A frequent scene in my home each morning would be to see a haggard-looking father battling to get his children to school on time. You might think this is a modest goal and not the type of scene that gives insight into why psychological safety at work is important…let me zoom in a bit more to share what is going on and why some days we leave the house efficiently, feeling calm and relaxed whilst other days it is like an epic battle scene from the Lord of the Rings movies.
I wake up not quite all there yet, under-caffeinated perhaps, maybe even grumpy. My first thoughts are the tasks I need to get completed to get my kids, ‘the team’, ready. I plan it out, I know what everyone needs to do and I confidently flick on their lights to begin the smooth process. At this point I establish that one son is already up and playing with his rocket, the other one is still in bed and doesn’t want to get up, and the baby has started crying and needs my attention. I quickly realise this team does not want to follow MY plan – enter the battle scene. I instruct, demand, point emphatically and calmly explain the lifelong impact of not getting to school on time. The result? Anger and frustration (mine and theirs), resistance and most importantly no progress.
What went wrong here? We do this every day!
Well other than the fact that they are children and my expectations might be a little off whack, I failed in this scene to give them psychological safety. Had I switched my role to more of a servant leader than drill sergeant and approached the situation with respect, I might have asked them when they would get dressed, how much longer they wanted to sleep or play, offered to help them, focussed on praising their successes, and found ways to cooperate in the process.
Sometimes I wake up and find they have got themselves dressed already. What’s different on those days? It is their motivation that gets them up and out. One son loves the satisfaction and achievement of putting his own clothes on. They may be back to front but who cares? He is four and not going out for a job interview. The other loves that I had shown him how to make his own cereal – usually a potion-like mix of many, and he prepares his own and sometimes his brother’s too. When I made it ok for them to take accountability, gave them the skills they needed and space to make mistakes, without judgement, suddenly we are not in quite so much of a rush. With this mindset, even if we are late for school, it is ok. We learn that by preparing their snack the night before and taking time to set out their clothes, tomorrow will be easier.
Why is psychological safety important?
In working environments, without psychological safety, your teams are incentivised to follow the status quo.
Mistakes are punished, novel ideas are crushed, responsibility and cooperation are avoided and we exist in fear. This triggers our fight or flight responses and radically reduces our resources.
The benefits of agile teams are well documented and appear consistently in business strategies the world over. There is often a focus on the tangible aspects of this, the scrum team and its ceremonies, the backlogs and agile metrics, the continuous delivery and the technical capabilities you need for this.
If you want to be an agile leader and ensure your teams can really be agile with all its associated benefits, you need to avoid the traps of the fight or flight response, both for yourself and your teams.
5 top tips to offer psychological safety to your agile team
- Be transparent and inclusive – individuals will not be second-guessing expectations.
- Give freedom for your teams to solve problems themselves – this will give them a sense of autonomy and build decentralised accountability.
- Nurture trust – this will foster better collaboration and cooperation.
- Celebrate failure and the learnings it reveals – this enables innovation and removes the fear of punishment.
- Give your teams freedom to focus – reduces the inefficiency of multitasking.
The key to all of this is to switch the dynamic – managers serve the team, not the other way around. Organisations spend a lot of time and money to hire individuals for their creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, motivation and ability to learn. To make the most of those resources, you need to create an environment for them to use it.
