How to Support Workplace Psychological Safety

In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Dr Peter Brace, a psychological safety consultant who helps organizations link respect and accountability through psychological safety to improve team performance.

He begins this engaging conversation by clarifying how much influence Safety professionals can have on psychological safety. Perhaps surprisingly for a consultant, Peter explains that you can’t create psychologically safe workplaces. Instead he describes the conditions required for this emergent quality.

Peter reveals the 5 key aspects of psychological safety (as defined by leading neuroscientist David Rock): Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness - and how these conditions can be assessed and cultivated.

He also clears up the common misconceptions about psychological safety, highlights the key benefits and explains how this quality can be easily measured.

Safety practitioners will learn how psychological safety is an important precursor for physical health and safety, while deepening awareness of the importance of diversity and inclusion.

- [Mary] Hi there. Welcome to "Safety Labs by Slice." Today's guest consults across corporations and cultures to help teams improve their psychological safety. While the idea of psychological safety has gained currency in the OHS world of late, it's less well-known in corporate leadership. We'll discuss different elements of psychological safety and how they're tied to power and culture, and whether or not it's possible to make a team more psychologically safe.

For over 30 years, Peter Brace has been partnering with companies from subject matter experts to large corporations to help them empower their people through technology-based solutions. He helps increase productivity, learning, and team engagement, which leads to revenue and profit growth.

In the last 15 years, he's helped organizations across the Asia-Pacific region improve their people-related systems and processes. As a psychological safety and leadership consultant, Peter helps organizations measure and improve psychological safety in teams. He believes psychological safety is a fundamental driver of improved engagement, accelerated learning, greater physical and mental well-being, as well as more innovation and higher profitability.

Peter joins us from Melbourne. Welcome.

- [Dr. Brace] Hi, Mary. Thank you so much. Lovely to be here.

- So, I'd like to start with something that's in the bio. Listeners, if you were listening closely. In the arc of your career, you've moved from roles that deal heavily with technology to roles that focus more on people and processes. And I'm wondering if that was a purposeful shift in focus, or tell me the story of how that change occurred.

- Yeah. Well, I guess I've always been interested in the intersection of people and technology. So, you know, how do we use technology? How does it impact us? You know, and how does it change us? So, that's always really been an area of interest of mine is that that intersection of humanity, you know, the soft stuff and the hard stuff, if you like.

- Yeah. Great. So, I'd like to frame the discussion in terms of what safety professionals can and can't expect in terms of their influence over psychological safety. So, if someone were to ask you, how do I make my team psychologically safe? How would you respond?

- I would say you can't make your team psychologically safe. So, that's probably put me out of business by saying that. But what I mean by that is, you know, psychological safety is...when you study complex systems, it's what's referred to as an emergent quality. So, a complex system is different to a complicated system in that a complex system is sort of always near the edge of chaos, and it's unpredictable and it's impossible to control.

And the complex system that we're talking about here, because psychological safety is a quality of teams, it's really three things that come together, that are all complex. First of all, it's our individuals psychology.

So, we're all extremely different. We're all complicated, right? Some people appear more complicated than others, but actually, there's a lot going on inside us. And then on top of that, you have the dynamics of a team. So, you know, the leader of the team, the different people in the team, how they interact, how they speak to one another, what they're doing, you know, the external forces on that team.

That's another complex thing. And then you've got the complexity of the culture in which the team operates. And when we say culture, that could be organizational culture, kind of, you know, the way we do things around here, but it's also the culture of the country, the ethnic group which overlays other complexities.

So, you've got a lot going on here, right? So many variables. So, the idea that you could engineer psychological safety or plug it into that team is really wrong. All you can do is to create the conditions for psychological safety to emerge from that team. And that's what I work with organizations to do, to create those conditions.

And you have to realize it's not something that you can say, you know, 100% we do this, psychological safety is going to come out. No. It's a lot more uncertain than that, shall we say.

- Last time we spoke...

- I don't know if I answer the question, Mary.

- You did. Absolutely, yeah. You did. You did. So, the last time we spoke, you said, I'm going to quote here, "A lot of these things, these things that we're discussing, are hard to explain because they're about how we feel and how we feel makes a big difference to how we think, and that makes a big difference to what we do." So, in that feel, think, do, do you think that chain of influences is well understood, or do you encounter people who resist the idea that something as kind of ill-defined as feelings is worth paying attention to in a corporate setting?

- It's absolutely worth paying attention to. Yes. Do people get that? Well, a lot depends. When I talk to people about improving psychological safety in teams, many people say the most difficult people to work with are engineers and scientists, because often they have a particular mechanistic view of the world that, you know, it's like a machine.

You change this gear, you change this cog, and the effect will happen, right? You increase the speed here, something will happen over there, right? When you're dealing with complex systems like human social systems, it's not quite as simple as that.

And our feelings certainly motivate particularly what we value. So, we're talking about, you know, what is important to us, what we feel that moves us, what we feel that, you know, touches our heart. Those things impact the way we act.

They also impact, of course, the way we think. You know, they change the logic that we use because, you know, what's important to us forms part of that. So, it's vitally important to pay attention to how we feel.

- But not always recognized. It's interesting because you used the word, engineer, when you said you can't engineer psychological safety. And then you said people tend to say that people like engineers, for example, or technologically apt scientifically-minded people don't always see this connection.

- Yeah. And this is not to say that psychological safety is not based in science and empirical research and, you know, there's huge amounts of data over 50, 60 years that supports what we're saying about psychological safety and the impact that it has on teams. So, you know, this is not something that is just dreamed up.

You know, it's backed by solid evidence, but, you know, the fact that working in a complex system and its emergent quality makes it quite different to some other ideas about how to make improvements in organizations and teams.

- So, actually, I was going to ask you about that next. When you talk about a psychological safety, you refer to the work of David Rock, a neuroscientist, who's defined five different aspects of psychological safety. And I would like to go through, discuss each of them so that the listeners kind of understand the conditions you're referring to.

When you say all you can do is improve the conditions. Yeah. And ask a few questions of each of them. So, the first one is status. How do you know when status is...I was going to say present or absent, that's not really the right question. What does status mean in relation to the team?

- Yeah. In relation to how we feel, which is what we're talking about here, our "status" or status, depending on how we pronounce it, is really where we feel...where is our position in that hierarchy because all human and many animal societies have hierarchies, right?

And it's where we feel that we sit in that pecking order. So, you know, do we feel that we are recognized as someone who's important in that team? No matter where we are in that hierarchy, do we feel that others look to us and give us value? So, that's what we're talking about here.

It's not our formal position in the team, but it's the feeling we have that our presence there is important to the team. That's what Dave Rock is talking about when he talks about this area of neuroscience.

- Yeah. Although I would say that your position sort of on the org chart, it's not what you're talking about, but it does have an effect in that if you are to start a new job, for example, and you're the newest hire, you're the youngest person, I think you already have an idea of what kind of status you may have.

You'll come into it with that idea. But that, of course, can then be changed depending on how the most senior member of the team, whether that's in terms of years or position interacts with you.

- Exactly right. And you know, the status we have in a group is determined by lots of different things. Here's where the complexity comes in. But when we are high status in the group, for example, we are likely to feel less stress because we feel we're in control, we have influence over what happens, you know?

And even in groups of non-human primates, those who are at the bottom of the [inaudible] heap, they experience more stress than those at the top. So it's just, you know, it's part of who we are.

- What are a few ways, or one way that someone who is in a leadership position can help cultivate, I guess, less stress around status, or can, I guess, help people feel at ease so that they feel that their status is better?

- Well, everyone has a role to play, but it's true that the leader of the team has the greatest influence. More than 50% of the influence on the psychological safety of the team comes through the way that the leader acts. And something that the leader can do, and in fact, everybody can do this, which I've just learned about recently, a wonderful term.

We've heard of microaggressions, which is, you know, the way that people are put down in a very subtle way because of being different. But the wonderful term, and I apologize, I can't remember who came up with this, but the term, micro-validation, where the leader, in particular, goes out of their way to, in a very small way to show that they appreciate and value the contribution of a person, and particularly when that contribution comes from a place of difference.

So, you know, say, oh, I really appreciate the way you brought your perspective to this problem. You know, your experience in X, the way you applied it to what we're doing here, that was great. Thank you so much for that, right? So, just in a few seconds, the leader is acknowledging that person...in fact, improving their status within the group, or recognizing their status as a valued member of the team.

So, you know, it's a wonderful way in a very subtle way, to show that the leader appreciates others in the team.

- I like that term, too. That's great. And it is subtle, it's micro. It doesn't have to be throwing a giant party.

- Yeah. And, you know, when you do make a big thing out of something, then, you know, immediately you get other factors coming into play. Well, you know, the tall poppy syndrome, like if people go, "Oh, why is this person being praised so much?" I do. And suddenly, you know, more complexity comes out, but the micro-validation, because it's small, you know, but it's noticed, right?

Especially if it's directed to you, you notice it, right?

- Yeah. Yeah. And it sets the tone for a team, I would say as well. So, I'm going to move on to the next one, which is certainty. So, how do you, not exactly measure, but what does certainty mean, first of all? And how can you improve it? Are there any red flags to show when it's not present in a team?

- This comes back again to how our brain essentially works as a prediction system. So, our brain is constantly scanning the environment to figure out, okay, what's going on here, and what action do I need to take to make sure that I'm safe, that I'm conserving energy, that I'm doing what's right.

So, when you have constant uncertainty in a group, so you have no idea what's going to happen next, what piece of work is going to land on your desk, you don't know what this person and the team is going to do, you don't know what your boss is going to say next, anxiety levels rise and you feel unsafe. Now, it's true that as humans, we love a bit of novelty and newness, but that creates a certain amount of stress.

You know, it's not that all stress is bad, we're not trying to eliminate stress in a psychologically safe team, we're trying to find a base level of certainty where we feel there's an amount of predictability in our team. And some teams cope better than others with uncertainty. You know, if you think of an emergency team in a hospital, they have no idea what's going to come through the door next.

You know, what kind of condition that a patient will be in. But they know how to deal with uncertainty. They have processes and procedures in place, so whatever comes through that door, they know what to do. They know what to do first, second, third, right? So, even in those conditions, they have a level of certainty which can help them to feel psychologically safe.

- I would say that one of their pieces of certainty, they know that there will always be variation. And this ties in as well to high-risk employment, like workplace safety on an oil rig, or, you know, it's more about the parameters of what's normal, I would say, and what's not. So, in a hospital, it would be normal to see someone injured.

It would not be normal to see someone walking around with a gun in the hospital, for example.

- Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

- So, how can someone...and let's take the example of some kind of workplace where there's a lot of change or novelty, just as a baseline. How can someone in a leadership position cultivate certainty? What's a good way to add certainty, especially in an inherently uncertain kind of environment?

- Well, one of the things would be to look at, you know, why is there so much uncertainty in our environment, and is it a positive or negative thing? So, you know, just the example that comes to the top of my head, you are a writer on a TV show, right? And the essence of what you do in that writing team is to generate novelty, right? You want new ideas to come out.

So, in that atmosphere, you know, do you feel that you can speak up with your novel in possibly shocking and different idea, right? If you can, it's an indication that environment is probably psychologically safe. And despite the fact that it's full of novelty, you feel that you can be yourself, you can speak up, you can bring an idea from your perspective and the result is going to be great.

But if it's a workplace where the novelty has been artificially created to create stress, and some leaders like to do this, right? They hold on to what they know and then they feel that gives them control over the team, but all it's doing is creating anxiety in that team.

So, you know, a lot depends on, well, what's the role of novelty in this team? Is it a positive or negative one? And, you know, if it's negative, well, let's see what's going on here, right? There are obviously patterns to what is happening. Let's try and recognize what those patterns are and create some certainty by naming those patterns, understanding them, and being able to predict them in some way.

- Okay. Yeah. I think that's something to pay attention to that we don't always think of in a workplace situation. Another one that actually, I think, a lot of people do think about is autonomy. Are there behaviors that you ever observe maybe in your work where you're noticing a leader usually, because that's who you work with, is undermining autonomy?

Maybe not even consciously, but yeah, are there behaviors that you've seen or...?

- Yeah. One of, you know, the great examples of this recently is the return to work, right? You know, during the COVID pandemic, okay, people had to work at home, right? They had to manage their time very differently to the way they do now.

They had no boss looking over their shoulders to see what they're doing. They didn't have to be in a particular place at a particular time. You know, they didn't have to come to the office. They had a lot more autonomy in most cases than they would normally. And so, pandemic is over.

Okay, you need to come back to the office. People don't want to come back to the office. Okay, you need to come back two days a week to the office. Okay. Okay. But why do we need to come back to the office two days a week? It's kind of, you know, we've given people autonomy.

Most cases, people thrived in that atmosphere of autonomy, productivity went up, right? There are obviously downsizes to not seeing people in the office, right? Because we like to be social. We like to meet up and have a coffee and gather around the water cooler and gossip, which is not so easy in a virtual environment.

But bosses who say, you need to be back in the office without really explaining the reason for this, you know, that immediately shrinks our sense of autonomy, and we start to feel, "Well, are we really valued after all?" You know, it starts to impact their view about our status, you know, our ability to manage our own workload.

So, autonomy is really about letting people make decisions for themselves wherever that is possible. So, improving the level of autonomy is about the boss saying, you know, recognizing that they cannot command and control their workforce, that they need to allow people to make decisions as much as possible within the parameters and constraints that are required.

Which is a perfect description really of one of the discussions in safety, you know, workplace safety is setting parameters for safety reasons, but also allowing autonomy because people make decisions and trade-offs when unexpected things happen, for example. That's just what came to mind as you were talking about that.

The next thing is relatedness. So, what does that mean?

- Well, relatedness is really simple. It's the sense of belonging that we feel in that group, right? So, do I really feel a part of this group? Do I feel that...you know, relatedness is like the word relative, right? It's like family, you know? And not necessarily that you feel like you're part of a family in that group, but you feel that you belong in the group.

And that sense of belonging is so fundamentally important to us as humans. And it relates very strongly to the idea of diversity. And diversity is interesting because you want to have a team that has diverse viewpoints, background, experience as much as possible.

But if you are the member of the team that's different to everybody else, whether that's, you know, maybe you're living with a disability, maybe you are neurodivergent from the rest of the team. You are least...or two things, you are most likely to be able to bring a different perspective to an issue or problem, which is of huge value to the team.

But also, you are probably least likely to feel that you belong because you are different to everyone else. And you may be thinking, well, you know, I'm really lucky to have this job because look at everyone else. They're different to me.

So, I'm lucky to be here. I better keep my head down. Not make any waves. Be careful what I say. You know, don't reveal too much of my background or perspective. So, when your sense of belonging is high, you feel you can bring really your whole viewpoint to the team. Example I think of is, you know, those who are living with a disability, many folks like that have to be innovative every day of their life just to live in the world, right?

They need to find ways to get around that other people don't need to do. They need to find ways to access things that other people don't have a problem with. So, innovation is really second nature to people like that. You want that in your team, but you want those people to feel free to talk about their experience and to not be afraid to really show who they are and explain their viewpoint that can bring so much value to the rest of the group.

- At the same time, I think there's a caution. And when we spoke about this before, you mentioned sort of singling people out, which could have the opposite effect in being, you know, in a team meeting and saying, "Mary, you have a disability. Tell me what do all people with disability...please speak on behalf of," or something like that.

- Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, totally agree with that. That's why I love the term, we come back to that microvalidation again, right? Just in a very small way, say, "Oh, I love the way you brought your perspective to that." Then move on, right? You just recognizing there's something unique about this person and everybody is unique in the team in some way, right?

So, you as a leader, you're kind of looking for those things and, you know, recognizing them, which makes everyone feel safe to bring their own differences to the team.

- All right. And we'll move on to the last one here, which is fairness. And even from childhood, we all know about fairness. You hear children talking about things being fair and not fair all the time.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- How do you know if employees feel that there is fairness? Does that make sense? You as a leader may feel that you're being fair, but fairness is still a perception. How can you not exactly measure it, but how can you get an idea of how people are feeling?

- And you're right, Mary, it's built-in, right? Tests on infants 3 months old show that they recognize when something is fair or unfair, and they pay more attention to something that's unfair because it's different.

So, you know, it's really a part of who we are. And like I said at the beginning, our psychology is different. Some of us are more sensitive to that than others, right? Some of us really, you know, are extremely switched on to fairness and we feel it more deeply.

So, it's a really important part of the team dynamics, not only to feel that we're being treated fairly ourselves, but to see others in the team being treated fairly, too. So, how can a leader find out? Well, if the leader is cultivating an atmosphere where people can speak up, right? So, if people can speak up about all kinds of things, then fairness and equity will be on that list of things that people bring up.

But as with any team, like I said, there are differences. Some people find it easier to speak up than others. Some people, you know, would feel extremely uncomfortable approaching their boss and saying that something's not fair. So, you need to make sure that there are multiple channels of communication open people to raise concerns, right?

So whether that's the simple, old suggestion box, where people can anonymously put in something that they're concerned about. And really important for the leader of that team to recognize that someone has raised a concern and find a way to start a conversation about that is non-threatening, you know, that feels safe to people.

So, to recognize, you know, why are people feeling they're being unfairly treated? Who is being treated unfairly, or who feels they're being treated unfairly? So, you can create surveys, you know, anonymously, respond to surveys where you might find, "Oh, looks like, you know, women in our workplace feel they're not treated fairly, but men don't have the problem."

Okay. You know, there's something going on here, right? And so you immediately start to see, "Well, what might be leading to this?" You know, it could be a certain age group feel they're being treated unfairly. Again, this is giving you clues to look at what are our processes and systems that might make this group of people feel they're being treated unfairly. So, it's a matter of a systematic look of what is going on in the team.

- Yeah, I mean, as I'm sure everyone who's listening has concluded by now, all of these things are interrelated. It's not as though you do one without the other. They all kind of affect each other and work together. Do you ever find yourself needing to make the business case for psychological safety to leaders who don't see the connection with something like profitability, or do most people already understand the connection before they come talk to you because, you know, if they're engaging you for it, clearly they think it's important?

- Yeah. There's still, unfortunately, a level of ignorance and misunderstanding about what psychological safety is. A lot of leaders see it as, well, it's mental health. Well, no isn't, right? Better mental health is an outcome of psychological safety, but, you know, it's not in itself what it is. Everyone, I think, can understand psychological safety when you explain it to them, right, because we've all experienced it.

You say, well, it's about feeling safe in a team, to be yourself, to speak up, to share your ideas. Yeah. You know, everybody knows that because we've all experienced it in a negative way. And the connection between that and increased productivity makes a lot of sense because if you feel comfortable in your team, you got to be more engaged.

And engagement follows the level of psychological safety. If you are comfortable to speak up and point out something that's not wrong or not safe, physical safety is going to improve. You know, that's pretty obvious. And if everyone's working together better as a team, then productivity, innovation, profitability are bound to rise.

And there is data gathered over like 50, 60 years to show that this is the case in all kinds of teams, so virtually every industry, healthcare, hospitality, construction. Everywhere where you've got a team that feels safe to communicate and to raise concerns and ideas, it operates better.

So it's not that hard to build a business case for this. It's really a matter of..you know, it's making sure people understand what we're talking about here.

- Is it possible to measure psychological safety? I realize you can't sprinkle magic dust and make it happen. What are the things maybe you can or can't measure around psychological safety?

- Yeah. You can measure psychological safety. Absolutely. There are a number of surveys that have been extensively tested and validated. You know, some were in the public domain. Professor Amy Edmondson from Harvard has published a seven-question survey, which is reliable in measuring the level of psychological safety.

