Psychological Unsafety from the trenches E-Book

Ove Holmberg

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 171

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Ten years ago Psychological Safety (PS) was nothing I had heard of. Since then Googles Aristotle project and professor Amy Edmundson have put PS on the map and today everyone talks about it - but few walk the talk. I am working as an Agile coach and as such I struggle a lot to make PS a natural part of the everyday work and not only a great word to use. I have implemented PS in several organizations and the success factor is to make HR take the ownership, and for them to make sure that leadership not only understands and desires it, but also implements it. This book's objective is to tell the true stories of PS in companies operating in Sweden, a country with the best culture to grow PS in - to inspire you to walk the talk.

Leseprobe

Content

Chapter 1 - Intro

The Author

Why?

The book in a nutshell (Spoiler alert)

My Inspiration

Chapter 2 - The Theories Behind

The Definition of Psychological UNsafety

Team

The history of Psychological Safety

Doubt

Cargo Cult Psychological Safety

Human Resources (HR)

Culture

Discussions

Language

The Unions

The Zebra

Mistakes

Speak up

Whistleblowing

Trust and Safety

Innovation

Measuring Psychological Safety

Comfortable in My Role

Surveys

Frameworks and Psychological Safety

Mental illness

Imposter Syndrome

Socrates

ELI5

Agile

Agile Coaches

Management by Fear

Leadership

Impression Management

Feedback

Functional Stupidity

My top 3 challenges for PS

Chapter 3 - Case Studies from the Trenches

Case 1: The Sect

Case 2: Toxic Company No. 1

Case 3: The Psychological Safety Cargo Cult Company

Case 4: Psychological Safety - A Vision and A Myth?

Case 5: Captain Coward

Case 6: The Men Who Saved the World

Case 7: The Company That Drove 35 Persons to Suicide

Case 8: The Silent Team

Case 9: Your Story

Chapter 4: Outro

Conclusion

Credits

Chapter 5: Exercises

Presentations

Measuring Psychological Safety 1

Play an Online Game

Fun Check In

Psychological safety check in

Discussion about Psychological Safety

Culture Comparison

Speaking Up and Challenge

Questions For the Cases

Measuring Psychological Safety 2

1-2-4-all

Walk The Talk

Psychological Safety RACI

More About the Author

The Doubter

"The path of the real team is beset on all sides by the

inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of ignorant

HR people, evil managers and certified Cargo Cult

coaches.

Blessed is he who, in the name of Psychological Safety

and good will, speaks up for the silent through the

retrospectives of the darkness, for he is truly his

teammates’ keeper and the finder of lost innovation.

And I will strike down upon thee with great

vengeance and furious doubt those who attempt to

delay, master, or micromanage my team.

And you will know my name is the Doubter when I

lay my vengeance upon thee.”

/A passage from the bible - Ezekiel 25:17 according to

Jules Winfield (Character in Pulp Fiction) modified

by Ove Holmberg

CHAPTER 1 - INTRO

In this first chapter I want to create an understanding of who I am and where I am coming from, but also set the stage and expectations of the book. Welcome!

The Author

My name is Ove Holmberg and I work as an Agile coach in my company Tvivla Consulting AB as a mothership. Working with IT since 1980, development since 1990, project management since 2000 and Agile since 2002 and can without doubt say that I am the most experienced agile coach in Sweden. From old international companies to start-ups. From sports to engineering. From the private to the public sector. Approximately 70 companies and organisations have created a great source for this book, which has an ambition to explain how Psychological Safety works - or should we say not works. I call that Psychological UNsafety.

My flutter

Being in the industry for 35 years leaves its marks. Working in +70 organisations can seem fluttery, but through this flutter I have built up a great deal of experience and a solid network. I have worked as a tester, CIO, project manager, system developer, technical project manager, Agile expert, investigator, buyer, coach etc. My experience comes from all the roles I have played and the challenges and needs of the various organisations. From mainframe operations to PCs and system development, to a life as consultant on software development, and later Agile coaching. I was among the first in Sweden in this ball game when Agile was launched in 2001. More about me and my coaching philosophy in the end of the book as an appendix.

Why?

