Welcome to the wellbeing, rebellion, the

podcast that's changing workplace cultures for good.

We're your hosts in Ghazi Wella,

and obey telephoto.

Let's get this rebellion started. Alright, so some thing

that I never used to hear, but now I hear so often moving in

the circles that we move in, is this phrase psychological

safety? I swear it was made up like, a year or so ago. Yeah,

but nobody said it. Now I'm on a panel. It's not even mental

well, being experts that we're talking about it. It's just

bosses and and tech experts, and physiotherapist, everyone seems

to know what psychological safety is. And everyone seems to

recognize it's something that is good to have in your office. But

I'm still seeing evidence that not every workplace has created

this psychological safety. So we thought it was a good idea to do

a deep dive into how you can create psychological safety in

your workplace. And the first thing that you've got to do when

you do a deep dive into something, as any good student

knows, is define it. So what is psychological safety, and so

luckily, for me, my able comrade is a psychologist, so she can

tell us exactly what psychological safety means

referred

to a psychologist to be able to define this one, but quite

simply, the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated

for you cannot put your ideas to asking questions, or having

concerns or making mistakes, okay, so that the thing that

means that look, safety can happen in a family, group of

friends that, but we're talking about psychological safety at

work, right. So, in particular, a BD shared belief, held by the

members of that team, or that organization lied, that a team

member will not be embarrassed, will not be rejected. And they

will not be punished for being themselves or for speaking up.

So it's a well established driver for high quality decision

making healthy good dynamics, interpersonal relationship,

greater innovation, all of that stuff that we believe in all the

good stuff about what makes employee work engaged within an

organization. However, this is not an easy thing to do. And the

way and I agree, we didn't go did like all of them. Nobody's

saying it. Like it's a another tick box, then yeah, you can't

create cyclic say that takes time it takes effort. It's not

actually a destination, you don't get to it is to journey

just like trust, just like, in any relationship, it doesn't

just is not just there is it gets to work constantly. So

that's what I wanted to share. Today. Today, we're all clear. I

don't think a lot of people know about that. It did. So do you

have an organization? In a team where somebody is not walking

around thinking? Now I can't I'm not gonna be able to say that

because I get embarrassed from trying to say something. They

may put me out like a troublemaker. Can you honestly

say that every single person in your organization doesn't think

that long impossible for people or people, right? So we're not

trying to make sure this 100% Psychological safe circle that

doesn't get broken, that would be the ideal that will be ideal.

From now I replace the word psychological safety with that T

word trust, because people can understand that they can

understand that trust is easy to break, and hard to earn. They

can understand that. What makes me trust you is different from

what makes the other colleague trust you. They understand that

you may have trust within one team, but not in every team. Or

there may be trust between individuals in a team, but not

the why is your team. Yeah. So So I think if you are struggling

to really understand on a pragmatic level, why it's so

hard to create psychological safety. Just think about it as

trust. Yeah. And then that would make sense. Yeah.

So the first thing I'm going to say could be questioned for

this. We're discussing how to foster it. So how do you do it?

Well, the first thing is the Cycler. crew safety always start

from the top is the leadership that your employees on a team

cannot create it without their money, they're helping them

create the code, but they'll get overridden by manager one day.

Right? So, like, I want to say that. And one of the key things

that we're talking about was this reminded me of this book,

Simon Sinek quick book called leaders, he laughed. And what

I've loved about it, he'd version of psychological safety

with something called circle of safety with a total like, Could

I think people can see the circle and you know, when it's

broken, and when it's not complete, right. So I might like

that, I've a, at the very least, if psychological safety needs to

have a an image, that I like the image of a circle, it will clear

when it completely clear when it broken. And all of that stuff,

and everybody involved in it, know that no one power over

another in that, to that one of the key things that came up to

me is the leadership. First is waiting.

And I think in that circle of safety, we talk about culture,

it is it is about the culture, whether that's a team culture,

departmental organizational, and in fact, it's always all three.

But it's that place where employees are working together,

no matter which of those circles, you're talking about,

where it's a team, togetherness, and people aren't one upping

each other, or stabbing each other in the back trying to make

you know, someone else jealous or happy, or whatever it has to

be that like that trust circle of safety. Yeah, that way you

really understand and believe in your core, that you will look

after each other and protect each other from the dangers that

are presented outside the circle. So whether that be other

departments, other teams, even your clients, whoever that is

that you within the circle of safety, share that level of

trust, and support.

