311 - Facilitating Courage: A Deeper Look at Psychological Safety with Myriam Hadnes

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hadnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is just me, myself, and I, as I speak about psychological safety and why it matters, not only for facilitators, but Most importantly, for team leaders and how we can create it when we're a team leader. How can we create it for ourselves? I speak about the biggest misconceptions of psychological safety and how it relates to my new book project, Unprofessionalism. Being psychologically safe means that we can be more human at the workplace and hence more open and genuine, more creative and thriving with each other. So, I hope you enjoy the episode and scroll down to the show notes to find all the links for more information. Thank you for listening. Recording this episode on the topic of psychological safety has been on my mind for so long because it's a topic that is very close to my heart. And I believe that if there's one thing that is the responsibility of facilitators to really do, then it's creating psychological safety. It's not about the methods, it's not about the activities, it's not about the why, the what. It's partly about the how. How do we create the space where every individual who joins our gatherings, our meetings, our workshops can feel safe enough to show up as the best version of themselves? And that's what we call psychological safety. And It's been on my heart a long time, and I haven't recorded this episode, maybe partly because I think there's lots of great work that has been done. And I will talk about Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark's work, on whose shoulders I am standing by applying their research. And yeah, so there was a certain shyness, and I have the impression that now is a perfect moment to talk about that as I'm writing my book on professionalism and was wondering whether— One obstacle to the genuine creation of psychological safety might be that it's somehow still considered unprofessional. And I won't go into detail here, and I will avoid the tangent because I could obviously speak about my new book project for ages. But this is just food for thought. What does it mean in our professional context to Speak about psychological safety beyond the woo-woo term, beyond the buzzword. Because psychological safety doesn't mean that we feel cozy, that we feel like a family, that we sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya. It's actually quite the opposite. Psychological safety means that we can sense the discomfort and do it anyway. And when I say discomfort, it's the discomfort of sharing honest feedback, the discomfort of admitting that we don't know, the discomfort of asking a question, the discomfort of challenging someone's idea, the discomfort of admitting that we made a mistake. And in order to lean into this discomfort, we need to feel safe. We need to feel safe in a sense that we trust that what we say won't have repercussions, that nobody will blame us, nobody will shame us. Nobody will fire us. So the question is for all of us, when we have a question, do we dare to ask it? Or is there a place within us where we think, hmm, what would they think of me? Would they laugh at me? Maybe they will ignore me. And these thoughts are very harmful. Because they hold us back from doing the work. They cost us energy. They prevent us from connecting. Because it's only when we can be ourselves, courageous, daring, if we can show our humanity, then we will connect to other people. Because somehow we sense whether someone is genuine, whether someone is authentic, or whether someone is putting on a mask, trying to be so professional, having it all figured out. I think this is really one of the biggest obstacles to thriving teams, high-performing organizations, is that we tend to ignore the humanness and tend to push away the humanness of our employees, of our colleagues, although this is a real competitive advantage nowadays because that's something that we cannot outsource to AI, although AI became very good in admitting mistakes. So maybe that's something we can actually learn from AI. But well, this was a very long introduction to today's solo episode on the topic of psychological safety. So in today's solo episode, there are a few things that I want to mention, and I will try to keep it short. We can finish in half an hour, and if it takes longer, then it's because I'm so excited and I have so much to say about that. I will start with a few misconceptions about psychological safety and then reviewing very briefly The work of the giants on whose shoulders I stand, Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark. And then I want to speak about— or I want to go deeper in Timothy Clark's model actually, because I love it for its simplicity and depth. And I think many underestimate the complexity of it. So I want to spend some time there. And then we come to the juicy bit of 4 tips for leaders to create psychological safety around them. And if you're a facilitator or you do facilitate, many of these tips will sound familiar because, as I said in the intro, facilitation and the creation of psychological safety are the same, two sides of the same coin. But then I want to go even a step further and speak about how to create psychological safety for ourselves, because I believe that this is something that we underestimate, that if we don't feel psychologically safe, ourselves, we cannot create it for others. It's like with the safety mask, right? The oxygen mask in the airplane. You first have to put it on for yourself, and then you can help others. Because maybe to already speak to it so that you can really stick around until the end, not