Creating Psychological Safety In Teams (Live)

Psychological safety is: “The belief that one can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, and take risks without fear of humiliation or punishment.” In this talk, Nik discusses what happens when workplaces don't have psychological safety, why Conscious Leaders should prioritise this in their teams, and the benefits of safe spaces in workplaces, one of which is growth itself.

This is a recording of Nik's weekly Insight Timer lives. Join her for her next live by looking under Events.

Transcript

Underpinning this workplace environment.

It becomes a very silent place and it's in the silence that it becomes a perfect breeding ground for toxicity to grow and to remain unchallenged.

And I know that you are here,

Conscious leader,

Conscious leaders,

You are here because you know that something has to change.

And so here we are back at psychological safety.

This is one of the things that you can start to do right now that can help to undo some of this breeding ground for that toxicity that you might be faced with.

Today we're talking about creating psychological safety in teams.

You have joined me,

Nick Chung.

I'm a conscious leadership coach and mentor for those of you who want to create more empowering spaces in your workplace.

So let's first start with a grounding exercise,

An exercise,

A practice to allow all of us to drop into what we have to share today.

So if it's safe for you to do so,

Please close your eyes.

If you've got your legs crossed,

Uncross them,

Uncross your arms,

Let everything relax and start to focus on your breath.

Focus on the passage of breath going in and out.

And if you can,

Breathing through the nose and breathing out through the nose,

Helping to regulate the nervous system.

And with each breath in,

Creating more space within your body and your mind.

And with each breath out,

Letting go of any tension that exists physically or mentally.

Following the breath in and out.

And as you do this,

Become aware of the collection of your attention and energy into this moment now.

You may also notice that as you come here into this moment,

Into the present,

That your breathing naturally slows down and becomes deeper.

That your body naturally relaxes.

That your mind might even become slightly more busy in this state.

But as you focus more on the breath and bring all of your attention to the breath,

The mind chatter starts to become distant or is simply irrelevant to the attention that you pay to the breath.

Breathing in,

Creating space in the mind and the body.

Breathing out,

Releasing any tension or stress physically or mentally.

And as we're talking about psychological safety today,

Become aware of the energy centers that exist in your pelvis,

Your stomach,

And just below your rib cage and your heart.

Become aware of relaxing into the space of your pelvis,

Your hips,

This bowl that holds the grounded energy,

Safety and security.

And connecting this to the energy center of the heart,

That with its radiating light of love and warmth,

Can help to make this area,

This bowl at the pelvis,

More safe,

More secure and held.

So if there's any tension that exists between these spaces,

Between the hips and the heart,

Allowing your breath to allow them to relax.

Following your breath,

Breathing in,

Creating space.

Breathing out,

Maybe with a sigh,

Relaxing.

Letting go of tension in the areas between the pelvis and the heart.

And some of you may experience a sinking feeling in your body,

In a good way.

So it's like a sinking into the seat of your pelvis,

Sinking into the safety and security that exists within this body.

And that is which is supported by the heart.

And now bringing awareness to the rest of your body,

Bringing awareness to your feet on the ground,

Maybe wriggling your toes.

And when you're ready,

Opening your eyes and joining me back here.

And going about the rest of your day with this more grounded feeling in the hips,

And connecting in with the heart,

This feeling of safety and security.

So hello everyone who has joined us today.

We're talking about creating psychological safety in teams,

And the wee grounding practice that we did just now,

Was connecting into what some people believe is an energetic center of safety and security that exists in the pelvis.

And the pelvis,

The seat of the pelvis can be considered one of the places that connect our moving forward,

So from the legs and our upper body.

And it's this power source.

So when you learn how to lead from there,

When you can walk from the pelvis in these body-centered practices,

You can feel the sense of power that is driven from that ball.

And so that's why we were connecting in with that today,

Is really feeling,

And some of you may have felt this at the end of that meditation,

Was this feeling of sitting down in it,

Being more secure and dropping into that area.

And that is kind of that feeling of safety and security.

So if we think of it on a purely bodily level now,

In terms of safety and security,

What happens to your body when you're in fear?

You tend to hold upwards,

Right?

Everything is upwards.

And so you're not sitting down into that seat,

That natural seat that you have.

And so when I work with clients,

Often what I can see,

And in terms of whether they feel safe or not,

Is how much they sit down into their seat.