Yeah. And that means that your leaders to be able to create

that circle of trust, the leaders have to set the tone,

the leader of that team have to set the tone, the leader of that

department had to set the tone, the leader of that whole

organization had to set the tone. So you see what I'm

getting at here. That way, you have many circles of trust

within an organization. And it's easy to be able to take one out

when one is broken, so that you're not trying to string the

whole organization ethos, or the whole organization, culture on

something, you might be changed in one particular department who

have struggled, or there's something going on for them. So

that's what I wanted to say, in there. And then the company when

we like, what one of the reason why I'd like to trust element of

it, is because we get everybody understand what trust me we in

intuitively get it. So trust isn't something some

instructions, give out willy nilly kind of say trust me. Oh,

yeah, sure. Like that. No, I don't know how that worked.

Right. So you will need to show evidence that you are

trustworthy, right? So when you say bring the whole self to

work, what does that actually mean? Individual to a person who

come from a previous organization, and you say, we

encourage people to bring your hotel to work. Okay, except for

these conditions. Why?

Because there is always that subtext, the unwritten rules?

About what exactly good that's what psychological safety is,

it's an unwritten rule, we agree, that isn't how we're

going to treat each other treat ourselves as being the host. So

you have to define what is happening in my house or to work

in my team? Are you telling me if I disagree with you, but the

boss that I can change? I disagree with you and challenge

your authority, obviously not being rude that lead to given,

we have to assume the people in our team want to reply back? I'd

have to assume that. And so if you assume that you're going to

try to and didn't really agree with you, that that's okay. That

you're not going to mark them down later when it comes to I

don't know, promotion, day, right? Right, you're not going

to do that you're not going to pit one staff or another staff

for the day fight for ideas, you're not going to do that you

could that what will happen is that protecting their

creativity. And creativity doesn't really happen and they

need other input, you need other insight for it to come up with

everything. Good. That's what I wanted to say about that. So I

cannot log an organization. What are you going to do about that

you are the HR leader, and including you in this as well.

You get to set the tone. You have off you have responsibility

and your authority to influence your other senior leaders at

work at OTF. All of them. Right.

I think it's a big thing though. This question of what do we mean

when we say bring bring your whole self to work? Because I

hear as well is bandied a lot about a lot. I'm guilty of

having said it in in explanation of what psychological safety

means. And I know it's a almost twee expression but it's a it's

really the very definition? But do we mean? Just come to work

wearing whatever you like? Does your company actually support

that? If my whole self is a whips and chains kind of girl,

can I bring that to the workplace? And well, no, there's

certain levels. So it's understanding, and I think,

making explicit what those conditions are. And then it's

saying to people, these are those unwritten rules? These are

this is what we mean by your whole self. These are

expectations, are you able to meet them? And do you feel

comfortable working within those parameters? Do you still feel

like you can be the best version of you within those parameters?

So to me it when we talk about how do you do it, it's about

making the implicit explicit, making sure you've got a degree

of consensus, at least at a senior level as to what your

culture as an organization should be, how it should look

how it should feel from the inside and look to the outside

here, the behaviors we consider acceptable. And then from that

point, that it's defined, communicating that as frequently

as you need to, so that everybody understands what is

and isn't acceptable. And then making sure that behavior that

is not acceptable, isn't tolerated, and behavior that is

acceptable, gets rewarded, so that it becomes a natural state

for employees. I think that's a simplistic way of looking at it.

Yeah, I think an auto empathy and inclusivity are important

part of this. Because you need to be able to empathize with

your employees. And they are they're who different people,

right we what motivates our, what affects us, what we did get

our productivity, they were all different. And so we need to be

able to see it person attack, which is why when we're talking

about organizations, it's not a human being like that. It's an

organization that the people who work the people who run them and

not include you as well, I hate our leaders. So to be able to be

able to decide what is acceptable behavior and what not

acceptable behavior, when he said, bring your whole self to

work, you need to ask the employee, I the team, you need

to ask them, when I say bring yourself to what does that mean

to you? Yeah, let them tell you what that means. So that way,

when someone said to be my highest self worth means I'm

going to bring all my, you know, sector gear to work. To say, Oh,

hell no, that's not what we do. We want them to the you know,

you don't get them this assumption, where people walk

away with afraid and think they know what it means. But

actually, you haven't given them parameter about what it means.

