Psychological Safety and Accountability

Intro: Get off the Fence activity (10 mins)

Leading Intelligence Professionals

Presented by Shannon Armstrong at the AIPIO International Conference Melbourne 2022

Set up:

I am going to read out a series of statements and I want you to think about what they mean to you.

For the people in the room I am going to ask you to stand up and move to one side of the room based on whether you agree or disagree with the statement. For the people watching online, I would at this stage just like you to think about and record your response to the statement.

OK for those in the room, I will get you to move to the RHS of the room if you agree with the statement. And please move to the LHS of the room if you disagree. The stronger you agree or disagree, the close to the front I want you to come. So if you Really strongly agree you will be down here (Front RHS) and if you really strongly disagree you will be here (Front LHS)

Now – this is a personal response, there is no right or wrong and it will be completely based on your own individual experiences within your own organisations.

And – because we are all intelligence professionals – there will be no fence sitting. You need to make a call.

After each statement we will pause and discuss our reasons for that decision. Like all things in Analysis, I really do not care what your answer is, but I do care WHY you made that choice.

Understanding WHY we do things, and WHY we think the way we do is just as important to us as leaders of intelligence professionals as it was when we were on the tools making intelligence assessments.

The other thing I will mention from the outset is you can interpret these statements in any way you wish.

• In my organisation, it is safe to “speak up”

(After the audience has moved. Have them find a person next to them and take 2 minutes to discuss their personal reason for choosing to stand where they stood. Note that for the recording we won’t be seeking individual responses from participants Online participants can add their reasoning in the comments if they wish.)

Summarise the types of experiences common for each answer.

• In my organisation, we hold people accountable for their actions and behaviours
• I believe my voice is as important as my manager’s
• My manager believes my voice is just as important as theirs
• It is safe to speak up and take personal risks in my team

After the discussion, have participants return to their seats.

What we are talking about here – directly relates to Psychological Safety.

Consider this scenario:

But what do we actually mean by the term Psychological Safety.

I want you to consider this story… a 20 year veteran ER Nurse is just finishing another 14 hour shift and on her final rounds of a partial, she is pretty sure a doctor has over prescribed a medication to a patient – but says nothing.

Then we have our new co-pilot, on his second commercial flight. This co-pilot is pretty sure the very experienced pilot just missed a component of the pre-flight safety checklist – but says nothing.

Think about the consequences here for a moment. Think about what it means to the individuals, what it means to the people they are responsible for.

Yes that patient died.

And in yes 1987, Northwest Flight 255 out of Detroit crashed 30 seconds after take-off. It was the second most significant airline crash in US history. All 156 passengers and crew – including the co-pilot who didn’t speak up were killed. The cause was a determined as failure to complete the pre-flight checklist.

Now these are extreme examples to illustrate the point, but it does not have to be a life or death situation that gets impacted by poor psychological safety.

Have you ever been in a meeting or part of a project where you have wanted to ask: What is this all about? Why am I here? I am not clear on our objectives? But because no one else is asking you didn’t want to look foolish or ignorant, so you said nothing.

Or have you ever seen that inevitable train wreck that was just over the horizon after a poor business or operational decision was made – but you felt like it was not your place to speak up about it – so you said nothing.

The term Psychological Safety was first coined by Amy Edmondson, a behavioural scientist and the head of leadership at Harvard Business School. In 1999 she defined it as “a shared belief held by members of a team – that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”

This is the absolute crux of this issue. Teams perform better, are highly motivated and are more supportive when they feel it is safe to be vulnerable in front of their team.

You are leaders of intelligence analysts and intelligence officers. Every day you are asking your staff to have the courage to make a call and back it up – using incomplete data sets and dealing with the complex topics often laced with mis or dis information.

How on earth can they feel safe enough to do that when they don’t feel safe enough to raise the small issues.

Now I have a real fear that “Psychological Safety” is going to become the next “Agile” buzzword for our SES and business Executives. Where the concept is completely mis-understood and inappropriately applied across our organisations. This is NOT about holding hands and singing Kum-Bai-Ya or being entitled to take a mental health day when we need to.  

It IS all about you as the leaders of teams of intelligence professionals being responsible for the culture of your team. It all starts and stops with you.

Psychological safety and a culture of accountability (where team members make a personal choice to put the success of the team above their own personal goals) are 2 of the most important factors of team success. And why do we know this?

Google told me…

Well actually, I didn’t just Dr google this.

We know this because in 2012, Google embarked on a massive research project to study hundreds of Google’s teams over an extended 4 year period to discover why some failed whilst others soared.

The results they released in 2017 of this 100 Million dollar research project are fascinating.

The Google researchers found that individuals on teams with higher psychological safety are less likely to leave the organisation, they’re more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates, they identify and address problems earlier, they bring in more revenue, they are more ‘team oriented’ and they’re rated as highly effective twice as often by Google’s executives.