So whether they're sitting up here,

Which is that fear response that naturally happens in the body,

Or whether they can sit comfortably down in that seat.

So that's why we started there,

To give you just a little bit of an experience of what it means to be safe in a very bodily sense.

And if it so makes sense for you also on a spiritual sense or an energetic sense.

So I hope that that was useful for you.

Okay,

So let's dive into the topic today,

Why psychological safety matters.

So first,

Let's define what psychological safety is.

It's the belief that you can speak up,

You can ask questions,

You can admit mistakes,

And you can take risks without fear of humiliation or punishment from someone.

And this is a really important part of you being a conscious leader,

For you to create the psychological safety in your teams and the people that you work with,

So that they're able to be human in the spaces that you exist in together.

So a mistake that modern society has made in business is this lack of acceptance of making mistakes.

As a friend of mine said,

She works in local government in Australia,

And she said to me,

That there always has to be someone's head on the chopping block.

I thought that was really horrible.

Like imagine working in that workplace,

And perhaps this is the workplace for you,

Which is why you're here right now in this life,

Or you're tuning in.

Imagine working for a place like that,

Where there's always a risk that something that you do,

Some mistake that you make that is completely human,

Is going to end up with your head on the chopping block.

That is like the definition of no psychological safety,

Right?

So as conscious leaders,

It is your job to create this environment where people feel psychologically safe,

Where they can speak up,

Where they can openly challenge you without retribution,

Where they can own up to their mistakes.

And there are some caveats here of how you can create that,

So that it's not just like making mistakes all the time,

But it actually ends up being a learning point for you and your team.

Notably as well as conscious leaders,

You know that no person is isolated,

Right?

So we all know that we're in this together,

And we're in this together in life,

And also in business.

So business is not separate from the rest of your life,

And that's another mistake that modern society makes,

Is that we compartmentalize areas of our life.

So as a conscious leader who wants to grow both personally and spiritually,

You know that this does not fly.

All parts of your life are part of your life,

Including business.

So you can't be different people in different contexts,

You can't be one person in business and another person in your personal life,

Because there's a lack of integrity there.

So coming back to making mistakes,

Or speaking up,

Or being challenged,

Or being able to ask questions,

Conscious leaders know that no one person can really be blamed for a mistake,

Because we are all in this together.

And this is how you start to create this idea of safety in your teams,

Is admitting that no one person has their head on the chopping block at any point.

Because we are all in this together.

And so we need to,

As conscious leaders,

Create psychological safety to encourage this idea of collaboration over individualism,

Or this idea of being part of the whole,

And that basic idea of your people being supported by you.

So we have this responsibility,

Or we can,

And I guess that's why you're here on this live today,

Is that you've decided to take on this responsibility as a leader,

To do more with the leadership role that you have.

It's not just you reaching KPIs,

Or making sure everyone's doing their tasks,

It's also about you making a positive impact in people's lives beyond their work.

And it can start in the workplace.

And so this is what I'm encouraging with you today,

And with all of my lives and everything that I do,

Is that your own spiritual and personal growth can be the starting point for someone else's.

And we can start,

As I said,

In the workplace.

So,

Coming back to this,

What happens without psychological safety?

What happens when we don't have this environment where people feel like they can make mistakes,

Or they can speak up,

Or they can challenge us?

What happens is that we end up with a place,

A workplace,

An organization that has this withholding of ideas.

You know,

People really start to look out for themselves.

So,

We then start to get this idea of people wanting credit for the things that they do.

There's no longer this idea of collaboration.

We're holding it back for the right time to do it,

So I can make the most progress by myself as an individual up the ladder.

We get this idea of surface-level engagement,

Where people aren't really telling you the truth.

There's always going to be hiding in that,

Because the psychological safety isn't there,

So therefore we have fear underpinning that.

And we have this lack of growth.

And this is a thing I'm really passionate about.

I think that everyone is designed to grow,

That it's a natural thing for us to want to evolve.

And it's actually harder for us to try to not evolve,

Than to allow ourselves to evolve.

And so,

Even in that,

Even in this idea of a lack of evolution for our people,

The people who we are so lucky to be able to support as conscious leaders,

For me,

There's one reason to create psychological safety.

It's to encourage them to continue to grow.

