Inclusive Thriving Teams
Psychological Safety is in the top 3 factors to increasing the Thrive Factor in your team. Amy Edmondson and Dr Tim Clark provide practical strategies to increase Wellbeing, Inclusion and Innovation in your teams.
Video Transcript:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this week we learned from the Wellbeing Lab, that only ½ as many Australians are thriving today, as there were the same time last year.
We also learned, only about 1/3rd of those surveyed feel they can share their struggles at work or their manager expresses care for them. ZengerFolkman identify the importance of demonstrating care as one of the key skills in the most successful leaders currently.
Interestingly the Wellbeing research identifies psychological safety as one of the top 3 contributors to Wellbeing, and as one of the 1st in Australia to be accredited in Leader Factor’s 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, I thought it might be helpful if I share some insights.
You may already know, Google identified Psychological Safety as the most significant contributor to team performance.
Amy Edmondson, the Harvard Researcher, identified the importance of doing 3 things to increase Psychological Safety in your team.
1. Explicitly make it safe for people to share challenges
2. invite participation from other team members and when things inevitably go wrong,
3. respond productively and constructively. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Tim Clark of LeaderFactor, identified significant impacts associated with not having Psychological Safety in your team, and helpfully identifies a continuum of Psychological Safety.
Challenger safety is the level that contributes most significantly to increased innovation and reduction of corporate risk.
So just how do leaders create Psychological Safety and simultaneously impact Wellbeing and Performance?
Leaders who use more questions and manage outcomes, rather than focussing on tasks or processes, are the most effective in creating Level 4 Psychological Safety.
The Wellbeing Research confirms that very same combination, enables team members to thrive, rather than merely survive or struggle.
As a leader – we recommend 3 things to increase Psychological Safety and Wellbeing.
1. Connect with your people at a deeper level - showing care and appreciation, it must be authentic of course.
2. Create an environment which makes it safe to share personal and professional struggles, – perhaps you can start by opening up about yourself.
3. To act as an innovation catalyst, ask your team some good questions such as:
· Why is that?
· Why do we do it like that?
· What if we were to…?
By doing that, you are giving permission to challenge the status quo, simultaneously increasing Psychological Safety and Wellbeing in your team, during the course of every day business as usual interactions.
Psychological Safety is not one and done!
If you’d like to learn some more, please get in touch – we’d be delighted to share more detail with you.
