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Speaker 1: It could be trying your hardest to make your team

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Speaker 1: feel psychologically safe and actually be getting it wrong. I

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Speaker 1: know this because last year I realized that's exactly what

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Speaker 1: was happening for me with my team in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: I made several leadership mistakes, but my biggest one was

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Speaker 1: misunderstanding how psychological safety works for a team. My mistake

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Speaker 1: was also my greatest lesson around culture, and I've broken

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Speaker 1: it down with the help of my incredible friend and

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Speaker 1: clinical psychologist, Sabina Reid, so that you can learn from

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Speaker 1: my mistakes. Working with our clients at Inventium, I've seen

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Speaker 1: environments where psychological safety existed unevenly, and I used to

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Speaker 1: think that this wasn't a significant problem, but now my

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Speaker 1: views have shifted. In this quick win, we reveal the

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Speaker 1: big mistake you could be making with psych safety for

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Speaker 1: your team, and the one thing your business probably isn't

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Speaker 1: doing nearly enough of around workla culture that could be

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Speaker 1: costing you big time. Welcome to How I Work, a

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Speaker 1: show about habits, rituals, and strategies.

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Speaker 2: For optimizing your day.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.

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Speaker 3: You also talked about in your article, and I think

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Speaker 3: this is quite connected psychological safety. And psychological safety we

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Speaker 3: know is a team construct. It's not an individual. You

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Speaker 3: can't just say I'm psychologically safe as a leader, or

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Speaker 3: as an employee or as a colleague, because it's got

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Speaker 3: a contagion effect to it. And you said in your

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Speaker 3: article my biggest culture lesson from twenty twenty four was

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Speaker 3: about psychological safety. It must be universal, not just widespread

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Speaker 3: in smaller teams. Especially when even one person doesn't feel

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Speaker 3: safe to speak up, the entire system breaks down. So

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Speaker 3: what do you do with that as a leader? What

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Speaker 3: did you do with that as a leader? Because I

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Speaker 3: agree with the sentiment one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: That's funny because we help our clients build psychological safety

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Speaker 2: and have better conversations. But I think for me it

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Speaker 2: didn't really land for me until I was living with

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Speaker 2: the experience where a lot of the team had high

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Speaker 2: psychological safety, they were very comfortable bringing up all sorts

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Speaker 2: of things, and then there were one or two members

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Speaker 2: of the team who really didn't. And often that would

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Speaker 2: result in either them sharing something with me but asking

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Speaker 2: me to keep it confidential, or again like diads, sharing

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Speaker 2: with each other but no one else. And then I mean,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's the same company, but it's really different.

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Speaker 2: And it made me realize if just one person doesn't

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Speaker 2: feel psychologically safe, that can do a lot of damage

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Speaker 2: to the whole level of trust within the whole team,

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Speaker 2: even when some people do feel safe.

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Speaker 3: I agree. And you said in the article, without complete

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Speaker 3: psychological safety, genuine concerns move from open forums to private conversations,

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Speaker 3: which is what you've described there. How do you test?

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Speaker 3: What are the metrics? You said? We look at this

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Speaker 3: regularly as a team now, and we didn't used to.

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Speaker 2: We've always had metrics in place to do with things

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Speaker 2: that relate to engagement. But I'll talk you through what

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Speaker 2: we do now. So every six to eight weeks we

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Speaker 2: are a remote first team, which means we all work

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Speaker 2: from wherever we want. But once a month we now

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Speaker 2: come together in person, and on that in person day,

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Speaker 2: we'll spend about sixty to ninety minutes going through what

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Speaker 2: we call our Inventium Team Health Monitor, which is adapted

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Speaker 2: from what at Lassie and do and adapted from some

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Speaker 2: of the team performance research that wear across and so

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Speaker 2: we look at about ten different dimensions that we know

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Speaker 2: are really important for culture and for a team to

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Speaker 2: work together really well to be a high performing team.