Always start with why1, so people understand your goals and hopefully can align with them and see the big picture first, is what I have learned from Simon Sinek, the author behind great books about motivation. I think that a book about real Psychological Safety, and not just the theory parts, is missing. When I reach out to companies and their Unions to talk about Psychological Safety, no one owns the question, and no one walks the talk. This book, I hope, will be the Christmas present 2022 for all HR managers to start their ownership of Psychological Safety - and become the inspiration for the whole company. If you as a reader know an HR manager that could be the spark in your company, reach out to me and I will send her/him the book for free along with your motivation for it, as a gift from us both. I can also support you on site with coaching, inspirational talks and book circles with this and/or other Psychological Safety books as a base. This book's objective is to tell the true stories of Psychological Safety in companies operating in Sweden, a country with a natural culture to grow Psychological Safety - to inspire you to walk the talk.

I hope you will find this book inspirational, annoying and/or awkward so it can trigger you to join the movement to stop talking about Psychological Safety and start doing it, to show the way with brave people like us as the ambassadors. Are you ready or just another talker...?

The book in a nutshell (Spoiler alert)

Ten years ago, Psychological Safety was nothing I had heard of. Since then, the Google Aristotle project and Professor Amy Edmondson have put Psychological Safety on the map. And today everyone talks about it - but few walk the talk. In the next chapter I will explain the theory and history behind Psychological Safety and in the third chapter I will tell you about the stories from the trenches.

This book is an experience report where I tell my true stories. I will tell how Psychological Safety is being used as an alibi and try to explain how concepts like Functional Stupidity and Management by Fear trump Psychological Safety. But also, how Psychological Safety can work as a foundation for a great work culture. I will tell you about the company who paid me a lot to keep me quiet. I will tell you about the sect where outsiders were not welcome and where the Agile transformation did not want Psychological Safety. And I will tell you about the company that actually tried, but not really. I will also challenge the role of the Union, which has safety as accountability - without knowing what Psychological Safety is...! And on top of that, I will kill my darling Nicklas Lidström (the best Swedish hockey player ever?) as an example of Culture of Fear, and also accuse him of being a coward. Here are true examples:

At the big retail company where I worked as an Agile coach, we had not prioritized Psychological Safety in the transformation, but after a guerrilla warfare, I got it up from the backlog's basement. I started by creating a channel in MS Teams to get the discussion started, and soon the managers hooked on with a dedicated workshop, as well as sprint themes and nice PowerPoints. In a workshop I had a flash talk about signs of "unsafety" and my own failures to set the new standard for openness. Maybe I was a little bit too sincere, and the managers probably wondered who I was, failing in everything. In the end, at least I got to coach HR in Psychological Safety, which I believe gave the right people the right tools.

At the big gaming company, we had a manager who wanted to be agile. I coached him in this, but he insisted on sitting in his glass cage all day. The words he said at the monthly meetings received applause, but at the copier, people came up to me and told me their worries about their own future. I call this the Xerox syndrome - when you do not dare to talk to your boss but instead turn to the "union". This gaming company has been nominated to the "Great place to work" award but is still a place where you do not question the managers and only spill your beans verbally at the copier. Undoubtedly the most toxic company I have ever worked for.

At the large technology company, we started all meetings with a "safety check-in". The same PowerPoint was first shown before the meeting began and questions were asked such as "Kalle, where is the emergency exit?" "Lisa, what is the emergency number?" No cheating with safety here! After praising the company for its high safety, I also brought up questions such as "Pelle, can you say what you really think here in this meeting?" Speak up!

At the insurance company, questionnaires were sent out with various measurements of staff well-being. The problem was that Psychological Safety was so low that no one answered, as it was a mandatory name field. And those who answered had only praise. When they changed to voluntary participation (with the ‘recommended’ name field), there were more answers - more honest. And over time, more and more people filled in the name field. Another problem with the questionnaires is that they are not transparent. Survey data is seldom presented, which means that people don't see how the data is converted into actions and therefore gives a feeling of “just another survey”.

Mats Alvesson is a professor at Lund University, Sweden. He has invented the concept of Functional Stupidity, meaning that you think short-term, inside the box, nod in agreement, go with the flow and agree rather than stick your nose out and question. In his books and on YouTube he questions his own employer, but with the Psychological Safety he possesses, he can do that with impunity. Is he the exception to the rule that we shut up - and what can we learn from him?

