Psychological Safety: Humanistic Nonsense or Business Critical?
by Ann Ystén, Perfect Fools
I have worked in agencies for more than 25 years. Throughout the years my instinct has always told me that whips don’t work to motivate creative people. I have always doubted that fear is a true motivator.
My perspective when presented in different management teams has always been met with comments like “you are such a humanist”, “we don’t have time to cuddle people”. But when I left the net-work agencies and had the opportunity to lead a truly innovative agency I took my instinct seriously and decided to, this late in life, I would lead who I am and what I believe in. An optimist and a true believer that we all can achieve so much more than we think. Given the right circumstances. I wanted to build a culture based on positive enforcement, ownership and teamwork.
Then in 2016 Google set out to find out how to build the perfect team. They called it the Aristotle project. And to my great joy they found that psychological safety - How comfortable you feel taking risks in the team without feeling insecure or embarrassed - was the most important factor in innovative and creative teams to reach and overdeliver on targets. They also identified four more areas like dependability, structure, meaningful work etc but none of them mattered if psychological safety was not in place. As Charles Duhigg concluded in the NY Times “Project Aristotle is a reminder that when companies try to optimize everything, it’s sometimes easy to forget that success is often built on experiences — like emotional interactions and complicated conversations and discussions of who we want to be and how our teammates make us feel — that can’t really be optimized.”
In this exponential era, we need to keep innovating. And the innovative minds are in high demand. Not only will our people perform better they will also enjoy the work more and the workplace more. Do you truly believe that people wake up in the morning longing to go to a place where they get whipped? Oh yeah. Feeling great today. Looking forward to some whipping. Can’t wait. Or going to work looking forward to feeling inspired by your collogues, free to dare, free to make mistakes hence free to innovate and shine.
So how then do you achieve this? I believe that a huge part of the success of the SoDA Global Member Meetings are when members speak about “my biggest failure.” What happens is that when your peers share their mistakes or weaknesses you feel psychologically safe. Even if you make a major fuck-up you are not the only one. They survived. So, maybe you dare to try something crazy and truly innovative. Maybe the worst thing that could happen is that you end up on stage at a SoDA GMM sharing your failure and inspiring more innovative courage in others.
As agency leaders I believe that our most important objective is to creates a safe space for your employees to take risks. At Perfect Fools we have done a lot to promote this. One good example is the All Agency meetings we have every Friday afternoon. We look at work in progress, share client status and financial information but the highlight of every meeting is that one in the team makes a 20 minutes speech on the theme “what inspires me.” A way to get to know people on a deeper level. And also educational, I must admit. My creative director, when it was his time, shared a story about revenge. How people who he measured himself against truly motivated him. It was an immensely personal and vulnerable story. After that speech these stories have become increasingly personal. People seem more comfortable to talk about who they truly are and, in the teams, you can feel the change. If you know someone you have a stronger tendency to wish them well. You don’t criticize, you show interest. Interestingly enough this feeling of safety has also “infected” our clients. In an environment where people feel safe, the clients also feel the need to add value rather than criticize and they also make braver decisions. Feeling the safety and support of the team.
To conclude, psychological safety promotes effectiveness and more innovative teams, happier employees and braver clients. Best business investment I could think of. No nonsense about it.
Ann Ystén, Perfect Fools