Communication only occurs if both people in a conversation feel free to listen and to speak. It turns out this freedom is rarer than it should be. Barriers to speaking up cause communication problems, which quickly become business problems. So, what to do? Focus on building psychological safety on your teams.
Psychological safety is a huge topic right now because it is actually proven to work. Watch Amy Edmondson’s TED talk on the principle and the data. You’ll be converted. Or you can read the very long but entirely worth it New York Times magazine piece on Google’s research. Google was trying to identify the characteristics of their highest performing teams and found – surprise! – that psychological safety was a vital determinant of success.
So we agree psychological safety is great. How do we get some? First, let’s define it. According to Amy Edmondson: “Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.”
When you really think about that, how on earth do you banish fear and pride – the two things that demand that we do anything we can to keep from looking dumb? How do you encourage the shy but observant person to speak? How do you create the time and space that this kind of conversation requires? There’s SO much to read and learn on creating psychological safety, but for now here are Amy Edmondson’s distilled suggestions for leaders:
- Frame the work as a learning problem, not an execution problem – this means we all agree our goal is to learn together as we achieve this goal, that learning is every bit as important as flawless execution, and that learning actually contributes to flawless execution
- Acknowledge your own fallibility – out loud. You teach your children table manners by modeling them at the dinner table. You teach your employees it’s OK to not know or be wrong by openly acknowledging your own questions and capacity for making mistakes
- Model curiosity – you ask a lot of questions, and encourage everyone else to do the same, taking time for productive dialogues that help the organization learn
Yes, this approach to management takes longer than command and control. Yes, it requires openness and vulnerability that may undermine the invincible leader image you think you need to project. But it works. The data is irrefutable. Organizations that are psychologically safe perform better and grow stronger. And isn’t that worth any effort?
Communication is the essential last mile in finding and motivating the right teams, acquiring strong allies, powerfully bonding with customers, and capturing mindshare with compelling stories. Nothing will serve you and your vision better than developing exceptional communication skills.
