Have you ever wondered why sometimes people just don’t behave the way you expect them to?!
Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean:
- You’ve just delivered a rabble-rousing motivational team talk – yet nothing much happens afterwards.
- You write a stunning proposal for a client who verbally agrees to proceed – but for some strange reason they don’t act on your advice.
- You skillfully put forward an idea for improvement to your boss – but the idea ends up going nowhere.
There could be many reasons behind these situations, but one could be a lack of ‘psychological safety’ that’s causing others to drag their feet.
Trust vs. Psychological Safety
A lack of trust stops things from happening on an individual level. But the absence of psychological safety extends way beyond that. It has a wider impact on project teams, boards and the wider organisational ecosystem.
Psychological safety can be considered to be a group-related component closely linked to team performance.
Each of us is most likely a member of at least one team, therefore it has far reaching implications and can hinder progress on multiple levels.
Creating a safe environment and maintaining it can be surprisingly simple. Here are a few tips:
10 ways to turbo-charge results through psychological safety
- Invest time in getting to know one another.
- Keep people inside and outside your team informed.
- Set parameters for how things happen, such as making decisions.
- Have clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
- Invest time in creating strong personal relationships.
- Be willing to be vulnerable and support one another.
- Have informal / formal partnership agreements with clients and customers.
- Embrace challenges and issues speedily.
- Connect regularly and over-communicate.
- Keep your promises, even when it hurts.
We have a range of tools to boost psychological safety. Send an email to [email protected] for further details