And then if we come back to this idea of fear underpinning this workplace environment,

It becomes a very silent place.

And it's in the silence that it becomes a perfect breeding ground for toxicity to grow and to remain unchallenged.

And I know that you are here,

Conscious leader,

Conscious leaders,

You are here because you know that something has to change.

And so here we are back at psychological safety.

This is one of the things that you can start to do right now that can help to undo some of this breeding ground for that toxicity that you might be faced with.

So that's what happens without psychological safety.

What happens with psychological safety?

Innovation.

We get more innovative ideas because people are allowed to make mistakes.

Through mistakes,

We create some of the best things,

The best ideas,

Right?

It's that idea of like trying,

Failing,

Trying to improve it again,

Failing,

Keeping on going with that.

It stifles creativity and innovation because you're no longer allowed to make mistakes.

So with it,

We get this innovation,

We get this creativity,

We get deeper trust,

We get better performance.

And as I said,

The one thing I love is that we really start to encourage a growth mindset.

Remember that nothing can grow without mistakes.

Nothing can grow without challenge.

And so if we are really focused on our people growing,

If that is one of your reasons why you want to create change,

And maybe it's not,

Maybe it is that you're here because you're like,

I don't love my workplace,

I want to create some really like positive changes in the workplace,

But underpinning that anyway is that things have to grow,

Things have to evolve and move.

And in that idea,

We have to accept mistakes because that's what growth is all about.

It's about making mistakes and it's about learning from those mistakes.

So I've got a few questions for you now,

Conscious Leader.

What is your goal as a Conscious Leader?

Why are you here?

What is your mission?

And then from that,

What kind of impact do you want to have on your workplace?

And then of course,

We know that whatever impact we have on our workplace has this ripple effect outwards here.

And if you want to know more about mission,

I have a talk that I did last week that I recorded and you can listen to that on my Insight Timer talks.

So if you're not already following me,

Go ahead and do that.

The next question is,

What kind of changes do you want to see in the workplace?

So what is your goal?

What kind of impact do you want?

And what kind of changes do you want to see in the workplace?

And now how can creating more safe spaces support the goals you have?

And I guarantee that whatever goal you have,

Whatever impact you want to make,

Whatever kind of changes you want to see in the workplace,

Creating more safe spaces will support those goals.

Because remember,

With any growth or any change that we want to make,

When we can create safety around that,

It makes it so much easier for people to want to change,

Including yourself,

Okay?

So let's quickly dive into what I call the five elements of psychological safety.

So it's a little framework that you can take with you to just start to think about how can I create this in my workplace?

It's the five R's,

Okay?

So the first R is respect.

You need to value each voice.

You need to value each opinion,

Even if it's opposite to your own.

So you learn to learn from the differences and you truly listen with an open mind.

The next R is realness.

So create space for truth,

Not just what you want to hear.

And realness also comes down to you being really real,

You being a more honest and authentic leader.

And so part of that might be that you also create this realness about the mistakes that have helped you to grow in the leadership role that you are in.

So respect and realness.

The next one is regulation.

We talk about regulation quite a lot here.

You can catch some of my talks about stress regulation or nervous system regulation on my Insight Timer page.

So regulation is talking about your nervous system setting the tone for safety.

We've specifically talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

How it is that you turn up in terms of your nervous system sets the tone of what the expectation is and how everyone else reacts around you.

So if you are in a calm state,

Calm and collected state,

You set the tone for everyone else to be in a calm and collected state.

So notice where you are in terms of your stress level or your nervous system activation and have practices around regulating your nervous system so that you have a tone of safety and security that carries you through the rest of your day and with all the connections of people you have.

Okay,

The next one.

So we've got respect realness regulation.

Review.

So when we make mistakes,

Whether that's you or someone else,

Remember you're all part of the team.

There's no I.

When we make mistakes,

Review them.

What can we learn from this?

Where can we grow as an organization?

Where can I grow as an individual?

How can I help someone else grow as an individual?

Okay,

So review.

And lastly,

Respond.

Act upon what you've learned.

And this is what encourages the growth.

Yes,

We can talk about mistakes being leading to growth,

But it only actually leads to growth when you reflect on it or you review it and then you take action to change that.

So make sure that those last two in particular are part of how you create psychological safety.

We're not only going to create psychological safety for you to be able to admit your mistakes,

For you to challenge us.