Leadership, the Union and HR are the bad ones I believe, nurturing the Psychological UNsafety with their passivity and ignorance. Sometimes they are talking about Psychological Safety in beautiful words but are only making a buzzword for their organisations in order to create an image of modern employers. The organisations I have been working for use Psychological Safety as a cargo cult word, but I do not see many walking the talk. Still Psychological Safety is getting more and more attention generally and is a prerequisite for an Agile organisation. That fact, and all the above, is the inspiration for this book. Welcome to Psychological UNsafety from the trenches!

Disclaimer

This book is a summary of highs and lows from my assignments as Agile coach in various organisations. I am well aware that this book just shows one side of the coin, and the other side is left out of scope. People and organisations I mention have probably a different view on much in my book, and one day I hope we can discuss it. It has no ambition to be scientific so much doubt is needed when reading it.

My Inspiration

I am not a well-educated man. I cheated in school in favour of becoming a football professional. I barely got grades from high school but managed to get a job as an errand boy, thanks to my brother putting a word in for me at Folksam, the big Swedish insurance company. Later, when returning from a long army service I slipped into ADB, the title in Sweden for IT during the -80’s. Today, 40 years later my experience covers for the loss of education, but I am catching up slowly on the theory by reading fresh management stuff. I think I need more facts and history to ground my doubt upon, not just my gut feeling. The management books I read rarely have a story that calls for reading from chapter to chapter. So, I have developed a technique to read a book in a day, or in the few available time slots during a week, focusing on the most important things. In a book I often look for the real cases described which I find most useful. My memory is really bad, so I take notes in a mind-map app and add page corner folding so I can revisit these pages later for closer studies. Here is an example of a mind map from the book “The 4 stages of Psychological Safety”:

My mindmap from the book “The 4 stages of Psychological Safety”

But there is something missing in all these books, the live examples from others than the managers and professors inside Silicon Valley! The books in this category are written by people with little experience from the real action, just quoting others. Born and raised in Sweden as I am, living my (not American) dream with a strong emphasis on democracy, favouring leisure time on behalf of work time, calls for other ways of working than the Big Five2 companies promote. This should be kept in mind when you read the books I mention below. With this book though, you will get the live insights from the trenches in Sweden, Spain, Germany, UK, India and Russia - and not from research - as a complement to all existing theories and stories. I first doubted (of course!), but now I believe that this dimension (from the trenches) is missing and needs to be highlighted. And I have the guts to do it and don't back down in favour of a safe. I am deeply inspired by the mentioned professors/managers/authors, so I will start with a short review of each book I have read on the topic of Psychological Safety. My book is inspired from those books, but with a twist from me as the actual theories have been tried and have hit reality. I recommend them all:

My inspiration on the topic of Psychological Safety with cream on top.

Radical Candor (Scott)

Kim Scott comes with management experience from Google, Apple etc and her book is about how leadership can grow a speak-up-culture with feedback as a tool. This 400-page book is printed in very small text and impossible to read without two hands and a pair of sharp eyes, so I recommend the audio book alternative.

It comes with great stories from the author’s work life. One takeaway for me and from her storytelling, which I also can relate to, is how she got feedback saying “ehhh” too often when she spoke. For some, this behaviour can be seen as incompetence, so now I really try to minimize my “ehhh”. The book is based upon her framework to challenge directly and care personally. Challenge directly is having the guts to deliver clear feedback right away to the person who can effectuate the actual improvement or enforcement. By caring personally, she means that you really need to care, not just deliver feedback for the sake of the process.

Scotts quadrant

A great story is told about Kim’s new puppy, who didn’t listen to commands. A man passed by on the street and yelled “SIT” looking the puppy straight in the eyes. And he sat on command for the first time. The man then told Kim that she needed to be clearer in her commands, otherwise the dog could jump into the street and get run over by a car. He cared about the dog and knew how to be clear and not ambiguous, so the feedback generated a better dog trainer. The book also describes the Get Stuff Done Wheel, which is about how your team can enable all brains, not just the experts’. It starts with listening, which experts often do not do, and then via debate, studying etc creates an output we can learn from. Very much like PDCA3 on steroids.