So I would say it just got after what brings a whole shelf to

with me, and it could be anonymous, wow, you can send a

whole little thing and instead just send them all the things to

ah, but what it means that way, you can say they can see things

like how my hair is it okay, that's my Asfa going out of my

head is my normal stuff. And I wouldn't be able to bring that

to work. And you know, yes, doctor to talk later. No, that's

not what we're talking about there. So all the things that

people think are myself that I've been prevented from

bringing to work, they need to be able to share it so that you

can go, oh, my god, yeah, that is totally acceptable to be

bitter, to say that you have a son and you want to be able to

drop in my football practice or stay at football? Why are you

doing that at five o'clock, and that means you need to live

slightly earlier to watch him play, that is totally acceptable

to ask for. That is bringing your whole self to work that you

don't want to add to that. And I think that organizations who are

good at who going to spend a lot of effort trying to create the

psychological safety will always reap the benefit must make more

than those who are pretending they're trying. Because at the

end of the day, those leaders who will do it will be more

courageous, they have to be more courageous. They're not afraid

of making mistakes, because they're going to learn why

they're less self seven, why they're going to put people

first for real, they really mean that when they say so. So that's

what I wanted to add to that point then.

But it's that courage like you say, it doesn't come without

risk. Because in order to, to generate that, say within a team

because that's easier for us to conceptualize, if you're the

leader of a team. How do you get your employees to trust you?

Well, the way that I always say is be vulnerable yourself. So

whenever I'm delivering workshops or training And I will

always start with my own story of mental ill health. And I will

be as graphic as I can bear about what it meant to me. Not

clinical, but anecdotal, so that people can see me being

vulnerable, because how on God's earth can I say to you, it's

okay to trust me with your problems, if I'm not prepared to

trust you with mine. So that but that takes courage. And people

are often coming up to me saying, Thank you so much for

sharing that was so brave. But I have to be in order to, to

generate that kind of empathy from you guys. So that, you

know, you're safe to open up with me. It also means admitting

when you've made mistakes, and, and being honest about it, and

apologizing for it and trying your best not to commit them

again. So and that can, that's very difficult for those of us

in certain leader mind mindsets, who think that a leader is the

one who is more like a king infallible, like leaders or like

Pope's, they are without sin. And it's not. It's not the way

that most people respond, actually. Because that makes you

less approachable. Yeah, it makes me trust you less, because

I don't know you. I can't trust what I don't know. So yeah,

that's something I think that leaders will have to address,

how comfortable am I sharing myself? How psychologically safe

do I feel within the team,

and pido feel psychologically safe to share with your team,

then they don't have either good tech.

But But leaders have asked me particularly when it comes to

One to One coaching or the leadership training, I can't, I

haven't shared this stuff with my team. And there are times

when it is not appropriate, it is not appropriate for the CEO

of a company to necessarily stand up and say, I'm going

through this particular crisis. Because the fact is, the stock

markets will reflect that. But there are things that you can

say, like I did go through that crisis, or I'm supporting people

who are having issues or whatever it is, you want to say,

if you are leading a team, you might not want to tell them the

ins and outs of your mental health challenges or your

personal problems or anything like that, but show that you are

human and relatable. And here's the other thing, you have to

find the people that you can open up to. So people at your

level or above, you have to find them and be vulnerable with

them. And so that you feel that level of safety. Okay,

somebody's got my back. Now I can go and be someone else's

rock.

