0:00:09.0 Junior: Psychological safety is not a shield from accountability. Niceness, coddling, consensus decision making, unearned autonomy, political correctness, or rhetorical reassurance.

0:00:23.0 Timothy Clark: That's a list.

0:00:23.1 Junior: Wow. Welcome back everyone to the Leader Factor. I'm Junior back with my co-host, Dr. Tim Clark. And today we're gonna be talking about something that's not talked about often in the area of Psychological Safety, which is what psychological safety is not, it's not all those things I just mentioned. And we're gonna go into each of those today. What do you think about this topic?

0:00:43.2 Timothy Clark: Junior, People get lost in these misconceptions and then they don't go anywhere. And in fact, some leaders don't even want to approach psychological safety in the first place as a concept. It scares them. What does it mean? It's soft rather than muscular. Can it really help? And so there's just misinterpretation and misapplication all around the concept.

0:01:13.3 Junior: Some of that misinterpretation is even intentional. They know that it's not exactly spineless and soft, but they'll say, "Well, we're gonna discount it because why? Because I don't want to be accountable for it."

0:01:24.4 Timothy Clark: That's true.

0:01:25.9 Junior: So we're gonna get into each of those. Take them on one by one. Psychological Safety has entered the lexicon. If you look at the Google search history.

0:01:35.7 Timothy Clark: Yes I have.

0:01:35.9 Junior: And if you look at the usage for psychological safety, it's hockey sticking.

0:01:40.4 Timothy Clark: It is. It's incredible.

0:01:40.5 Junior: And we said that it was hockey sticking three years ago. And it's just continued.

0:01:45.5 Timothy Clark: Yeah.

0:01:45.9 Junior: So what was that incline in the hockey stick has only steepened and it's gone up and up and up. If we look at page views across our psychological safety content, if we look at not just downloads for our stuff, but collectively the research and all of the things that are going on in the area of psychological safety, it's all up.

0:02:05.6 Timothy Clark: Yeah. It's exponential.

0:02:07.7 Junior: It is. So what is psychological safety? It's a culture of rewarded vulnerability. That's where we start. We'll get into what it isn't, but we'll start with what it is. A culture of rewarded vulnerability. Unpack that for us.

0:02:19.8 Timothy Clark: Junior, that means that central mechanism here is, well, first of all, what are we talking about? We're talking about humans interacting. The way they interact will increase or decrease psychological safety. And of course, this is not a binary proposition. Psychological safety is a matter of degree, but it comes back to the way that they're interacting. So if they are modeling and rewarding each other's vulnerability, that psychological safety will climb. It will go to higher and higher levels. On the other hand, if they punish each other's vulnerability, it will rupture, it will deteriorate. And the organization will fall back into a state of fear, anxiety, non-performance toxicity. That's what happens.

0:03:13.9 Junior: Yeah. So let's go into the very first one, a shield from accountability. Some people think that psychological safety shields them from the realities of the world that they need to perform. It buffers any accountability they have to a standard or a metric that we are no longer beholden to any performance metrics because it's psychologically safe here.

0:03:43.0 Timothy Clark: Yes, this true. What a stretch.

0:03:45.2 Junior: What is this?

0:03:46.5 Timothy Clark: But yet we find this right. So I you, so if we're doing psychological safety, then I have suddenly given this diplomatic immunity, and I don't need to be as accountable. This is such a distorted interpretation. But it happens. In fact, this may be the number one misinterpretation or misconception of psychological safety.

0:04:14.1 Junior: We see this happen often in organizations as a way to get psychological safety out the door from a management team. They'll say, "Well we want to hold people accountable. And if we adopt this, it means that no one's responsible for anything. It's not true."

0:04:28.9 Timothy Clark: Right.

0:04:30.9 Junior: Next we get into niceness. Psychological safety is not niceness. What do you mean when we say niceness.

0:04:38.2 Timothy Clark: By niceness? I would say, lemme put it this way. It's, artificial collegiality. So we are making nice with each other. We can, but yet we cannot really address issues on their merits. We can't dive in and have hard hitting robust discussion and dialogue because we're playing nice. So we're gonna paint a thin layer of nice, over a thick layer of fear. We see this in organizations where they misinterpret psychological safety and they think, "Oh, okay, we're gonna be nice now."

0:05:19.3 Junior: Well, I've entered organizations before that are characteristically nice. And while it may seem like a nice thing at the beginning, it's pernicious and nothing gets done.

0:05:31.4 Timothy Clark: Nothing gets done.

0:05:33.5 Junior: That's probably the distinguishing characteristic of an organization that is nice, is nothing happens. And institutions look at psychological safety. They think it's niceness and they say, "We don't want that. 'cause we still have to get things done around here."

0:05:49.6 Timothy Clark: Well, no wonder.

0:05:49.7 Junior: So psychological safety is not niceness.

0:05:52.8 Timothy Clark: No, it's not.

0:05:53.5 Junior: Let's go to the next one. Coddling. Psychological safety is not coddling. Some people think that psychological safety is, as you have said, rolling people in bubble wrap. But that's not it.