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Speaker 2: And one of those dimensions is psychological safety. And so

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Speaker 2: how we do that as a team. We come together,

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Speaker 2: We're sitting together in a room, face to face around

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Speaker 2: a table, and we are each thinking about, Okay, how

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Speaker 2: are we going at the moment instead of thinking back

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Speaker 2: over the last six to eight weeks or whenever we've

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Speaker 2: last done that team health monitor, what's our experience like

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Speaker 2: as individuals, And what we do is we've got a

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Speaker 2: four point rating system. So silver is the highest and

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Speaker 2: that's represented by two thumbs up. Then we've got green,

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Speaker 2: which is one thumbs up. We've got orange, which is

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Speaker 2: thumb on the side, and then red, which is thumb down.

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Speaker 2: And so at the counter three, like we all think

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Speaker 2: about what is.

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Speaker 3: That paper scissors?

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Speaker 2: Kind of like rocks paper scissors, but with completely different movements,

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Speaker 2: And so what we do is we all think individually,

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Speaker 2: how would I rate it for myself? What's my experience?

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Speaker 2: And then on the counter three, like in rocks paper scissors,

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Speaker 2: we do our gesture and then sometimes we're completely aligned.

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Speaker 2: A lot of the time we are, but other times

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Speaker 2: we're not. Other times one person might have a two

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Speaker 2: thumbs up and someone else might have a thumbs down,

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Speaker 2: and so for us that's an important cueue. Okay, we

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Speaker 2: need to have a conversation about this. And likewise, you know,

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Speaker 2: if something is working really well, it's also important that

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Speaker 2: we know why is it working well? Like what do

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Speaker 2: we need to double down on? So that ritual that

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Speaker 2: we have as a team has been so powerful in

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Speaker 2: going how are we going and how is everyone feeling?

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Speaker 2: And also I think because we're there face to face,

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Speaker 2: we're doing it in person. I mean, there's just like

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Speaker 2: a read that you get on body language that is

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Speaker 2: generally impossible to get virtually, you know, not least in

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Speaker 2: the bit because people's camera set up is generally crap

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Speaker 2: and you can only see them from the neck up

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Speaker 2: if they have not optimized their virtual setup. But like

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Speaker 2: you just get something else through that.

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Speaker 3: It's doing an energy I think there's an energy exchange.

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Speaker 3: You know, you walk into a room, whether it's for

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Speaker 3: business or pleasure, we know immediately what the sense you

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Speaker 3: feel is when you're with in the presence of others,

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Speaker 3: and for all of the benefits of working from home,

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Speaker 3: that energy exchange is really valuable. So you do your

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Speaker 3: rocks paper scissors well or your thumbs up, thumbsides, thumbs down,

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Speaker 3: double thumbs whatever it is. And you also raise something

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Speaker 3: there that made me curious. It's so easy for us

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Speaker 3: to only want to focus on the two thumbs down

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Speaker 3: or whichever the lowest rating was that you described, and

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Speaker 3: we overlook when we've got two thumbs up. And I

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Speaker 3: think that a lot of organizations and teams think, well,

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Speaker 3: if it's working well, let's almost not talk about it.

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Speaker 3: We don't want to curse it, we don't want to

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Speaker 3: disrupt it. It doesn't need our attention. And of course, from

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Speaker 3: a strength based model and positive psychology lens, we have

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Speaker 3: to understand, as you said, double down, what is working well?

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Speaker 3: Why is that working well? How can we continue and

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Speaker 3: what can we learn that's transferable from whatever that double

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Speaker 3: thumbs scenario is. To take that to a thumbs down

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Speaker 3: scenario because there'll be learning there.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this quick win with myself and Sabina.

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Speaker 1: If you'd like to listen to the full episode, you

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Speaker 1: can find a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow

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Speaker 1: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes

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Speaker 1: drop how I work was recorded on the traditional land

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Speaker 1: of the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation