How good leadership provides fertile ground for successful teams (diary of a digital transformation)
I’m sharing my story for four reasons:
i) to help me reflect and learn
ii) to share my lessons to help you
iii) to connect and learn alongside people who want to develop
iv) to be honest and open about my experiences, good and bad (to set an example)
Over the last few months I’ve benefitted from some excellent leadership (many thanks to Marcus Dimbleby). I wanted to share my views on this and how it links to psychological safety which enables good team performance.
This concept has been explored by Amy Edmondson and is best illustrated by the excellent image below:
(borrowed from this presentation by Joshua Kerievsky)
The fundamental idea is that complex problems can only be solved by teams with diverse skills and experiences. And psychological safety will produce high performing teams.
Earlier in my career, I worked with individual heroes who would fly in and solve problems with a combination of knowledge, determination, contacts and sheer bloody mindedness. This model rarely works these days.
Teams can only be successful when they can take risks (as described above).
As W. Edwards Deming said:
The leader’s job is to drive out fear.
In a climate of fear, group think prevails which means preserving relationships is more important than challenging poor ideas. In a ‘safe’ environment, challenge is expected, welcomed and valued.
How does the leader provide ‘fertile ground’?
Amy Edmondson says there are three simple things individuals can do to foster team psychological safety:
(it is important leaders model this behaviour but it also for the entire team)
- Frame work as a learning problem, not an execution problem
Accepting the problem is complex and we need to learn by running experiments. We need to learn quickly and cheaply. - Acknowledge your own fallibility
Being honest; sharing your own stories; and asking for help and contributions from others - Model curiosity and ask lots of questions
Being mindful that we can fall back into ‘delivery mode’ if that is our default behaviour. Welcome sharing of responsibility on understanding the problem and discovering the solution together.
Here are some examples which demonstrate psychological safety in my recent experience:
Be Yourself — I have abandoned any job labels and used skills that I’ve acquired elsewhere — copy writing; coaching;
Take Risks-Having no specific job label is liberating but also scary. My job label gives me status and gives me a clear role. Without a label, I need to find ways I can contribute and play to my strengths.
Raise Problems-The team regularly has honest conversations about problems in retrospectives. This will include disagreement and we will find our way to a solution without sacrificing our personal relationships
This is an ongoing process. It is easy to slip back into old, comfortable behaviours — constant vigilance and checking behaviour is critical.