0:06:06.8 Timothy Clark: No, that's not it. Actually, psychological safety is the enabling condition that allows us to have the hard hitting, honest, tough conversations and to hold people accountable with respect. That's what it allows us to do. So to say that to misinterpret it as coddling is a pretty serious error. Coddling means to indulge, to overprotect, to shield from consequences. We're not doing that. Psychological safety has nothing to do with that.

0:06:44.9 Junior: Well, we're acknowledging you as a human, we're acknowledging your humanity and your worth. But we are not increasing your fragility.

0:06:55.7 Timothy Clark: No.

0:06:57.0 Junior: So we are staying very much away from the bubble wrap idea.

0:07:00.3 Timothy Clark: Yeah.

0:07:01.4 Junior: If you look at, what's that article that has a thumbnail of the kid in bubble wrap that you wrote? I can't, is that The Hazards of a nice Company Culture? I can't remember. Whatever it is. We will throw it in the show notes.

0:07:14.3 Timothy Clark: Yeah, yeah.

0:07:14.8 Junior: But that article, that's exactly what we're talking about. Psychological safety next, not consensus decision making. Tell me about that one.

0:07:23.0 Timothy Clark: This one is very interesting. Where people, they interpret psychological safety as a change in the decision making model. So for example, most business decisions are made using a consultative model where we give input and feedback and we do analysis and we give a point of view. But someone has the decision making authority. So whoever that person is, or maybe it's a group of people that have the D the decision making authority, they're going to make the call. Somehow, psychological safety is sometimes twisted and distorted to mean that we are moving to a consensus decision making model in which everyone has a vote. And until we all agree, we don't go forward.

0:08:14.0 Junior: Not true.

0:08:14.1 Timothy Clark: It's astounding that we get to that point that this misconception exists. But it does.

0:08:21.2 Junior: It does. And it's something that we have to root out as leaders. It's something that I have tried to get better at over time. I think I've made headway. I have a long way to go. But clarifying participation rights versus decision making rights. If you conflate those two things, you can end up in a really precarious situation.

0:08:40.7 Timothy Clark: That's right.

0:08:42.0 Junior: If you're not explicit about it, you need to solicit people's feedback. They need to be able to participate and yet understand that they may not have the final say, consensus decision making. If you adopt psychological safety as an initiative in your organization, this is one of those that's incredibly important to communicate to people. We don't mean that all of a sudden it is by unanimous vote only. That's not what we're saying. Next one, Unearned Autonomy. Sometimes people present Psychological Safety as just self-directed empowerment. You have total control over everything that you do. How you do it, when you do it.

0:09:25.3 Timothy Clark: Could do what you want.

0:09:26.4 Junior: You have a leash that is as long as the world is. No, not true. Tell us about this one.

0:09:33.5 Timothy Clark: This one. This is another good one. Unearned autonomy again. So you've suddenly been anointed with autonomy that you didn't have. Let's back up. Autonomy is never free in organizations. Junior, we give autonomy. We don't give out autonomy. We exchange autonomy. We exchange autonomy for accountability, which means that you're performing and you're delivering the results. And so if you're doing that, we will give you an appropriate level of autonomy. And hopefully over time that will increase. But we're never going to give people distribute, pass out handout autonomy for free. But yet, sometimes again, this gets misinterpreted. It's not, we're not going to do this. You have to. There's no pre-authorization for you to go do what you want.

0:10:35.6 Junior: Yeah. Well, we pulled in the slide for the social exchange for contributor safety. This is what you're talking about, autonomy with guidance in exchange for performance and results. So we as an organization will give you autonomy with guidance in exchange for results.

0:10:54.7 Timothy Clark: Yeah.

0:10:54.8 Junior: You want autonomy deliver results. You give results, we give you autonomy. So in an organization, if you're presenting the idea of psychological safety, this is an important one to key in on.

0:11:05.9 Timothy Clark: It is.

0:11:06.9 Junior: I would say arguably that most leaders who take issue with psychological safety will first point to this. Wow. We don't want it to just be a free for all. Now you can just do whatever you want because we say it's psychologically safe. No, no, no. There's a tremendous level of accountability. And as you said just a couple minutes ago, there may be even more room for accountability because we've already checked the boxes of respect. We've moved through the stages. People feel included. They feel that they can learn, and now they're prepared to go and contribute with autonomy proportionate to the results that they've delivered.

0:11:42.9 Timothy Clark: I think it enhances accountability because there's clarity that you have to deliver results. You have to perform to get the autonomy. So that becomes very clear. The expectations are clear. The entire organization functions based on the principle of shared accountability. That doesn't change. It actually, we strengthen that premise and people, they should be taking on more responsibility, and we should be able to hold people accountable even more effectively. Why? Because we do it with respect and permission. We don't get personal. We are patrolling the borders of respect. We're not violating that. We are not demeaning people, we're not ridiculing people. We're not embarrassing people. We're not marginalizing people. That gives us a platform for holding people accountable even more effectively.

0:12:50.0 Junior: The next one, psychological safety is not political correctness. Something that psychological safety means that you have to comply with all of the unwritten rules of Political Correctness. But this isn't true. What about this one?