We're also going to create this environment along with that that is going to allow us to grow from that.

And that comes from those last two points,

Review or reflect and respond.

So when you look at that model,

It's a very simplified model.

We could go into each of those things in more detail,

But if you looked at this model,

Respect,

Realness,

Regulation,

Review,

Response,

Which of these feels the strongest in my leadership and which ones need my attention?

And I'll leave that for you to think about.

Which of these feels strongest in my leadership and which needs attention?

Okay,

I'd love to give you a few ideas of how you can do some self-inquiry,

Some self-coaching,

Some self-awareness about this idea of psychological safety.

So we know that we want to create it because we want to create places where it's normal to make mistakes,

Where we can grow from mistakes,

Where we can have innovation and creativity.

So now we need to just make sure that you know how it is that you're showing up in your leadership around this.

So if you have a journal,

Grab it now and write these down.

Or if you've got your phone,

Perhaps take some notes,

Okay?

Here are a few questions.

How do I respond when someone shares a mistake with me?

So how do I respond when someone shares a mistake with me?

And you can look at this on all levels.

You can look at this on a physical level,

A mental level,

An energetic level.

How do I respond?

Do I respond in a way that is safe for them,

That makes them feel safe,

That they can do this again?

The second question is,

Do my team members feel safe to give me feedback?

This one can be kind of hard to answer yourself,

But based on what you think,

Do you feel that your team members feel safe to give you feedback?

You could also do this in a 360 review.

You could get someone else to ask your team members if they feel safe,

Okay?

The next question is,

Where do I unintentionally create fear or hesitation?

Ooh,

I really love that one.

Where do I unintentionally create fear or hesitation?

And sometimes it is the way that we model how we accept our own mistakes,

Okay?

So if you are particularly hard on yourself and you say that out to your teams,

That you're unsatisfied with yourself and the mistake that you made and you go on and on about it,

This can unintentionally create fear and hesitation because they're like,

Well,

If she holds herself or she or he,

Or they hold themselves to that standard,

Then I have to meet that standard or I'm going to get the same kind of retribution that she gives herself or he gives herself or they give herself,

Right?

So think of it that way.

How do you unintentionally create fear or hesitation?

Perhaps it's in your own role modeling of what you do for yourself when you create mistakes.

And then lastly,

What kind of tone do I set?

Calm,

Reactive or neutral.

Calm,

Reactive or neutral.

And this kind of comes back to our self-regulation,

Our nervous system regulation.

And remember that this isn't only about making mistakes,

It's also about being challenged,

Its ability for people to speak up to you,

Yeah,

Without any fear or hesitation to do so.

So hopefully that is helpful for you to go away and reflect by yourself.

You don't need to do this for long.

I'm tending now towards really quick practices that can give you a lot of bang for your buck.

So don't feel like you have to journal on these for the next hour.

What I would do is I'd take these four questions and I'd give myself four minutes,

One minute for each question and I'd answer them as quickly as possible without thinking about it too much,

Yeah?

And whatever it is that you learn from doing these questions,

What is the way that you can grow from your learnings?

Okay,

So that would be the last thing to like wrap a bow around that.

What can I learn from what I've learned about answering these questions?

How am I going to change that if it's something that's not satisfactory for me as a leader?

So let's wrap up today.

If this is something that you enjoyed,

Then please come back and follow me and join me live again.

I'm going to be on at the same time next week and I'm doing this mainly to help leaders like you to have some practical embodied experiences of what it feels like whatever the topic we're doing.

So today we started off with psychological safety and I got you to feel into your body about what that feels like.

So it's to do that but also to give you some quick ones,

Some quick tips that you can start to implement straight away into your workplaces to create more of these positive environments of growth for your people.

And I also invite lots of questions on these lives.

So there's time on the lives to catch me for live Q&A.

If you do miss these lives but you like them,

I do do a recording and you can catch those recordings on my Insight Timer page as well.

So if you haven't already,

Please come and follow me and I hope that you join me again and I hope that from today it's been a useful investment of your time.

I appreciate your time.

I appreciate you taking time out of your day to sit here and listen and I hope that it has ignited something in you that can help you to create more psychological safety in your teams and from that,

Create a more beautiful,

Positive workplace for you and your people.

And that's really the goal,

Isn't it?