Is it Safe Here?
I spent part of my free time during a recent trip to the Florida reading, and highlighting and taking notes on "The Culture Code" by Daniel Coyle. It's exciting when I find a work that puts into words, based on sound research, what I already know to be true.
Coyle breaks culture down to three important areas: Safety, Vulnerability, Purpose. Today we are going to focus on Safety, or the condition known as psychological safety.
Psychological Safety
Coyle writes that psychological safety is a condition that is described by a single phrase: You are safe here. Let's take a deeper dive into what Coyle means by this.
What researchers call psychological safety has to do with our subconscious mind. Our unconscious brain is hardwired having evolved from hundreds of thousands of years of survival with the unending question within - Am I safe here? Do I have a future here? If the answer to these two questions are 'no', then performance will suffer, as will your company's.
Subconsciously, you and I worry about what others think of us, especially higher-ups. And you don't want to be excluded. In ancient times, being excluded usually meant being shunned and a quick death.
High Performing Teams & Belonging Cues
Deep in our brains, our middle brain (also known as the Limbic system) is an organ called the amygdala. The amygdala controls our fight or flight response when threatened. In contrast, when there is a sense of belonging, the amygdala is supercharged shifting into connection mode.
Group performance depends on behaviors that communicate : We are safe and connected. So how does this happen? Coyle writes, "Belonging cues are behaviors that create safe connections in groups".
Belonging cues are a form of human signaling and include, among others, proximity, eye-contact, energy, mimicry, turn taking, attention, body language, vocal pitch, consistency of emphasis, and whether everyone talks to everyone else in the group.
Okay, so before you and your teams break out into kumbaya moments, know this. Highly successful cultures and teams are not all touchy-feely, feel-good places. Instead, they are are groups who are hyper-focused, energized and engaged by a common purpose of solving problems together. Take sports teams for example.
We weren't all friends on my college football team. But there was a level of respect and there was nothing I wouldn't do for my any of teammates. We were bound together in the pursuit of a simple purpose: win football games consistently. If successful we would be rewarded with a bid to a college bowl-game and a top-20 ranking. These we accomplished and it felt great!
High-performing cultures consist of moments of clarity. When confronted with a gap from where the group is as compared to where it aspires to be or wants to be, they use high-candor feedback and truth-telling (as uncomfortable as these may feel). Truth-telling and feedback are some of the hardest things to do and the most difficult to get right.
Bonus Tip: To help you with that, I created a cheat-sheet (pdf) to help you navigate the conversation more effectively. It's my "Communication Accelerator" and it's free. Click Here to get your free download.
Feedback doesn't need to be complicated. It should convey: 1. You are an important part of this group, 2. This group is special and we have high standards, 3. I believe you can achieve these standards. These words or signals clearly express to the unconscious brain: This is a safe place to give effort.
Tip: Avoid giving "Sandwich Feedback". That's where you give feedback pointing out positives, then "the needs improvement" and then back to the positives. Trust me, it creates confusion.
Building for the Future
Building safety is fluid and can be improvisational and in the moment. You need to be aware of the signals and their effects, positive or negative. This will take learning and trial and error.
Coyle recommends several tips when building safety. I have included a few here that stand out to me plus my own take on each ( ) :
Over-communicate Your Listening (let silence do the heavy lifting)
As the leader, spotlight your fallibility early on (authenticity)
Embrace the messenger (see feedback above)
Overdo Thank-You's (can't show too much appreciation and respect)
Eliminate the bad apples (they're killing your business)
Make sure everyone has a voice
Pick up Trash, a mindset to seek simple ways to serve the group (John Wooden)
Capitalize on Threshold Moments in onboarding. You want to convey, "We are together now".
Embrace Fun. Laughter is fundamental to creating safety and connection.
Embrace Better Results
Embrace some of these tips, embrace all of them. Remember to keep it simple and Embrace Fun! Find the ways that fit you and your culture. If you do, you will build a foundation for better results for them and for you.
Until next time!
