None of what I have written here is to say that I want forced, begrudged vulnerability, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” in coaching relationships. Vulnerability should not be a tit-for-tat experience. Instead, I’m advocating for honest vulnerability, vulnerability that adds to trust and safety in relationships. Be willing to go first, to show vulnerability so that if others so desire, they know that it is safe to do so.
References
One of my 2021 goals is to be a speaker on a TedX stage. (We’ll see if I can make this dream a reality in our Covid-affected world, but I’m putting it out there as where I’m trying to go.) But as I want to speak on a bigger stage, that means a lot more practice speaking engagement, more Meetups, more everything. I’ll be speaking about clean language, metaphor, and how to use both in asking better, cleaner questions at Agile Regina as part of the Agile20Reflect Festival and then again at Lean Agile Toronto. Please join us!
The image used for this blog post was captured by Linda Nickell. Connect with her on Instagram as @coznlinda, or join in on Wednesday evenings for the Happiness Hour. Details, upcoming presentations, and past recordings can be found on her site.