This book by Kim Scott is for managers who struggle with feedback. It is not on my Top-10 list as the format of the book is poor, but the message is great. I bring these two models with me as a reminder to myself not to say “ehhh”.

Powerful (McCord)

Patty McCord is a former Netflix HR manager. During her watch, the company grew dramatically, which called for a need to hire the best people, to trust them, pay well and fire them if they didn't deliver on expectations. This 200-page book is how Netflix introduced new ways of working and a culture with motivation as the driver, making up with traditional performance reviews and traditional HR work. Radical honesty is a new concept she talks about, and it is very much like Radical candour. My takeaways are quotes from the book: “When people feel they have more power, more control over their careers, they feel more confidence - confidence to speak up more, take more risks, to pick themselves up again when they make mistakes, and to take on more and more responsibility. Keep reminding yourself that people have power. It is not your job (as a manager) to give it to them. Appreciate their power, unleash it from hidebound policies, approvals, and procedures, and trust me, they will be powerful”.

I think this book is suitable for HR people, stuck with reactive and traditional HR processes, for extreme inspiration. It is a milestone in HR literature, but I doubt most HR will have the time and the Psychological Safety to try examples from this book.

The Stupidity Paradox (Alvesson/Spicer)

My favourite professor is Mats Alvesson. No one talks about Psychological Safety (without actually mentioning it) with such irony and dry humour as he does. But as a professor he doesn't have first-hand information except for when he is criticizing his own employer, Lund’s University. His contribution to Psychological Safety history is the phenomenon of Functional Stupidity which makes us just go to work rather than innovating and doubting, also called ‘thinking and working inside the box’. “Functional Stupidity is inability and/or unwillingness to use cognitive and reflective abilities in anything other than narrow and circumspect ways. It involves a lack of reflexivity, a disinclination to require or provide justification, and avoidance of substantive reasoning.”

Alvesson/Spicer identify five root causes of Functional Stupidity:

The common belief is that our leadership has an impact and is needed to execute. Ex: Don't think anything unless your manager tells you so.

How we focus more on processes and compliance and put trust in our structures rather than caring for the real outcome. Ex: Following the checklist without doubt.

Imitation of other successful organisations instead of creating our own way. Ex: Go all in on a commercial framework instead of doing it your way.

Branding is how you disguise reality in favour of something that sounds better but is hard to verify. Ex: Meaningless jobs have meaningful titles like “impression manager” instead of “hotel receptionist”.

A too strong focus on culture can blind us from being pragmatic and reactive. Ex: If a core value for the company is

Trust

, you do not doubt those who could be (wrongly?) regarded as an obstacle to trust.

This is a book on my Top-10 list. My takeaway is to always doubt and speak up. Sometimes you should wait a few seconds before announcing your idea. Sometimes I wait a day or two. But very seldom I call my idea right out, enabling only my reptile brain. But I never shut up, Alvesson has inspired me.

Work rules (Bock)

Lazlo Bock is a top HR manager at Google and is telling his story. This 400-page book has great illustrations, although it's impossible to read the explanatory text fields, and the compact format makes it somewhat impractical to read. Having read “Powerful” previously it brings few new insights to the table unless you are an Agile HR manager, and those are very few. The book is divided into chapters where each chapter is a stage in the HR process with hiring and firing and growing people in between.

My takeaway was the chapter about how to create a learning organisation and the quote that “Your best teachers already work for you…Let them teach!”. In summary it verifies my hypothesis on how to do this and I have set up “internal academies” with the approach of me training the new trainers. This chapter also has a sub section called “Only invest in courses that change behaviour”. Amen. Too often we just send people to courses without any connection to learning paths or company strategy.

The 4 stages of Psychological Safety (Clark)

Timothy R. Clarke, CEO for a leadership training organisation, has written this 100-page book. It is easy to read with rich illustrations and a crisp message to leadership to boost innovation by applying a sense of inclusion, learning safety, contribution safety and ability to challenge the status quo. These are the four stages he elaborates on as a theory of human interaction.

Clarks 4 stages of Psychological safety

The four stages are not to be seen as a maturity ladder where you need to be done with one stage before starting on the next. I do think this illustration is excellent for us to understand that we need all this in place (with a definition of done) before we can expect innovation. Here a short definition of each stage:

Inclusion Safety