A pause to reflect on Psychological Safety - How Free Am I

How can you really know that you are psychologically safe?

Most people detect and experience the absence of safety, not the presence of it.

If your normal is “abnormal” then the ability to notice something other, is severely subconsciously restricted. And your mind, your rational thinking and knowing tool, cannot tell the difference. If you're accustomed to a perpetual state of preparation for the unknown - maybe even living with a continuous "stress" response due to multiple little stressors continuously going off all around you, then it's unlikely that you're going to be feeling the variations due to the cortisol, adrenaline and testosterone flowing all through you without your conscious awareness of them.

If, by now, you don’t know when you are psychologically safe or not, then read on. :) This is the gist of what I have learned firsthand in the workplace, on experiential courses, from life, from resources and from other people’s descriptions. For the past 13 years specifically, but reflectively since pre-teen years.

So, let’s start with an easy step of this short journey together.

Here is a phrase with deep significance - please don’t read over it - instead actually pause and reflect on it. Read it once with the mind, and again with the heart: 

“If you are in the picture, you cannot see the frame”

Notice, perhaps, if you’re comfortable with this, or not.

Then, a short description of a little goldfish, in a little bowl:

• It does not know it is in a little bowl - that is it’s entire universe
• Every now and again, it bumps up against a barrier - which may be visible or invisible, but for sure, it’s not going past that barrier
• It does not know about wider waters, wild waters, predators, or even what it might eat in the wild
• It possibly does not even know that it is breathing water (in the similar way that we humans forget or disregard that we are also breathing a substance, called air. It’s not nothing, it is definitely something)

Again, notice, perhaps, if you’re comfortable with this, or not.

If you want more, I highly recommend reading up on a much older story, Plato’s Cave, or more correctly, The Allegory of the Cave. Here’s a good explanation: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/allegory-of-the-cave-explainede 

So, back to my post's title then: You could be in: 

• In a group, old or new; or
• With your manager, colleague, customer, stakeholder; or
• With a person you just met, a friend, a family member

Ask yourself a little question and see what happens to your thoughts, your feelings, your body.

Ask yourself “How free am I?”  

Here are some variations:

• How free am I to <ask this person, this group, for help>?
• How free am I to <tell the other person they make me angry>?
• How free am I to <leave this room, without saying another word>?
• How free am I to <put my idea out openly>?
• How free am I to <have my idea crushed if I put it out openly>?
• How free am I to <have my idea crushed, if I put it out openly, to tell the others what it is like to have my idea crushed by them, and to leave this room without saying another word>?
• How free am I to <say No, without a reason>?
• How free am I to <say No, with a reason>?
• How free am I to <say Yes, with a reason>?

Notice, when you pause on your question in the moment, what comes back via your mind, via your feelings and emotions, and what response your body has. These are just additional sources of information, which you can use to make your conscious decision and then act thoughtfully.

Sometimes, we can notice that we are not 100% free, and that’s okay, just the fact that we know that, and can then still more consciously work within our non-free, non-safe context, helps us to be free. And being free is a major contributor to holistic health. 

In the case of psychological safety, noticing that perhaps we are not entirely free, helps us to then frame a question, or a statement, that we can share with other people, balancing risk vs reward, and that could cause the group or the relationship we have with the other, to strengthen.

“How free am I?” is a great litmus test for psychological safety. What you do with the result of it, can actually create amazing experiences for yourself and others. Please try it, and let me know how what shifted for you when you did!

A pause to reflect on Community Leadership. It's so easy to get this right!

I’ve been in and around the community “theme” many times in my career. It just seemed natural to hear from peers, learn some things, sometimes share some things and create something “more than”. To aim to have a “more than” positive impact in the world. In the 90's the tech world was huge, and expanding rapidly. By 2023 I think it's the whole world that is huge and expanding even more rapidly.

I read a few books along the way, as I do. Cultivating Communities of Practice is a good one imho - but happy to learn more suggestions in the Comments below so please share if you have any other recommended books, sites, videos and podcasts!

A thing that began and then started to bother me greatly was how quickly these fantastic groups could just stop, disappear, and be gone without a trace.

Thanks to Cultivating Communities of Practice, I realised that there are different kinds of communities for different kinds of needs and purposes. And they have different lifecycles too. 

“community” is a word with many different interpretations and implementations! I had to develop my own comfort with the fact that some communities are going to be temporal. Once the members’ needs have been met, or their needs change, there is no reason to unify the group. It disbands. It’s natural. And sometimes, it’s natural to have only one event - and then the crowd moves on! Like "one hit wonder" pop stars. People are fickle. It's normal.

But there are some communities where new ideas are being discovered, new knowledge is being created, curated, diseminated, improved, and more. Members support each other uniquely. New members keep joining. Old members leave and sometimes return. This kind of community is like an organic creature that grows and shrinks and morphs from one shape to another fluidly. Constantly reorganising based on current members. While the founder remains. And then one day the founder is not there and the community implodes and is gone without a trace. Sometimes reunions are organised but the spirit is not the same. I wanted to make that different if I could.

I began to wonder what it is about church choir groups, charity volunteers who turn out to support no matter the conditions, concert first aiders who have to train a lot and then work for free in their own time, soup kitchens whose exhausted volunteers turn up after working full days and then work a full night. And many more other volunteer led communities. I listened to their stories and pondered.