Yeah, I think ultimately, the thing I'm going to add, because

I get this question a lot too, from HR leaders, where we'd like

to encourage the teams or managers to be open and

vulnerable, in that opening them up for issues, tribunal issues

and any of that kind of stuff. If you're going to be

uncomfortable, frankly, managers need to be they need to be

trained in what they're going to share, like to say contrary to

everything, but what they how you can share. And what you're

sharing is something that they can also learn. So if I'm just

saying if you're going to offer training or create training for

managers include that how to be vulnerable is then you don't, we

don't we're not all don't all do it naturally. But there's a way

in which you can share so you can talk about podcasting,

you've come back back out cough for money that you can talk

about the fact that actually when I had this happen to me,

I'm not going to tell you the details, I'm going to make the

can say that I'm not going to tell you the details, but I did

we need counseling for it. And I got counseling from this VIP

thing. And I got a session like to fill back. And so it could

literally be as simple as that. But indicating I have a problem

that was similar to yours, or even not similar to yours. It

created this emotion in me with within Jaya T which was stressed

whatever it anybody can relate to that part that I went ahead

and did something for myself to resolve it, which is an EAP,

therapy, medication, whatever it is, so that I can now start

showing up to myself at work so that I can now support you guys

at work. That is enough information for that person to

go like if he Chevron, he feels safe internet. Therefore, I owe

to and it's an invitation that I also could share in the struggle

of truck with manager. Good luck. What I wanted to add to

that. I like that word invitation invitation. Yeah. The

other thing is, when you create a circle of safety, I'm just

using Simon's expression when you have psychological safety in

your organization It means that everybody who works there feels

comfortable learning and growing. And when you learn and

grow, if you cast your mind back to when you were younger, or to

those of you who parent young children or, or have access to

young children, you'll know one thing about learn learning is

that mistakes are inevitable. How your organization handles

mistakes, is critical to ensure that you don't break that trust.

If you have a punishment and blame culture, then people will

be afraid to try. So you have to make sure that you have a

culture that yes, encourages learning, because it views

mistakes and failure as part of the learning journey. And that

there is not there's no fear of retribution or punishment,

because you've done something like that. Now, that's not to

say that someone who flagrantly goes against company policies

and puts themselves or others in harm's way. Shouldn't face

reprimand, I'm talking about the kind of mistakes that are

routinely experienced in the workplace, not getting the

report done. Right. Not delivering as you would have

liked to on the presentation, not not something more heinous.

And that

actually, is that it just brings me to the previous organizations

I worked for. So you know, we dealt with, we work with, you

know, social justice. So people who got mental health issues,

addiction, homelessness, all kinds of social justice issues.

And our biggest fear working in our team would always who's

going to die next, right? And who would watch it is going to

be on because we're, we're not very well. And by using drugs or

whatever, we don't need some tasty the matter of time, right?

So there was this idea where we would go to clinical meetings,

and you're supposed to bring in patients that you were concerned

about, right? And then what we noticed, because it took a

while, but after a while, you start to have this, so many

patients with you, when you can't control how many people do

get in, you know, funding and all that issue. So all of a

sudden, we know to have clinical meetings, and I had a manager

who, you know, you showed me 10? Until okay, what the issue is,

you know, who got the case? Did they want discussion? And nobody

raised their hand. Like so. No one on your book, you're worried

about concerned about thinking to do that risky that they might

No, no? less scary? Oh, my goodness. It was there was some

there wouldn't be any money. There were a few managers

managing our team. So all our five team will be together. And

then we will like what what massive thing to who's going to

be the one going to raise your hand say by God his patients?

What will happen? Will be like Citizen, how will GOD OH, GOD

patient? They are you know, they've been risky. They've been

through more alcohol or even more drugs. So basically, then

someone will go, have they kind of figured, what am I going to

do? Go and do a home visit? Okay, have you given them a

little Naloxone pen? Okay, well, I'm found them to give, who

already lived to par, Dr. pylon. When you start to look like, Oh,

I see. You're not even trying to you haven't gone out of your way

to go and find these people and wherever they've been hiding?

And then so when you think people did it, it meant like,

okay, every time I mentioned, I've got I'm concerned about it

with the client or patient. I get more work to do. I get more

shamed basically about oh, well, old stuff that you're not doing.

stuff you're not doing. So what people started doing, were just

not saying anything. And the funny thing is, it was us money.

They couldn't exactly go. We were happy to go. Yeah. All

right, then. Because also it means we're also it take no

responsibility, and I don't have to deal with that. Right. Then

we realized how unsafe it was. People die when you're hiding

things. So what did we have to do as a team and even as an

organization, that we have to assume it's our collective

responsibility? If a staff said I couldn't find this patient

look after I didn't I did everything I could I try to that

I don't have enough energy or time to manage that. That it

would our problem and not that particular practice enough

problem. It would average who can help who got less than the

book that can take that's a team that was a while and I can't

remember whether or not an incident that happened in

between a voc not talking to you would have happened somewhere

else, maybe not next day. But what organisational we had to

discuss the fear that people felt that they will be blamed.

