Want Better Meetings? Practice Psychological Safety

Have you ever stepped into a meeting and experienced that “walking on eggshells” feeling? Like you’ve missed the joke, and no one is going to share it with you? Have you been in a meeting where you were afraid to tell the truth, bring up the hard facts, or provide constructive feedback?
 
The fact is, good meetings are a symptom of great teams.
 
Amy Edmondson was a part of Google’s Project Aristotle, where the tech company investigated what makes a team productive, innovative, or effective. In essence, what makes a team great? Through her research, she coined the term “psychological safety.” Psychological safety is a belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. It describes a healthy way people relate to each other as a team.
 
You can’t have better meetings (collaborations, decisions) without psychological safety. It’s good for the mental health of your team and decreases employee turnover. If that’s not enough for you, consider improved employee engagement.
 
Teams with psychological safety share accountability; they hold themselves and others accountable, which makes working together both demanding and inviting. There is a shared believe that each person on the team is capable and has the skills and knowledge to do their work that contributes to the whole.
 
On teams with psychological safety, there is an attitude of “we are better together.” Employees feel fulfilled because the team respects and needs their perspective, input, and ideas. There is satisfaction in the work when each person contributes meaningfully in the way they were hired, called, or volunteered to do.
 
Psychological safety means team members can show up to a meeting as their authentic selves, share ideas, take risks, and ask for help in front of the group. Curiosity replaces blame. Imagine being asked “what needs to happen?” instead of being asked “how could you?”
 
Meetings are where we solve problems, make decisions, share ideas. To do our best work, we need to be able to say what we are thinking. We can’t avoid or skirt around problems.
 
So, how can we encourage and build psychological safety?
 

• Bring people together for face-to-face meetings. Why? Our communication is nuanced; we need to read each other’s facial and body language to understand the emotional weight, stakes on which our words rest, and the breadth of meaning simple words cannot carry. There is social pressure to perform when we work face-to-face. For example, it’s not appropriate to retreat into a social media scroll when you’re expected to work with others. Plus, time shared together increases the trust we have in each other.

 

• Adopt conversations where there are no "winners" or "losers.” This really means that we should work towards a shared understanding. When there’s a clear “winner” often it’s the powerful people in the group (based on dominance, hierarchy, or discipline) whose ideas are promoted and not the best idea. This often reinforces the status quo instead of innovation.
  
  
• Adopt and value a learning environment - be curious, not certain. David Nelson, CEO of Knight Printing, acknowledges mistakes he’s made and demonstrates how he has learned from those mistakes in conversations with his team. This openness from leadership allows the team to see patterns for failure and success and empowers them to think, act, and raise their own level of mastery.

 

• Recognize that ideas can come from anywhere. Innovation does not start with the phrase, “we can’t…” Make it explicit that the results of your work are uncertain and you need the interdependency of the team. Everyone’s input and ideas are needed because we’ve never been here before. Giving voice to new ideas can energize others to participate even more.

 

• Create clear rules for meeting engagement and share the responsibility to confront conflicting behavior. Meeting ground rules or norms have the power to unleash everyone’s engagement when everyone knows what’s expected and how to behave. For example, meeting rules could include: balanced air time – to reduce dominate voices, or one conversation shared by all – to minimize side conversations. Building ground rules as a team can be a great team-building activity and can increase the group’s acceptance of the shared rules.

 
Once your team starts to express psychological safety, you’ll see relationships grow, ideas expand, productivity increase. When we bring out true selves to work and to our meetings – everyone benefits.
 
– Rachel