to miss these tips, let me give you an example. Because I think we've all been in a situation where we're in a group setting, we Might feel slightly self-conscious. Maybe there's an imposter thought somewhere in our heads, and we might not feel entirely safe. Maybe we think that the people around us don't think that we deserve the role or the position that we hold. So maybe we don't feel good enough. And then someone asks a question. And if we are already in this mindset of doubt, of anxiety, then we will interpret the question in the most pessimistic way and think, ah, they're attacking us. Now they will find out, oh, they're testing us. So what will we do? We become defensive, which is very normal. Maybe we dismiss the question, maybe we don't even answer it, maybe there's suddenly this passive-aggressive tone in our voice. And I'm saying that because I've been there. I remember when I was a PhD student, I would introduce the problem sets to the master's students, and I regularly thought that the master's students were actually more intelligent than I was. That I was a fraud and I didn't deserve the title in the first place. And I remember very well this one time where I really struggled to solve the problem set, and I asked my supervisor for support, and they were like, "Oh, that's so easy, Miriam. All you have to do is." And they went through the calculations, and I didn't understand a word, and I felt like a fraud. So I didn't ask further, and I didn't want to admit that I didn't understand. I didn't have time to go deeper in anyway. Long story short, I'm in front of the master's students and of course one of them asked the question, Myriam, can you please explain? I did not feel safe because I felt like a fraud. So what did I do? Oh, that's so easy. All you have to do is— and I repeated exactly the same thing that my supervisor did in a tone that would avoid anyone to ask another question. I was annoyed and I basically told them that it's not okay for them to ask further questions. Because I didn't feel safe enough to answer them. So this is why I believe that it's very important that we first create psychological safety for ourselves before even thinking about creating for others. That's why I will finish with this section. Good enough, we talk. I hope you're ready now. A few misconceptions, common misconceptions about psychological safety. Number 1, it is not about avoiding discomfort. It is about creating the space where we can feel uncomfortable, as I mentioned in the intro. How do you create the space so that you can have the difficult conversations, that you can ask difficult questions, that you share the daring ideas and challenge the status quo? And that's the most important thing. Second misconception is it's not about agreeing. It's not about having the same opinion. It's about creating the space where we can actually hear and listen to the different opinions. And that very often is uncomfortable, especially when we care. When we're in a debate about a topic where we have strong opinions, then listening to someone who has a different belief can feel like an attack. And if we realize that everyone has a different opinion than us, It needs a lot of courage to actually raise your hand, open your mouth, and admit that you see it differently. And I can think of a million situations where it is a matter of life and death whether someone opens their mouth because they feel safe enough to say, hey, I actually disagree. Aren't we actually overlooking something here? Isn't there a risk? that we shall take into account. And you want this one person to speak up. And hence, it's not about a feel-good concept. And maybe this is even the biggest misconception. Psychological safety is not a once done and go concept. It's not that you can take an entire day, create psychological safety, and then it's OK, you can move on and you can benefit from this beautiful group norm that you have created. Psychological safety is something that is not inherent to an individual. It's not a personality trait that some feel psychologically safe and others don't. It's not like being extrovert or introvert. Just because someone does not speak does not mean that they don't feel safe. Maybe they're an introvert. But what would it take an introvert to share their voice and opinion? Maybe not in speaking, but in different ways. That's psychological safety. Just because someone speaks a lot and is very loud doesn't mean that they feel safe. Maybe it's also their way of hiding their discomfort. Psychological safety is something that is created among a group, within a group. This means that every time a group changes, we have to rebuild psychological safety almost from scratch. Imagine a Team, small team, maybe you and your team, and you feel safe enough to ask all the questions, to admit the mistakes, to show your vulnerable self, to say, ah, I don't understand that, can you please explain it to me? And to challenge each other. Okay, let's imagine you're in a meeting and you have this really deep debate where you are at your best selves. And suddenly the door opens and the CEO of the company walks in and takes a seat. Would you feel still the same degree of safety to ask your questions and to admit that you don't know, maybe to admit that you made a mistake, if this other person is suddenly in the room? Probably not. And if this doesn't resonate, maybe think of you sitting over coffee with a friend and chatting and sharing your thoughts and feelings, and suddenly their friend is joining that you don't know. Do you still feel the same degree of safety to share your true self if this other person joined? Probably not. This has nothing to do with your personality. You are still the same person, but the group has changed, so you don't know whether it is safe. You don't know whether they will laugh at you or ignore you or dismiss your ideas. Hence, every time a group changes, we have to start from scratch. And we'll go through the stages and what you can do to create the psychological safety. But that's very important to recognize. And if now you think, oh geez, every time that there's a new group, I have to have an entire day to invest in psychological safety. No, that's another misconception. Maybe I should record this episode only about misconceptions. It can go very quick. I, me and other facilitators, that's what we do. We can create psychological safety sometimes in 20 minutes with an entire new group. We can go in 20 minutes from everyone joining and not knowing each other to admitting that they don't know and challenging the status quo. And it is an art form, it's a craft, and it's not rocket science. So Okay, maybe just to conclude or summarize this introductory session, you may think of psychological safety not as a feel-good concept, but like a high-intensity interval training where while you're doing it, it doesn't feel comfortable. It's actually quite exhausting and it's hard, but afterwards you feel good and you immediately realize the impact in terms of performance, of learning, innovation, feeling great. Your mind is open, your heart is open. And yeah, this increase of endorphins, that's what happens if you feel very safe and you can go to places that feel uncomfortable and you do it anyway, where you can be your full self and your best version of yourself. That's psychological safety. So why does it matter? I won't go too much into detail here, and I only want to mention the 2 heroes in the field. Amy Edmondson, Harvard professor who came up with the term and who did a lot of research in the medical field, in hospitals, and also with high-performing teams at Google. And they found that there was one thing that differentiated the highest performing teams from all the rest. And this was the sense of psychological safety, that they dared to ask questions, that they dared to challenge a decision. Interestingly, Amy Edmondson found that teams with higher psychological safety made more mistakes. Uh-huh. And if you studied statistics, then you will know where I'm going with this because We can only see what we can measure. So if a high-performing team makes more mistakes, it doesn't actually mean that they are making more mistakes. It just means that they are reporting more mistakes. And that's what you want because it boils down to admitting the small mistakes so that they don't become big. Let's take an example. Question. I know that I cannot hear your answer, but I ask you anyway. Has it happened that during a meeting, you stopped paying attention. Maybe you were daydreaming, maybe you answered an email, maybe you did some online research. So your mind drifts and suddenly you realize that the group has taken a decision in the meantime. They all agreed, they're all nodding, they're all calm, and you panic because you didn't pay attention. Do you dare to unmute yourself if it's an online meeting and say, oh, can you please repeat? I was just daydreaming. Or I drifted, or I didn't pay attention. Do you dare admitting that? It takes a lot. I would say 80% maybe would say no. And it is normal to daydream. We all do that. We cannot pay attention all the time. So there's a moment where we are being human. Do we dare to admit it? If we don't, everyone leaves, goes to work, and they have agreed you to do some specific work, some specific task. So they're all Trust that you are doing what was agreed upon. You don't because you haven't paid attention. So suddenly there are all the mistakes coming up and you realize that something is going wrong, but you don't know what it is. Do you then admit that you made a mistake? Hmm, given that you didn't even feel safe enough to admit that you were daydreaming, maybe not. So hence this small thing can really become a big thing. So a small mistake That should feel easy to admit might become a bigger risk for an entire company. So only if we can admit it, we can learn from it and improve. So psychological safety is not about eliminating risks. And that's what Amy Edmondson found. But it's about making it easier to see them, speak about them, and hence learn from them so that we become a performing team. And therefore, psychological safety is not a hygiene measure. It's not a nice to have. It is crucial for companies because we need every single employee. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there anyway. So if they are there already and we pay them, why don't we want them to perform at their best and their fullest? And so I really recommend you to check out Amy Edmondson's work. And the other person I want to highlight is Timothy Clark. And he built on Amy's work and came up with the 4 stages of psychological safety, which is a beautiful, beautiful model. And it's so beautiful because of its simplicity. He says that psychological safety is a function of 2 things, of permission and of respect. The more permission and the more respect we have amongst each other, the higher the level of psychological safety. And he starts at the bottom where there's very low permission, very low respect, where we first have to create inclusion safety by increasing a little bit permission, a little bit respect. And what I love about this model, and I will go through the 4 stages in a second, is that it looks very simple and it has a lot of depth. And it starts with our definition of permission. Permission means that we have permission to show up, to be ourselves, to ask the questions, to take space in the gathering. Now, we might all have the same definition of permission, but