There are other proprietary measures that run up to 25 or more questions that look at different aspects of psychological safety. But what those surveys all have in common is they all ask about how people feel. And, you know, those are quite easy questions to answer, right? Do I feel that my team's got my back?

Do I feel that I can raise concerns to others in the team? All right. Pretty simple to say, I always feel that way, or I never feel that way, or something in between.

- So, I think, and I hope it's fairly well-understood, and you've talked about this today, the teams with diverse experiences come up with better ideas. The last time we met, we talked about the difference between diversity and inclusion, and you think that psychological safety is at the heart of this. Can you explain what's the difference between the two and how psychological safety connects them?

- Yeah. The way I describe it is diversity is a number, right? So, diversity is, you know, the percentage of disabled or different ethnic groups that you have in your organization. You can move that percentage up and down by your hiring practices.

So, it's relatively easy to, let's say, engineer diversity into your organization. But inclusion is really a feeling, right? Inclusion is the way you feel in that workplace, right? Am I included in the team?

Do I feel part of the team? Are my viewpoints listened to, right? That's inclusion. That's what makes a difference. You know, it's great to have a diverse team, but that's really only the beginning because those who are most diverse are those who are least likely to feel included, unless you're specifically addressing the issue of inclusion.

And that's what makes the difference to the team. There's no point having someone with a diverse viewpoint, with a different idea to the rest of the team if they don't feel safe to express that. Nobody knows about that idea unless they'll actually speak up about it. That's what you need.

You need inclusion, and that's far more difficult to create.

- I want to talk about another measure that you mentioned last time, another piece of social science, I guess. You brought up something called the power distance index. Can you explain what that measures, what that's about?

- Yeah. So, I think it's here Hofstede who came up with the power distance index, and it's one of a number of measures of differences between cultures. So, Hofstede looked at different countries, and the power distance index is really a measure of the extent to which differences in power in the hierarchy are expected and accepted.

So, in a high-power distance culture and in a high-power distance team or company, you expect the boss to have a vast difference in power and influence from what you do. And it's not just in the workplace, it's in society.

In a high-power distance society, you're more likely to show respect and deference to political leaders. In the family, you are far more likely to show respect and accept that older citizens will have more power and influence in the family, for example.

In many of those cultures, there's a special name or title given to an older brother or sister. Older people in the community are called in the equivalent of uncle or auntie. It's our culture, you and I, that doesn't seem to have this kind of terms, right? We're almost an exception in this to most of the rest of the world.

And the fact that an older person is called uncle or auntie, means that they come with a level of respect and a level of deference at is. And that, of course, has positives and negatives, right? It's great to be an older person that's respected in the community. You know, it's great to be able to give advice to the younger people.

That's, you know, one of the positives. But it means that it's far more difficult to effect change in those communities. There tend to be more stable, more rigid hierarchies. Power distance indicates that there's going to be probably more difficulty in getting people to speak up freely and share their ideas in the workplace. And I hear this from leaders in the Asia-Pacific saying, you know, "I need innovation, but my team will not bring me any ideas that they don't know I'm already going to agree with."

So, that's a problem with high-power distance. There's so much respect for the boss, you don't want to present an idea to the boss that might offend them or upset them. So, in those cultures, it's harder work to create psychologically safe team.

- Yeah, and I brought that up because I know you do work across Asia-Pacific, and so there are some big cultural differences between Australia and I imagine some of the other cultures you work with. At the same time, I'm in Canada, you're in Australia, in many countries in the world, including ours, there are...I mean, we're built on immigration and there are a number of immigrants, some of them several generations...have been here for generations, I guess you wouldn't say they're immigrants anymore, and always newer people who have been raised with maybe different power difference indexes.

And I bring that up because a workplace is going to be a mixture of that. How do you navigate that? I mean, there's no magic formula, but how would you suggest people navigate that if they're in a leadership position?

- Good question. And this is compounded, right? If you think, for example, the Asia-Pacific region and the number of teams there are there that are managed by people in different cultures, right? Think about how many call centers there are in the Philippines that service customers in the U.S. or Europe, you know.