0:13:06.1 Timothy Clark: No, it's very true Junior. Psychological safety is apolitical. It doesn't subscribe to any political persuasion or policy agenda or anything like that. It is the way it refers to the way we interact to get our work done and to acknowledge and respect each other in the process. But we see examples where people hijack it and almost kind of weaponize it in the pursuit of some agenda. But it's not about that at all.

0:13:46.2 Junior: No, it's not. And if you see that, just know that that is not true. Psychological safety.

0:13:50.5 Timothy Clark: No, not at all.

0:13:51.7 Junior: Precisely the opposite. Seven And last. Psychological safety is not rhetorical reassurance. I've seen this one a lot over the years where psychological safety as an ideal seems attractive to people. They'll bring it into the organization and they will say to check the box, it's psychologically safe now. In this organization, we value your opinion. You can speak up. Please tell us what you have to say, and then leave the podium.

0:14:24.3 Timothy Clark: Yes. As if you could decree that into existence with mere words.

0:14:32.4 Junior: Can't do it.

0:14:33.5 Timothy Clark: Not how it happens.

0:14:35.6 Junior: It's not rhetoric. It comes out at the human interface through behavior. So what reassurance can you give people the reassurance of your modeling behavior? That's what they're left with. Your rhetoric is meaningless. So psychological safety, if you truly have it, will be shown in the behavior of the people in the culture, not in what we say we subscribe to.

0:15:00.7 Timothy Clark: Right, the conditions have to be there to convince people to engage in acts of vulnerability. And with the predictive understanding that they will be rewarded in doing those things. If they're convinced. And if they have the evidence, then they will do it. But no amount of rhetoric will get you there.

0:15:21.8 Junior: So we've moved through these pretty quickly. Many times. If you encounter a leader who's dismissive of the idea of psychological safety, often it's just a knowledge gap. And so we wanted to give these seven as things that psychological safety is not. So in summary, psychological safety is not a Shield from accountability, niceness, coddling, consensus, decision making, unearned autonomy, political correctness, or rhetorical reassurance. Do you wanna take us through, as we end a brief summary of the four stages of psychological safety? We define psychological safety as a culture of rewarded vulnerability, but we haven't talked about the four stages. Could you throw that in?

0:16:04.9 Timothy Clark: Yeah. Sure. So the four stages represents a pattern in the way that psychological safety increases on a team. There's a natural progression, and this is based on empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative. The pattern in the way that it increases is very consistent, and it represents the way that humans go about satisfying their basic needs when they are in a social setting and when they're interacting. So the first stage of psychological safety is inclusion safety. This is the foundation stage. It means that you feel included, you feel accepted, and you have this sense of belonging. You're valued, you can be yourself. It's not expensive to be yourself. That's stage one. It is, as I said, it's stage one because this is the first stage that humans want to satisfy. There's a sequence, after we satisfy the basic survival needs, we go to inclusion. That's stage one.

0:17:15.0 Timothy Clark: Then we go to stage two, which is learner safety. Learner Safety means that you can engage in the learning process without feeling embarrassed or marginalized or punished in some way. And this, what we're talking about here is engaging in a number of acts of vulnerability that relate directly to learning. So there's a subset. It could be asking a question, it could be saying, "I don't know." It could be asking for help. It could be giving, receiving some feedback. It could be trying something new. It could be making a mistake. And on and on and on. These acts of vulnerability relate to learning. You can do those things and be rewarded, not punished. That's stage two. Then we go to stage three. Stage three is contributor safety. Contributor safety means that you feel safe and are given the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution.

0:18:11.1 Timothy Clark: So what human need are we satisfying the need to contribute and to have an appropriate level of autonomy? That's a category of human need. That's stage three. And then finally we go to stage four, the culminating stage. We call it Challenger Safety. Challenger Safety means that you can challenge the status quo without fear of negative consequences. And when you think about challenging the status quo, people think about, retribution, reprisal, repercussions. Okay, but what kind, when you get to stage four and you're thinking about taking on the status quo, we're talking about things like your personal reputation damaging that, we're talking about getting promoted upward mobility potential and opportunities. We're talking about lose maybe your job, your very employment being on the line.

0:19:21.3 Timothy Clark: So the nature of vulnerability becomes very acute. When we get to stage four, the irony is that in this area of stage four Challenger Safety, this is where we innovate. Innovation requires that we disrupt the status quo. So Junior, that's a very high level overview of the progression of the four stages. Stage one, inclusion Safety, stage two, learner safety, stage three contributor safety, and not least stage four challenger safety. What's the goal? The goal is to move your team successfully through the stages all the way to stage four, and maintain those conditions. When you get there, if you can get there and you can, you will create a sanctuary of inclusion and an incubator of innovation.

0:20:16.2 Junior: Fantastic. I appreciate you taking the time to go through. We had gone through seven things. Psychological safety isn't? I thought it would be appropriate to spend a couple minutes on what it actually is. So it is the four stages. So if you're interested in learning more about psychological safety and our perspective, you can download the Complete Guide to Psychological Safety from the website. You can read the book, the Four Stages of Psychological Safety. And with that, we will see you in the next episode. Bye-Bye. Take care everybody.

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