the question is, do we agree, and do those around us have the same understanding? So do you have permission to speak up in a meeting? Maybe you think yes, maybe you think no. How do the other think? Then let's assume that an intern is joining the team for 2 months, a high school student. Do they have permission to speak in a meeting? Do they have permission to ask a question? If you say, yes, of course, every voice is welcome, then my question would be, do they know that they have permission? So in order to increase the level of permission intimacy, Clark's model, we have to make it very explicit. And we have to agree. And the other angle is respect. The more respect we have towards each other, the higher the level of psychological safety, only if it increases with permission at the same time. And then the question is, how do we show respect to each other and how do we feel that others respect us? Maybe if they listen to us, if they ask questions, if they have an open body language, maybe if they shake our hand. But then imagine a situation in a culture where it's maybe not appropriate to touch someone you don't know. Is it still a sign of respect? There are small signs of respect and permission that we can do, and I walk through them as I walk through Timothy Clark's because I think it's, for me, this is the best way to learn about how to creating it ourselves. For now, very important to remember that there are 4 stages in Timothy Clark's model. It starts from inclusion safety. Where we ask, do I belong here? Do I have permission to belong? Do I have permission to be here? And do others respect me, appreciate my presence? Then it goes to the second stage of learner safety. Is it safe for me to ask a question? Do I have permission to ask a question? And do others respect me enough not to laugh at me or to dismiss my question? It then goes to contributor safety, where we have— where we need a little bit more permission, a little bit more respect to ask, is it safe for me to share my ideas, my beliefs? And this needs more psychological safety because we no longer can hide behind a question. So when we contribute an idea, how will the others react? We've been in a situation where We share an idea, someone else shares an idea, and the immediate answer is, yes, but we don't have the budget. Yes, but it's not the priority. Yes, but we've never done that before. Yes, but we tried it so many times. Yes, but is a killer for psychological safety because it shuts down the conversation. What we want to do instead is to use the famous yes, and approach. And yes, and doesn't mean that we are going into loops and that we support every idea. But yes, and means that we give the idea a chance and that we show respect to the person who brought that idea in and give them permission to explore just a little bit further. So for instance, if there is no budget and someone comes up with a crazy idea, then we can say, Yes, and have you an idea how we can implement it despite the budget constraints? Yes, and what other things do we have to stop doing so that we have time to implement your idea? Yes, and how can we prototype and test it so that we don't lose too much time? And with this approach, you're giving the responsibility back to the other person, give them the opportunity to actually explain a little bit further what they mean. Because what often happens, we say yes, but because Because we assume that we understand the idea that the other person shared. And by saying yes, but, we assume that we understand and we dismiss them totally. And what's the consequence? Next time, maybe they don't share their idea. Maybe they don't raise their question. And what is the opportunity cost of that? Maybe the million-dollar idea that has never been raised. Maybe the question that was never asked and could have saved a huge— mistake or problem coming up, coming to the surface. And finally, and that's the highest stage of psychological safety according to Timothy Clark, if we have the highest level of permission and the highest level of respect, we're at the stage that he calls challenger safety. Can I question things? Can we challenge the ideas? Can we challenge the status quo? Can we have a different opinion? And Almost all the teams in all the groups I work with and work on psychological safety, they always come up with the example, oh, but we challenge each other all the time in our meetings. We have challenger safety, but nobody asks a question. So we really lack learner safety. And my response to that is that they don't have challenger safety in their team. No, they have toxicity. That's maybe a little bit blunt, but what I mean by that is that if you don't challenge the challenger, it means that something is wrong. So if someone challenges an idea in a meeting because they feel that they have challenger safety, they feel safe enough, they have permission to challenge the idea, and they respect the other people. They know that they are not challenging the individual. They know that they are not attacking them, but only focusing on the idea. Now, let's assume that the person whose idea they challenge doesn't feel as psychologically safe as the challenger. Let's say that they just joined the team a few weeks ago, that they wonder whether they're good enough, whether the other team members actually recognize their expertise already. And here comes someone, challenge their idea. They will take it personally, right? They might become defensive, or maybe they just shut up and they don't want to speak anymore. So they don't feel safe. And in this moment, psychological safety breaks for everyone because it creates the sense of something is hostile here. What you want to happen If someone's idea is challenged, then you ask