By Laura Royal
In our last issue we celebrated and highlighted the International Coaching Week event of May 2022 which was globally themed around, ‘Reimagining the Future,’ and looked at the power and impact that professional coaching can achieve along with broadening our depth and breadth of knowledge.
Coaching professionally is not seen solely as a way to grow but also as a way to place value on your journey towards where you want to be and the exploration of gained benefits to you as an individual but also that of your business too when the focus is directed towards being people led.
This month in June’s issue we aptly look towards Psychological Safety and how to THRIVE with a Team Mindset™ Model where workplace wellbeing and human centred leadership takes centre stage.
As you’ll already know if you’ve been following us for a while now that at DNA Coach we are people obsessed and know that successful businesses with people at the heart of their cultural vision and organisation — are the best too.
As licensees and certified trainers based upon the four staged framework of Dr Timothy R. Clark’s research and work, The Leader Factor Four Stages of Psychological Safety ethos aims to guide leaders to transform their teams and organisation into a sanctuary of inclusion and innovation where individuals feel included, safe to learn and contribute and feel safe to challenge the status quo.
Psychological Safety can be tracked right back to the work of Abraham Maslow and needs of belonginess right through to it being coined officially in 1965 with the work of Warren Bennis and Edgar Schein. Fast forward to 2020 with the latest breakthrough by Timothy R. Clark where he identified Psychological Safety as a natural process known as The 4-Stages Framework which encompasses:
Inclusion Safety.
Contributor Safety.
Learner Safety.
Challenger Safety.
The Psychological Safety concept history is the ability to interact without fear of the consequences being negative. That’s why we want to bring this topic to the forefront and to share how you can create and implement this within your teams — to drive a thriving workplace with wellbeing at the heart of what’s important and to place human centred leadership into pole position to push your business and organisations culture and environment forward to grow a team mindset that thrives on collaborative values along with powerful and positive change.
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Orchestrate Great Wellbeing in Your Workplace by
Being A Cultural Architect
It’s not just team spirit that’s needed, it’s also in being energised, motivated and innovative within a team and your workplace. It’s in carving out a place that people want to be a part of and a place where people are enthused to come into and where they feel they can thrive professionally whilst also enjoying the company of their co-workers too.
Being a cultural architect is in creating a Psychological Safety Net and continuing to support your own wellbeing but that of those around you too.
Engaging colleagues in a psychologically safe way is in enabling teams:
To feel they can comfortably speak up and challenge the status quo.
To empower others to feel they can ask questions and that their contributions are valid.
And feeling safe to admit to mistakes knowing that they can learn and grow from them.
Feeling accepted and valued as a team member is in creating the freedom
for your teams to express their thoughts and ideas in a safe space knowing that they’ll be treated with respect and can contribute without the risk of being punished.
Promoting the right climate for Psychological Safety and wellbeing looks at understanding what The 4 Stages Framework is and how by asking the right questions of ourselves and others we can start to work towards them:
Stage One
Creating Inclusion Safety
Acceptance into the team happens when we invite others to genuinely be a part of that team by embracing and satisfying a basic human need to feel connection and to have a sense that you belong.
When we allow for this, we are creating a shared identity for members to become a part of and also encouraging each member to be wholly and fearless in being who they are and to confidently be able to share every unique attribute and character that defines us as individuals.
This stage acts as an informal admittance by the social collective. Two useful questions you can ask yourself here would be:
What is the one thing that prevents you from feeling included within your team?
How do you make others feel included?
Stage Two
Valuing Learner Safety
This stage looks to satisfy our human need to learn and grow and feeling safe to engage within the learning process. Part of this is asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting and even making mistakes within a safe environment knowing that you can learn from them without fear or judgement or punishment.
Ask yourself:
What is the one thing that prevents you from feeling safe to learn on your team?
How do you make others feel safe and motivated to learn?
Stage Three
Contributor Safety
This stage fulfils our need to make a difference by using your skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution.