And [inaudible] other country, Vietnam has lots of technical teams there that are managed by people in a totally different culture. Austria, for example, I think has the lowest power distance index in the world at 11. You know, somewhere like Indonesia has a power distance index of like 120. So, you can imagine the misunderstandings that could occur when your boss is in Austria and your team is in Indonesia.

What's going to happen here? So, the main thing is...that was a long answer to your question. The main thing is to be aware of it, right? To recognize, okay, here's difference. You know, here's a different culture. Their view of power and hierarchy is going to be different to mine. Let's just recognize that and appreciate it for a start, right?

We are not trying to change this culture, right? There are many good things about this culture that our own culture does not have. So, let's recognize and appreciate that, first of all. And, you know, that's where microvalidation might come in. You know, really appreciate the way that you speak to this person, which shows, you know, the way you do things in your culture is great, right?

But you also need to create that safe space where everyone can speak up. So, getting into the habit of asking people what they think, and if they're uncomfortable saying out loud, find some other way to communicate it, right? Either anonymously, by email, you know, someone's got a great idea, but they will not bring it up at the meeting because, you know, they don't feel safe to do so.

You tell me the idea and I'll bring it up and we'll see what happens, right? And if there's a good reaction, I'll say, the idea came from you. If there's a bad reaction, I'll just keep quiet about it, right? So, you know, little things like that where you can just start to open the flow of communication and show people that it is safe in this team environment to act a little bit differently maybe to the way you might do outside of the team.

So it's creating those conditions, again, for psychological safety to emerge in that team.

- Yeah. It's almost like a further dimension, right? Because I think most of us aren't aware of power dynamics until we are placed a situation where the power dynamics are different. We sort of think that our way is the default, which is just human until we are immersed somewhere else, and then we think, "Wait, what's going on here? Am I crazy?"

- Yes. Exactly. And the important thing is to recognize and value those differences. You know, I read something recently that talked about software that would remove the accents from call center workers so that people would no longer hear that they're talking to someone in India or the Philippines, right?

And I thought, that's not the way we want to go, right? We don't want to remove these differences. We want to understand and appreciate these differences and see what we can learn from them. So, in a psychologically safe team, you can do that.

- What is the stickiest misconception that people have to overcome when they start learning about how psychological safety improves their workplaces? So, when they're just sort of introduced to some of these concepts, is there something that you've noticed most people kind of have to overcome, or does it really just depend on the person?

- It does depend on the person, but, you know, a couple of misconceptions. One is that a psychologically safe workplace must be stress-free, right? And so, "Oh, now I have to create a stress-free workplace. How are we going to get anything done?"

Well, no, a psychologically safe workplace means you can live with stress, right? A certain amount of stress produces optimal results when we're working together, right? But continual and overloaded stress is terrible. You know, it's bad for us mentally, physically, it's bad for our work. You know, a team with low psychological safety can produce fantastic results for a limited time, and then people will, as we say, burn out, right?

There's an intensity there that happens, but it doesn't last. And what you want in your team is a sustainable level of high performance so that, you know, when naturally stress arises as it will do, you know, there's a particular customer demand that needs to be dealt with.

There's a change in supply or whatever. There's stress in that team, right? But in a psychologically safe team, we can support one another. We can talk about the stress we're experiencing. We can share that burden and we can get through that. And also, the idea that it means the workplace will have no conflict. People feel that that's an unnatural workplace, an unnatural team if there's no conflict, and it is because we have different personalities, different ideas, someone's going to raise an idea that someone else doesn't like, okay?

That's fine in a psychologically safe team, because you can talk that out. You can deal with it. People can explain how they feel and you learn something from someone saying, "I hate that idea." You know, well, why? Okay. There's a reason for this.

- And I think you can focus on the idea as well, instead of focusing on, you know, I don't like the idea is not the same as you are stupid. But in an unsafe environment, a psychologically unsafe environment, I think that it can be quickly become about people instead of just about the idea, whether the idea has merit.