that you feel safe enough to ask more questions. Oh, so you don't believe that I can implement this idea within the budget constraints? Also, what do you see what I don't see? How do you think about finding a cheaper resource? I'm just making this up. And then suddenly the challenging becomes a debate, becomes a dialogue, becomes a question and answer. And these are the signs of challenger safety in a team. Challenger safety doesn't mean that one person challenges and everyone challenges each other, but nobody challenges the challenger or asks a question that goes just a little bit deeper below the surface. And the consequence of this is that according to Timothy Clark's model, you cannot jump any stage. So in order to achieve challenger safety, You have to have inclusion safety where everyone has a sense of belonging. Everyone senses that there's a reason for them to be there and that they have permission to be there and are respected for their presence. Then they have to go to the learner safety where they dare to ask a question. And only if they have it, they can go to the contributor safety where they dare to share their idea. And only if they have that, they can achieve challenger safety. Because otherwise, so psychological safety needs to be gradually created, and it can go very fast. And that's what will— that is what I will talk you through in the next step. How do you build the psychological safety through these 4 stages as a team leader, or even a team member, or a facilitator? Because if someone doesn't feel that they belong, they will not ask a question. They will not ask. They will not share their idea. And they will never challenge the status quo because they have the impression that they don't belong in the first place. So before anything else, we always have to start with inclusion safety. So 4 ways to create psychological safety in your teams as a leader. Always start with creating a sense of clarity and belonging. And we do this by being very clear on why we're inviting people. So what is the purpose of bringing a group of individuals together that shall feel safe together? And it starts with, who are the members of the team? Is it actually a team or is it a group? Where are there overlaps? If you have a meeting, why is it important for everyone to be there? Because if someone doesn't know their role, they don't know what is expected of them. They don't know whether they have permission to share their expertise. And let's say someone is working as a program manager and is invited as that role to a team meeting, but maybe in a previous role for a different company, they used to be a programmer. Do they have permission to bring in this expertise to this team meeting? Do they know that? Will they be respected for it? That's where it starts. Create a sense of belonging. Make sure that everyone's voice matters and that there's a reason why everyone is invited. So make the implicit explicit. Why are we meeting? Who's there? Why are they there? Why is it important? And give them explicit permission to contribute and show them respect. And it can start as simple as a check-in. You can create clarity of belonging by either introducing everyone, asking everyone to state their name and what they're bringing to the meeting. And it can be a word. And like that, everyone feels as if they matter. Once everyone feels safe enough to belong and knows that they belong, how can you make it safe for them to ask questions? How can you give permission to ask questions? You can invite them to ask questions. That's the easiest way. What questions do you have? Or, I can imagine this was a lot of information. Please let me know what your questions are. What I love doing with groups is a Q&A where everyone has to ask a question. So it works for groups that are not— and if it's about content or process, that's very important. I say, okay, so now everyone asks a question. We are going round and I will answer to all the questions. Once we're done. And if you cannot think of a question, here are 3 bonus questions. And then I give them 3 alternative questions they can ask if they cannot come up with their own. And this makes it also easy for them to basically skip without skipping. And it also gives them permission to ask silly questions because I would either say something that is relevant, or when do we meet tomorrow morning if it's an offsite? Or, how is the weather in Amsterdam? How old is Myriam? And this brings also a little bit of lightness and humor into the space. So when someone asks a question, make sure that you acknowledge the question. Yeah, thank you for the question. If you sense that the person is struggling because maybe it was uncomfortable, look around. Okay, I see nodding heads. It seems as if there are more people who had that question, so thank you for asking it. If you think it's a stupid question because you have already mentioned the information 5 times, it's so important not to show that. Because imagine this person wouldn't have asked. There's a reason you highlighted the fact 5 times. If one person still hasn't paid attention, it's important that they ask the question because otherwise they will never know. So, oh yeah, thank you. We cannot emphasize this enough. If you missed that, I'm sure someone else missed it. So always appreciate, acknowledge, and encourage questions. This will create the space where people actually dare to ask, and then answer the question. If you cannot answer, that's fine. Say that you will look it up, that you will come back to them. Ask the group if someone of them knows the answer. Because remember, only if we feel insecure, we will dismiss questions. If I have the impression that someone is attacking me or wants to test me, these are usually voices