Ask yourself:
What is the one thing that prevents you from feeling safe to contribute within your team?
How do you make others feel safe enough to contribute and make a difference?
Stage Two
Valuing Learner Safety
This is where Psychological Safety needs to be at its deepest level of safety for teams and individuals because here you’re leaving behind the comfort zone and putting your ideas and creativity out there within your team and workspace.
This should be empowering and is the stage that challenges you to question the status quo and be fearless in putting your thoughts forward.
Ask yourself:
What is the one thing that prevents you from feeling safe to challenge the status quo of your team?
How do you make others feel safe enough to challenge the status quo, innovate and make things better?
The Danger When There is No Psychological Safety
Where there is no Psychological Safety within organisations and teams the result can be devasting and has the capacity to destroy businesses because the damage can cause individual wellbeing and self-worth to plummet along with the depth of impact to emotional wounds which have been opened — all of which can negatively impact performance.
The highest performing teams all have Psychological Safety in common: a belief that risk taking around your team offers a safety net without the threat of being seen as disruptive or incompetent and by having the confidence that no one will look to embarrass or punish anyone else for making a mistake or for offering up innovative suggestions.
Psychological Safety is where you can take moderate risks, speak your mind and where creativity is actively encouraged.
What will you do to raise the level of Psychological Safety and wellbeing within your organisation?
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Reimagine Your Workplace and
Thrive with Human Centred Leadership
At DNA Coach we know that Psychological Safety plays a vital role in our wellbeing which is why we emphasize its importance within workplace environments to allow a safe space for change and uncertainty, where everyone is included and where a cohesive team culture is adopted and where team spirit is embraced but also where our innate need to learn, grow and thrive is met.
When human centred leadership is fully woven into the fabric of your culture you build thriving business teams and you create the opportunity for them to prosper and flourish. At DNA Coach we use the word THRIVE to guide our Psychological Safety practices and have crafted it as a mnemonic to draw the links of importance of how they weave together within our THRIVE with a Team Mindset™ Model:
TRUST & TEAM
There is a clear correlation between trust and Psychological Safety. Trust within your team members, colleagues and leaders contributes to having a Psychologically Safe culture and environment that binds teams together to join forces and work towards common goals.
HAPPY & HUMAN
To cultivate Psychological Safety, you want to think about how happy those people are when they show up to work and the human experience that you offer them.
Each team member needs to feel that they can show up as their true self and as a leader you’ll want to think about what your team members want and how you can best support them.
RESPECT & RECOGNISE
Mutual respect should always be encouraged even when we disagree and the truth can be spoken and heard within a safe, secure and happy space that also sees recognition of team members efforts appreciated.
When we develop and maintain respect and recognition we strengthen the trust across our teams and boost higher levels of morale, motivation and engagement.
Knowing your team members well and having better social and relationship awareness ensures you can specifically tailor your approach based on how each team member wants to be recognised.
INVITE & INCLUDE
The invitation of participation and inclusion can only truly occur when we extend this every single day to every single team member by offering collaboration within discussions and by communicating in a way that encourages participation and the value that each participant brings.
This feeds into our need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance which is a fundamental principle of Psychological Safety where no one is left behind.
VALUE & VOICE
As a leader within your business you know the importance of understanding your people and the value they offer and the value you show for their efforts and contribution. It’s within listening to each team member so that they see they’re valued.
Opportunity for growth here can link how free team members are to offer ideas and suggestions and how safe team members feel to respectfully challenge how things are typically done which welcomes creativity and innovation.
ENAGAGE & EMPOWER
The engagement within your team and individuals should be at the core of what you do. By working amongst your teams, you engage with not just the individuals but their hearts and minds too and allow for a safe collaborative approach to feedback that can be a great cultural driver of engagement and behaviour leading to positive business results.
Your conversations should engage and empower your people to make changes that move them forward towards their potential and to take interpersonal risks with the support of the team, its members and its leaders.
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CMI Recognised psychological safety practitioner course
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