Using my values to help organisations achieve their purpose (via psychological safety)

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 lead by example)

In some ways, this is the follow-up to my post on finding my purpose where I talked about the old organisational models not working and…

The new models provide a system and culture where employees can flourish. They invest their energy in pursuing their passions using their strengths, collaborating with others, NOT navigating the organisation politics.

I’ve been reflecting on how to help organisations move to the new model where the new mindset and behaviours are a natural product of the organisational ‘design’.

To be clear, trying to change and learning as you go is part of the new mindset and behaviours. I am NOT suggesting that there is a magic solution (this is an easy trap to fall into!) that will work to transform any organisation. Context is everything.

However, it is true that changing mindsets and, therefore, behaviours is more powerful and is necessary for me to achieve my purpose when working with organisations.

I’ve found the Agile Onion as an excellent illustration of this (I first discovered this on Simon Powers blog. Actually it was at an evening talk hosted by Mark Dugmore and Andrew Holm but this is where I’ve borrowed the image!).

Psychological safety has been demonstrated by Google in Project Aristotle to be key to team and organisational effectiveness. It is also discussed with case studies from the health sector and others in Amy Edmondson’s book Teaming.

I like to summarise it as the ability to speak up:

• Without risk of ridicule — others welcome someone asking the so-called ‘stupid’ questions to increase their understanding
• Without fear of damaging my relationship with my peers — or my boss and their boss — for example, questionning your manager’s or their manager’s strategy/opinion
• Without fear of being perceived as negative — when there is broad consensus and positive energy in the room, it is difficult to be the one to ‘prick the balloon’

You can read more examples and how to create psychological safety here.

It is my view that the existence of psychological safety indicates a certain mindset and values that are necessary to move to the new organisational models.

The ‘outcome’ of psychological safety is an appetite for experimenting as a route to learning and recognising the need to challenge the status quo. This is critical in today’s complex world where certainty is impossible and the only realistic response is learning quickly and adapting with new knowledge.

Related to this is that company values must be consistently reflected in individual’s behaviour. The values need to be defended and this needs to be done in a transparent way. If this is not the case, it damages our motivation and reduces our commitment to our team. I plan to explore this more with some specific examples in a future article. In the meantime, here is a related post and discussion on LinkedIn regarding ethics which explores this theme.

So why do I care about this?

Firstly, it seems that getting this ‘right’ for an organisation will have much greater impact than simply adopting Agile techniques and investing in Agile ‘theatre’. This occurs where, for example, a retrospective takes place but core issues are not discussed. This is because psychological safety doesn’t exist within the team and will always limit the team’s performance.

It is also very personal to me as it reflects how I operate instinctively. I was reflecting on why this resonates strongly and realised that I like to see individual’s succeed and help them reach their potential.

For example, one of my colleagues who has the skills, experience and attitude to be a great asset in another team is not having the impact he could. I meet regularly to share experiences even though we are on different teams and we help each other work through issues. (there are reasons for this that I can’t share here)

On my current team, it is my habit when there are team updates to make sure that absent individuals are brought up to speed. It’s quite a small thing but something I have to do to ensure everyone is able to give their best.

I often speak to individuals about their frustrations and enjoy talking through ways to resolve their issues. I’m excited when I feel my intervention has had a positive impact on their situation.

I have mentored individuals over the last 10 years and have always enjoyed this.

I mention this because I have realised that this is why my level of motivation is much higher than other options when exploring my personal ‘purpose’.

Becoming an agile coach; applying design thinking — these are all good and worthwhile things and I DO adopt these new ways of working where appropriate. But they DO NOT excite me in the same way as creating psychological safety.

This is because it aligns with the values that I live and breathe. We often throw around the ‘align with your values’ phrase in some abstract way which makes it almost meaningless.

On a separate note, my experience is that it is also quite difficult to know your own values. When I just do something instinctively, I find it difficult to stand back and assess objectively. I searched recently for something similar to StrengthsFinder to help me identify my values. I had no success — if you have any ideas on how to achieve this (and maybe my bias towards using a tool is wrong), add a comment below or contact me directly.

I was tempted to write more in this post on my thoughts on how to change behaviours to create psychological safety by measuring and being transparent. But I’m going to keep this short and focussed and pick up on this important topic very soon…