in our heads. People are not preoccupied with bringing us down unless we have a psychopath in the team. Usually they're genuinely curious. And for instance, I'm a big picture person, right? I love the big picture, the vision. And if someone asks questions about all the details and about the comma and the minute, I might get annoyed, or my younger self got annoyed with that because I thought, oh, they don't trust me. They don't trust me that I have thought of the process. Although it was just their personality type that they really want to know. So now I'm like, oh, thank you for asking. I haven't even thought of that. Good that you remind me because my mind is only at the big picture. So I need people like you to think of the details and to ask. Thanks. So I can react like this. Because nowadays I'm confident enough and I know that yes, I'm good at what I do, and sometimes I forget stuff, especially when it's about the details. Tip number 3, make every voice count. Because if you're inviting people to a meeting, it means that they shall be there, that you want them there, that they can bring value to the gathering. If they cannot Don't invite them in the first place, right? Because if you invited them, although they have nothing to contribute, this is against the sense of belonging that we talked about in the first place. They will never feel safe enough to belong because there is no space for them to belong. They don't have permission. So only invite people who actually should, must be there. And once there's a reason for them to be there, make their voice count. Yes, and what they're saying. Listen to them, ask a question, and even if they say something stupid. I remember again when I was a PhD student, it was— Lipson was a professor. He was genius, Harvard professor. And I said something that was clearly wrong. He looked at me and said, yes, Miriam, and have you thought of— and said the opposite. And I was flabbergasted because I realized that By the way he responded to my mistake, to my wrong answer, he kept me safe and my mind open. If he had said, no, Miriam, let me correct you, I would have turned inward into my mind and beating myself up for always talking too early, not doing my homework, being a fraud, all of that, never being able to have an academic career, and so on and so forth because of the no, because of the mistake. But since he said, yes, Miriam, I acknowledge that you said something, thank you for contributing, I was open, I felt seen. And then I listened to what he had to say and could learn from that. And it wasn't about my mistake, but it was about the new perspective. So when someone contributes, make it safe for them to contribute no matter what, especially if they're making mistakes or saying something that you find stupid. Oh, that's a very interesting perspective. I haven't thought of that. And at the moment, we don't have time to go into these kind of ideas. Or, and at the moment, we cannot— we don't have time to, to go into such a depth. Let's park it for now. So at least listen to them. And even this example that I just gave might, under some circumstances, feel like cutting someone off. So trust your gut and be human, but also you don't have to That's important. Yes, anding doesn't mean that we cannot say no. So making every voice count also means giving clarity. So for instance, if someone asks, can I take a day off tomorrow, although the day after is a deadline? We don't have to yes, and. Yes, and how do you get the work done anyway? Sometimes it needs a clear no. It's like, no, you cannot take a day off tomorrow because of the deadline. And you can take a day off once the work is done. And this also creates safety. Very clear nos, very clear boundaries create safety. And I will come back to that when we speak about psychological safety for ourselves. And finally, the highest level of psychological safety: make it safe to challenge the challenger. And so first, invite them to challenge you if you're the team leader. If you have bold ideas, ask them to show you What you don't see, how they could disagree. And then don't fall into the trap of becoming defensive because that's a natural mechanism that as soon as someone challenges our ideas, we're like, yes, but you don't understand. You don't see what I see. Train to remain open. And if you struggle with that, tell your team. Tell them that you might react in that way because it's old conditioning and that you're working on it and that they can remind you of it and maybe Have a good laugh. And if someone challenges someone else's idea— Challenge them a little bit and ask them for permission to challenge. I think that's the biggest one, that when we are— very often the people who challenge, especially in a team setting, especially in the corporate world, are those who have the confidence, who have the status, who have the seniority. And they forget that others might feel intimidated. They forget that others might not feel as comfortable to challenge. So if you're in this position, then always ask for permission. May I challenge your idea for a second? Like, I really want to understand, and I have the impression that I see something that you don't. May we explore this for a minute? Would you mind? And make it an honest request, because what you do want to give permission to the person who is challenged is to say, you know what, I had a very bad night. I didn't sleep. My newborn woke me up 5 times and I had a big fight with my spouse. Can we please challenge the idea tomorrow? And then this is also okay. And lucky you asked, because otherwise you might have had a huge fight afterwards just because of a lack of sleep and a non-related fight. So be conscious where people are coming from. And very often their reactions