PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY IN TEAMS
On the 25 June the IET Anglian Coastal Network hosted a presentation ‘Psychological Safety Within Teams’ presented by Rod Willis. As a person who is a Human Factors Facilitator and also gets involved with change management, I thought this presentation was both very interesting and thought provoking. Why had I not heard about Psychological Safety before? After listening to the presentation and researching psychological safety, I believe that human factors and change management are tenuously linked with Psychological Safety: working with people, the just culture, change management - Kotters 8 steps and psychological safety.
Human Factors focus on optimising human performance through better understanding the behaviour of individuals, their interactions with each other and with their environment.
Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes." Amy Edmondson.
Under “Just Culture” conditions, individuals are not blamed for ‘honest errors’, but are held accountable for wilful violations and gross negligence
Kotter’s 8-Steps for process for change. Lottery suggests that for change to be successful, 75 percent of a company's management needs to "buy into" the change. In other words, you have to work really hard on Step 1, and spend significant time and energy building urgency, before moving onto the next steps. Don't panic and jump in too fast because you don't want to risk further short-term losses – if you act without proper preparation, you could be in for a very bumpy ride.
What is all this about? Working with people, getting the best our of them, listening and more importantly creating trust. There are so many theories on management and team performance. However, one should not just focus on one strand, we need to cherry pick and understand what works best for our team and vision.
I had also enjoyed reading Prof Steve Peters - ‘Chimp Paradox’. The “chimp” system – so called because we share it with our hominid cousins. This part of our brain is in play when we act impulsively, without regard for the consequences. Our inner chimp is emotional, greedy and lazy and with us from birth. A very interesting read and I have included two links:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1NJby3Lm80zxMpw5k53xJct/how-to-manage-your-inner-chimp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-KI1D5NPJs
Please enjoy the you tube clip.
Rod, thank you for your presentation and waking my inner chimp.