For a few years, I paused on going around proclaiming “You need a/an agile / product / lean / leadership / improvement / innovation / etc Community of Practice or Interest or Champions or Advocates!” It just seemed a heck of an investment in time and hope forming these groups, sorting out all the logistics, lining up external and internal speakers, implementing websites, newsgroups, email lists, having Plan B’s, and much more. Then, as soon as the wind direction changed, it was like amnesia and these communities and artefacts simply seemed to disappear without a trace. The leaders often left the organisation and were properly recognised in their next organisation. And the people who remained ... did not seem to notice that they were missing something. Group dynamics / systems forces are amazing, and scary (The Stanford University Prisoners and Guards Experiment) too.

So instead of trying to get new communities started, or trying to improve existing communities, or just being a community member, I switched to studying communities and volunteers, listening to people and their stories, and learning anything I could that might help professional communities to thrive once the founder(s) moved away.

Deep democracy, radical inclusion, sociocracy, holocracy, teal organisation, stewardship and other names are frameworks, principles and practices that try to help people within large organisations interact with each other really effectively, maturely and safely. See https://sociocracy30.org/common-sense-framework/ to get started on discussions. BUT read Ricardo Semler’s inspiring stories first: Maverick,  The Seven Day Weekend and Radical. You CAN run a successful global company with almost no rules and some other really interesting points - just watch his TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_semler_how_to_run_a_company_with_almost_no_rules.

A few years ago, I found myself unintentionally leading a community within a large global organisation. I realised I needed to transfer leadership back to the company's own people. I knew that probably the founder and the community would make the obvious choice and elect the founder to lead them as he had been doing before I showed up. But I foresaw that the community could grow and morph much more dynamically than it was doing under my leadership or under his - that this group to do more if I could just somehow enable it with more self-organisation, more psychological safety, more ... something!!

I forced myself to try a few novelties to see if they would create a more positive future for the community. They did!! A few small changes totally within our power, caused many things to happen beyond my highest hopes! 

I transferred my leading to the founder, and I observed three more successful successions, as the community made it work. In fact, the founder was only there for his own handover, we did not see him again much after that. Happily I’ve heard they’re still succeeding! Every leader is bringing few energy, new ideas and re-invigorated ideas back to life within their term. A key thing for me, because of all the change going on, is how much support they ask for, and give each other. With total trust.

This is the short list of things that made this work:

1. The community agreed that its leadership should be a burden. It should be a good experience for the leader and the community. 
2. To ensure it would never become too burdensome, the community agreed to limit the term to shorter than one year, to give extra opportunities for more people to practice being a leader in a safe context. And that the previous leader would ensure a smooth transition and mentor as required, but not lead.
3. The consensus formed that a term should be 12 weeks. Essentially 6x1 hour community meetings.
4. I never like single points of failure, and after a mis-step with a primary-deputy pattern (essentially the primary bossed the deputy around like a personal assistant), we settled into a co-leader / pair pattern which was much better.
5. On the sixth meeting, they follow these steps:
1. Everyone has the right of Veto. Preferably with a reason, but not mandatory.
2. Nominations. Members can nominate themselves. All nominations must have a business justification / why. Every member is asked to nominate two people, but they can opt out if they don’t want to.
3. After all nominations are in, the community reviews all of them
4. Check - do any of the nominated candidates, now they can see the full picture, wish to withdraw?
5. Then, starting with the least number of “votes” person, we hear from that person why they would be a good candidate to lead. One-by-one the people in the candidate pool state their perspective
6. Check again - do any of the candidates wish to withdraw at this point?
7. If there are still more than two candidates, the members are asked if there are any objections to any of the candidates - for instance - does anyone know something about a candidate’s availability in the coming three months that may hamper the candidate / stress the candidate if they were to be leading at the same time. Like a three week holiday, or a course, or project milestone date.
8. If there are still more than two candidates, the candidates are again checked, based on all the information now available to everyone, does anyone want to withdraw
9. It only happened once while I was there, but even at this stage there may still be more than two candidates. The three candidates then discussed among themselves and made a decision.
10. Then the two new leaders step forward, and take their new roles, thank the previous leaders, thank the community for the trust they have received, etc. It’s quite an emotional moment, really. How often do you get elected, with full support, from a group of people who you care about somewhat, and who somewhat care about you?

It really was this simple. What I did not know, as the books never mentioned, but Ricardo’s works did… treating people with respect, giving them trust, having adult to adult conversations no matter what the pressures and the “norms” are, really grow strength of character. And that in turn grows the strength of the community.

I could write pages about what those folks did whilst I was there, but I think the most profound moment for me, and for the community, was when senior management had heard so many good things about it from their directs attending, that a manager was told or volunteered to join the community as a silent observer. And basically report back. 

The community discussed, and rejected the idea as they believed unanimously that such a change would destroy their incredibly safe space. It would break the boundary and thus destroy the psychological safety that had evolved and they believed they needed to perform their roles increasingly bigger and better. The young 22 year old leader at the time, reluctant to take the role when nominated but had felt duty-bound to do so after receiving overwhelming support, stood up for her community, had a frank respectful conversation with a senior manager 30 years older, much more senior and experienced, and successfully defended the boundary, protected her community. Life changing for both the two people in that conversation, and for the senior managers, and for the community members. Much more was / is possible than they had previously believed.

I will be delighted to hear your experiences, and thoughts, in the Comment box below. And even more delighted if you try some of these ideas in your own space! Maybe even write your own blog post about it!