or our reactions have actually Nothing to do with the situation, the current situation, that they're just leftovers, carry-ons, carry-on baggage from a previous situation. But we are so self-centered that we forget that and we take everything personally, which is also normal. It's part of being human. And the more we can admit that, the more we can talk about that, the more psychological safety we can create and the better we can communicate and the more easy our ideas and our creativity will flow. Yes. I'm aware that these solo episodes are very dense in content, so maybe you can reduce the speed pace or listen to it a second time, or maybe you know all of this already and then you can skim through it anyway. We spoke about the misconceptions. We spoke about Amy Edmondson. I spoke. I spoke about the misconceptions. You listened. I spoke about Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark. Then I just went through tips and tricks of what you can do to create psychological safety for your teams based on the model of Timothy Clark. And now I want to speak about creating psychological safety for ourselves, because as I mentioned in the beginning, if we don't feel safe, we cannot create it for others. Number 1, and that's maybe the most difficult one, cultivate your own emotional literacy. If we understand our triggers, if we understand our emotions, then we can decide to respond instead of react. So to come back to the earlier example, someone says something, ask a question. Someone asked me a question, Miriam, so if I understand you correctly, we have 5 minutes in order for doing this task. Do you think this is enough time? Could be a genuine question because the person has information that I don't. And if I'm not confident, if I am doubting, then I have the impression this person attacked me. And then what will happen? My heartbeat will raise slightly, right? I might have sticky hands. I might start touching my neck or shoulders or rubbing my, my legs, which are all signs of slight stress. discomfort. So I, I can feel that I feel agitated, and this is a moment where I have to slow down and to remind myself, oh, it's not about me. This person has a genuine question. Or maybe 5 minutes are not enough. Or I can say, yeah, I don't want you to go into a detailed discussion right now, but just to check in. So 5 minutes should be plenty, and then it's clear for everyone, right? But in order to have this mindful, thoughtful response and not to jump on any trigger, we have to understand ourselves and how we react. And how do we learn that? By observing ourselves. I remember a time I was in a relationship with a man and I always had a big appetite. I eat like a man, actually. So I was serving myself a second portion of spaghetti and he looks at me and asks, oh, Miriam, are you still hungry? And I heard, oh, Myriam, watch out, you're getting fat. So I felt a little bit upset. Luckily, we had very good communication. So I looked at him and said, hmm, you asked whether I'm still hungry. And what I hear is that I'm getting fat. Do you have the impression that I'm eating too much? And he laughed and said, no, not at all. I was just curious because I ate as much as you did and I'm full and you're still eating. Like, oh, okay. So because I'm still hungry. And suddenly it was okay. So yes, when we feel the feeling of discomfort, if we start kind of rubbing ourselves, holding ourselves, if we feel the heartbeat, ask yourself whether you feel unsafe or maybe it's just something unfamiliar, which is also okay. But then we can respond accordingly. Second tip to create psychological safety for ourselves is setting boundaries, saying no. And I think that's something, maybe all of these tips are, in today's world, might be perceived as highly unprofessional. Tuning into our emotions, how do we feel? Are we triggered? Speaking about our emotions. Ooh, we are not there yet. Setting boundaries, saying no, also highly uncomfortable, maybe unprofessional. But we have to protect our energy and our safety. So if someone says something that does challenge us, where we feel attacked, saying that. Oh, I don't feel comfortable with you saying that. Or, I would like to ask you to change your tone or not to speak. Or, I cannot do this for you. I cannot work the extra hours. So be mindful of your time because what happens, and these are small things, the small boundaries where we say yes, although we meant no, where we smile, although we are upset, they will accumulate. Until suddenly we snap, and maybe we snap at the same person who upset us, or we snap at the wrong person, or we come home with all this baggage, and then we have a fight at home with our loved ones and family for reasons that have nothing to do with them, but just because we haven't protected our boundaries throughout the day. So take care of yourself and, and tune in. How does it feel to, to agree and to do what others ask you to? Because at the end, communicating boundaries clearly actually can increase trust and belonging and safety, even for the others. I practice setting boundaries. That was my task of last year, for an entire year, and I now became quite good. And the beauty is that I realized that clearer I am with my boundaries, the more appreciated I am. So if I say, thank you so much for asking to have coffee and spend time with me, but at the moment I'm really setting priorities to write my book, so I'm not having coffee with anyone. And then people just say, thank you for being so clear. Because very often what happens is that we are ghosted, we don't get a reply, we like get the maybe. And the maybes really let us hanging and cost energy because we don't know Can we schedule something? Can we get back to them? Do we get on their nerves? But