If a patient died, or they hadn't done enough, nobody wants

to go to tribunal, you know, any of this kind of conversation, or

the other issue, but he wants to do that. So that would one

thing, just want to mention it. But a lot of the organization

that you're working with, it's not life or death situation. So

it's easier to be able to say our responsibility, right? And

you're not going to be called to Coroner's Court, that blog

member, Coroner's Court, not five, you know, many of the

organizations out there that we see you're not going to be

dealing with people whose lives, okay. So if you're not dealing

with those, you should be able to say that it's our collective

responsibility. If one failed all of us do, because we're

going to learn from that. That's what I wanted to share. You can

knock it down for what needy, but we got there in the end.

I love the quote from Peter Drucker, if you don't measure

it, you can't improve it, because it leads us to the

fourth tip about how you can improve psychological safety

within your team. Now, how do you measure trust? How do you

quantify it? Well, you can, you can review progress. For

example, you can use surveys, everybody knows how to use pulse

surveys, you can ask your staff to respond to a series of

statements like if I make a mistake in a mistake in this

team, it is held against me write it using the Likert, scale

zero to whatever you can have any kind of I feel comfortable

coming into work, dressed as I wish to dress, I feel like I can

confidently talk to my manager about a number of different

issues, unrelated to work, those kinds of things. And if you have

those kinds of survey responses, you'll be able to see how

different teams operate different departments, different

demographics, within your employee workforce. And the

responses can help build the foundation for discussion about

the whole work environment, which can be the basis of

reviewing how you manage your team, how you manage your

department, how you manage your organization.

Yeah. And I think that athletes are based in the back of it.

Very specific questions. So the example I gave you about that

clinical team, for example, I would have been asking things

like, I feel comfortable bringing clinical cases to

clinical supervision very specific, because it's not like

they were in sharing those words, or sharing it outside of

that clinical meeting. By finding the manager directly and

in a one on one with me, I'm comfortable sharing it one on

one, but not in a group setting, because I don't feel safe in

that setting. So it'd be if you can be as specific as possible.

So when you say if I make a mistake in this team, it might

be the mistake that you hold to value most like sale, for

example, a lot of sales, a lot of a client do that

specifically, to be able to gauge exactly what level of

security a person feel within the team when they make an

error. They wanted to be more specific about that.

And another way you can help to foster psychological safety is

to not assume everybody knows what it is or how to generate it

and provide education. So HR and learning and development

leaders, they they have to ensure their organizations are

offering sustainable and transformational training

programs on topics like inclusive leadership,

communication skills, conflict resolution, and empathy so that

your managers and your leaders can help to cultivate this trust

within their teams. Don't assume that everybody knows how to do

it as well as you do, because I guarantee they don't. Yeah, so

that's it. Those are your five tips. So what are the what are

the five tips? Can you recite them with us one, start at the

top. So make sure that your leaders are setting the tone, to

create the kind of trust that is required for your employees to

feel comfortable being themselves in your workplace.

And don't forget to define what the parameters for that are.

So talking point being vulnerable, so you as a leader,

have responsibility to be vulnerable to your with your

employees or your team, to the day feel invited to also feel

vulnerable to share that out that I'll help to create a

lovely psychological safe space within that circle.

Make sure you front up when you make mistakes. Don't try and

sweep it under the carpet or cover it with some blanket BS

statement so that it doesn't put the blame on you. Be honest Post

about your mistakes and see your mistakes their mistakes as part

of the learning journey, an inevitable consequence of the

desire for creativity and innovation.

And for mentor your psychological safety. How safe

is it, review it you surveys off specific question statement that

is very unique to your team or your organization, however you

want to do it, to be able to be student with clear what you

actually have in your organization.

And finally, empower your leaders, your managers to be

able to create these cultures and cultivate them within their

teams, through training and education. Make sure that they

know exactly what creating psychological safety entails,

how quickly and easily can be broken, and what to do to repair

it. If it is. That's it.

That's it. I mean, if I'm gonna put it out there, if you're an

organization out there thinking, I only know how to build this

into our organization, I wouldn't know where to start,

then feel free to connect with us after question. We're on

LinkedIn and have a meeting. But how you might do it every

organization is different. That is unique to you can't quite

copy and paste. So try and think about what will be unique for

your organization. And we're happy to happy to welcome and

help you. Definitely

not for free though. Yeah, so we'll see you next time. Thanks,

guys. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of The wellbeing

rebellion.

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