- I mean, you mentioned the concept of status before, right? So, if you feel you are valued in the team, if that's your primary feeling of value that you feel I matter to this group, that if someone attacks your idea, that's probably not going to do a lot to change your sense or your feeling of value to that team, right? You realize, okay, maybe there is a problem with this idea, but, you know, I'm still a valuable part of this team.

You're not going to be affected by it so much as you would in a psychologically unsafe team.

- So, because you've had a long career, you've had the opportunity to witness how attitudes towards ideas like psychological safety have changed or haven't changed. So, do you think that there's been a surge in interest and understanding, or do you think that people have always been interested in this kind of workplace dynamic, but maybe it was called something else, or the focus was elsewhere?

- Well, I think on a personal level, we've always noticed this, right? We notice when we feel safe in a group, right? We notice when we feel we can be ourselves in that group. And it's a wonderful feeling, right? We love it coming to that team, right? And looking back at teams or workplaces that we really enjoyed, now we know about psychological safety, "Oh, that's why, you know, I actually felt psychologically safe safe in that team."

So, I think it's something people have always been conscious of, but it's kind of in the past, people have felt, well, we just need to suck it up. This is the way it is at work, you know? And particularly when leaders take a command and control attitude, like, I need to be in control of everything that happens in this team.

And I don't need to tell people what to do. And the change to that attitude from, you know, well, people know best how to do their work. I need to set some parameters and then let them get on with it. You know, that's the shifting mindset, I think. And some people find it harder to make that shift than others.

- Okay. So, I have a few questions that I like to ask every guest. The first one is at the University of Peter, for example, if you were to focus soft skill training or, you know, human interrelationship skills for tomorrow's safety professionals, and if you could only choose one skill, where would you put focus?

Where would you think that training and focus should be placed?

- I would focus on listening, really listening. And, you know, that's just one word, but, you know, Mary, there's a lot to that, right? Listening is about listening for what's not being said, it's about, you know, helping people to express what you think is on their mind. You know, you can tell there's something more than what they're actually saying.

So, if you're really listening, you pick that up. And the skills to be able to make people safe enough to draw that out and to really express the viewpoint that they have. So, listening skills, I think, is what we call a very soft skill, but often quite hard to learn and to put into practice.

- If you could go back in time to the beginning of your career, what is one piece of advice that you might give to yourself, to your younger self? And that's the hardest question.

- It sure is, isn't it? Yeah. I think to focus more on relationships than tasks is probably the advice that I would give. And that's probably life advice rather than just work advice.

- Oh, yeah. Yeah, that touches everything really.

- Yeah. But yeah, I think that's probably of the top of my head, and thanks for giving me an unexpected question, Mary, to make me think. That's really good.

- So, how could our listeners learn more about some of the things that we've talked about today? You did mention a few names and a few studies, but do you have a favorite book or maybe a website or any kind of resource that people can dig a little deeper?

- Professor Amy Edmondson at Harvard has written some books on psychological safety. And although she's not the first to research it, she's definitely one of the pioneers and one who's looked at it most rigorously. So, anything that Amy Edmondson has written or spoken about is worth listening to .

You know, there are lots of other experts in the psychological safety field, you know, far more than I do, and who are far better at articulating what it is. So, just do a search for psychological safety, and you'll find some of these experts come up. But Timothy Clark is one that comes to mind.

He's great in the way that he focuses on organizations and teams. So, his work is also particularly good. He has his own survey and framework for psychological safety too.

- And where can our listeners find you on the web if they wanted to reach out?

- I think the best place to start would be LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, and so my LinkedIn handle, Peter Brace HCR, which is the company that I founded, is the best place to find me, to reach out to me on there.

Rather than getting complicated with email addresses or websites, just find me on LinkedIn. Be social. Yes.

- Well, that's our show today. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe, share, and leave a review or a comment if you're on YouTube. And thanks, Peter, for sharing your time today.

- Thank you so much, Mary. Lovely to talk.

- My thanks to the "Safety Labs by Slice" team, which is diverse, inclusive, and a great group of people to work with. Bye for now.