if we get a clear no, then we can just move on, and it's actually very liberating. Another example for a beautiful boundary, but now I forgot it. Maybe it will come back. Number 3. So once we have our emotional literacy, we know what triggers us, we learn to say no and to set our boundaries, how can we maybe build our personal support system? Maybe there's one team member with whom we feel safe. Maybe we can have a little thing with exchanging glances or meeting beforehand. Also, I had one participant in one of the psychological safety trainings realize throughout the training that what they needed was more clarity. So they would not feel safe in a meeting if they don't know whether they understand the purpose and if they haven't prepared. So what they did now is before going to a meeting, they would reach out to the host to ask how they could best prepare, not because they wanted to show off or do homework, but they wanted to feel safe. So this also has a lot to do with self-awareness. What do we need actually to feel safe in certain circumstances? If we go to a conference and we feel slightly self-conscious, who can maybe come with us? What do we need to make it feel slightly safer? Maybe we can suggest a round of introduction to hear everyone's voice. Maybe we can sit somewhere where it feels safer for us. And last but not least, last tip to create psychological safety for ourselves is to practice self-validation. It is our responsibility to make ourselves feel safe. If we are waiting for others to create psychological safety for us, we're giving them all the power to either create it or to destroy it. And we make ourselves miserable because we become powerless. And I think that's something that I spoke with a podcast guest about recently. I think it was Louise, about the weaponization of psychological safety, that nowadays there are more and more people say, oh, I don't feel safe. You don't make me feel safe. If you ask me to say my name, then You destroy my psychological safety. And I think it's very dangerous. And it's, it's very dangerous because it weaponizes the concept that is a beautiful concept of self-awareness and autonomy and community and belonging. And what the person is actually saying is that they cannot take the responsibility for themselves. So I think it really starts with what do we need? If it's— if certain things about our identity are important, if using pronouns and having an introduction round with pronouns is important to us, ask for it. If you would like to hear everyone's voice before, ask for it. If you need further permission, ask for it. What do you need to feel respected? And how can you maybe switch your mind to see the positive, to see those around you as your peers instead of your enemies? Because as I said in the the beginning, in most of the cases, we can trust that people want the best for us, or at the minimum, they're very indifferent because they only care for themselves and they're preoccupied how others will think about them, so they don't even have time and capacity to think about us. So yeah, self-validation. Reframe the self-doubt and recognize that if you feel uncomfortable, it's usually a sign either that you care Or that you're growing, or in the best case, both caring and growing. That's usually what our discomfort is telling us. So psychological safety wrap-up. We spoke about the misconceptions, Timothy Clark, Emily Edmondson, what a team leader can do to create psychological safety, what we can do to create psychological safety for ourselves, and to take away The most important thing is it's not hygiene. It's important for creating high-performance teams. It is not a personality trait, but it's a group norm. And we can create psychological safety in a very brief amount of time by being clear who is invited and why, by giving everyone permission to ask questions, by responding to every contribution in an affirmative, yes-ending way, and by challenging the challenger. And while we can still— we can all create psychological safety for ourselves, it's the leaders who set the tone. Because as I said, psychological safety has to be rebuilt with every group and change of group. Imagine a group sits there and discusses and someone suddenly snaps and is passive-aggressive. One person. can destroy psychological safety for everyone within a second. And then it's the leader's or the facilitator's task to call that out and to make sure that this is not okay so that you can rebuild psychological safety. And then you have to start from the beginning. Does everyone feel a sense of belonging, permission to be there, and respected for their presence? And then you build it up. I hope this was helpful for you, and I hope that you can start practicing building psychological safety for yourself and those around you with one little thing that you can implement and test and then move your way forward and upward and enjoy the benefits of having psychological safety and bringing more humanity to the workplace and being your full, genuine, authentic self, because that's what we need. Thank you for listening. Thank you for staying tuned and for listening until the very end. I hope that you found The inspiration and the wisdom that you are looking for. And I hope that you will subscribe to the show so that you never miss any of the interviews with another inspiring facilitator from across the world. I am devoted to continue this podcast and to deliver weekly an episode that maintains the quality that you expect and you deserve. And if you would like to help me to maintain this quality and to keep the podcast free, Please help us visit workshops.work/support to make a small donation to keep the podcast free. Thank you so much. I hope to be in your ears next week.