When we live in a knowledge economy – when the power of the ideas, the insights and the foresight of our intelligence professionals is so critical to our success – can you really afford them not feeling safe to express those ideas?

Results

Here are the results of Google’s Project Aristotle – the top 5 factors impacting the success of teams in Google.

1. Psychological safety – team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other
2. Dependability – team members get things done on time and to the required standard (This is the accountability element. Team goals are prioritised over individual goals. Team members back each other up and support each other when one of them needs help or falls behind)
3. Structure and clarity – The goals are clear, the pathway to get there is clear. We have a plan and we all know our role in achieving success.

Now connection to purpose is of one of the key intrinsic psychological drivers and motivators that I will be talking about tomorrow in more detail – and the final 2 factors tie directly to this driver.

• Meaning – the work has to be important to the team members – on a personal level.
• Impact – members need to know that their work matters, it creates real change, it has impact.

Your Role

Here’s the kicker folks – building Psychological Safety and a culture of accountability and dependability are cultural elements in your team and like it or not, that culture starts with you.

Everything you do impacts that team culture. This includes your intended an unintended impacts upon every person in your leadership shadow – your scope of influence.

If you have a poor culture of psychological safety then before you look externally for the cause – take a really long, hard look at yourself.

It can be immensely powerful when a leader apologises for not making it safe in the past. When they take responsibility for their own actions and then put in place changes to correct it.

Think about the situation where a team member saw a problem but didn’t feel safe to raise it. For many of us the natural and spontaneous response is “Why didn’t you tell me!”

This places the blame squarely on the shoulders of that individual. Not a safe place to be. Think about the difference to how that team member feels if you simply changed the perspective and responded with – I understand it was really difficult for you to raise this and I can see there were probably things that I did that made it difficult to come to me.

Because it is ALWAYS on the leader to go first and do what you can to improve psychological safety.

What you can do about it

So here are some simple things you can do to improve the psychological safety in your teams:

Demonstrate Engagement:

Be present in your conversations – close the laptop, remove distractions and be fully there where you are talking with your staff. They will feel valued and important.

Show true curiosity in your questions and engagement.

Don’t talk first – seek the input of others.

Show Understanding

Recap and reflect your understanding in your conversations with staff.

Validation is critical – their feelings and experiences are real and true to them – even if you disagree or have another perspective, you must validate their reality.

Be inclusive in interpersonal settings

Take a real interest in the lives of your staff – everyone can see the token ‘walk around’ the office. But it is so much more powerful if you show you actually care about them as whole people.

Don’t be afraid to share some things about yourself too. Don’t get me wrong – no one wants your entire memoires but offering a personal reflection, sharing your preferred work style, and admitting when you find things difficult – shows your staff you are a person too.

Decision making transparency

This is often where the unintended consequences of our leadership shadow impact us most. We all have that go-to person who we trust in the team and who we know will get the job done right… the first time. But you need to think about what it says about the value of the other team members when that go-to person constantly gets the different and interesting tasks.

Be open about WHY you are making a decision. Most complaints about decision making relate about a lack of transparency rather than the decision outcome itself.

Confident but not inflexible

Set boundaries – and stick to them

Model the behaviours you want to see in your team members

Credit for success goes to the team – but you own the failures

Invite diversity of thought, if staff offer a different perspective explore it.

The Learning Zone

In my experience, there are four pretty common work zones our intelligence staff find themselves in – based on the levels of psych safety and the culture of accountability that exists in your team.

When both components are low – your staff fall into the apathy zone. Issues don’t get raise – OR are only raised to complain as opposed to improving things. There is very little team spirit. In fact the main drive of individuals in this team environment tends to be using every means available to gain or achieve something for themselves, but not the group. Often that focus is how to get out.

The comfort zone is characterized by high levels of psychological safety. People feel comfortable to express their concerns and have open discussions. However, due to lack of team accountability, these teams will typically not be high performing. It is great to share thoughts and ideas but who moves the team towards the shared goal and shared outcomes? If the team is not accountable then it usually falls to you – and this is not sustainable. If you find yourself doing most of the ‘doing’ – then this is where you may be.

The Anxiety zone is one of the most difficult places to be. I am fully accountable for my actions and the actions of my team but it is not safe to raise my concerns, address problems or to speak out. I think we have all been there at some point in our careers.

CLICK: The goal is to get our teams into the learning Zone.

When psychological safety and accountability are high they produce a high performing team, especially during times of high uncertainty and change. There is great interdependence between the team members. It gives everyone the space to ask questions, challenge thinking and for open honest discussion. In this zone, potential errors or issues are picked up early and can be dealt with.

So my final question to you to ponder today is – what will you do today, or tomorrow to start to actually address the psychological safety of the people in your leadership shadow?

Thankyou.