In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Psychological safety with Amy Edmondson

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

We are going to cover a topic that almost all our guests have mentioned, psychological safety.What does it mean? And how can you as a leader or employees create this in your team? We have the world leading expert on the topic Amy Edmondson to discuss this and much more! The production team on this episode were PLAN-B’s Tor-Erik Humlen and Olav Haraldsen Roen. Background research were done by Sigurd Brekke with additional input from Iselin Sommereng Head of People Development and Ole Syrstad Senior Analyst CEO Office.Links:Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, I'm Nikolaj Tangen and today we are releasing a bonus episode. We are going to cover a topic that almost all our guests have mentioned, namely psychological safety. But what does it mean and how can a leader or employee create this in his or her team? This is what we will try to find out today because we are so lucky to have the world leading expert on the topic, Amy Edmondson, the Harvard professor with us. This is a really fascinating conversation, so stay tuned. very welcome everybody uh today it's uh it's a big day it's a bit like new year's eve for me because we have amy edmondson here today and she was on my reading list when i was doing my master's in social psychology no No. Yes. Wow.

So just to make sure we are on the same page, for the people who don't know much about it, what is actually psychological safety? It describes a climate of a group where people believe that candor is welcome. And why is it so important? It's so important because today, nearly all of us do knowledge intensive work. We do work that requires problem solving and creativity and innovation and catching and

correcting errors so that the quality of the work is not harmed. And that kind of work is dependent on our ability to notice things and to have ideas and to offer them. And so if you don't have it in an organization, what happens then? Two big risk factors. One is that you will have preventable business failures, that you will launch products that a handful of people knew were not going to work, but they were afraid to speak up. Another is that you will fail to innovate.

So they're related problems, but one relates to kind of visible, sometimes catastrophic business failures, bad decisions that got made that didn't need to get made. And the other is harder to see, but shows itself over time. Like we're just not innovating. We're not coming up with the new ideas and services and products that customers want. And slowly but surely,

we become less relevant in the market. So that was where he came into my studies on the creativity side. But why do you become more creative by having this? Well, you become more creative not as an individual, for sure, I would not say that. But you become more creative as a team. Because a team is creative when it's able to access the diverse expertise and ideas of its

members. And, you know, all of us are smarter than any one of us kind of thing. And especially for innovation, where you might have an idea, it's kind of half baked, but. But then it makes me think of something else and then someone else, and then we're sort of tying these ideas together, and it takes us somewhere new. So teams will be more creative when people are unencumbered, and they're not worried about, oh, how do I look? Are people going to like that idea? Are people going to reject me for saying that? So tell us about some companies where it really works well. Well, I would say one of the more delightful companies where it works well is

Pixar, which is in the innovation domain. It's in the innovation space. Every time, their products are creative films that delight people of all ages and that are not just good storytelling, but beautiful computer graphics and storytelling and, you know, color and ideas. And this company has really accomplished the remarkable feat of hit movie after hit movie after hit movie. So they've been persistently innovative. movie. So they've been persistently innovative. The only way this actually works is that they have trained themselves to be unafraid to criticize the evolving product. When the movie is just partway there, it's boring in parts. It's sappy in parts. It's not good enough yet. But in organizations, sometimes it's not very easy for people to say, especially in

hierarchies, this just isn't working for me, because it doesn't seem very nice to say things like that. And so they've created processes and norms whereby you got to criticize the heck out of it. We get to do that behind closed doors, so that by the time it gets out for primetime, it's ready to go. So let's say now you're a new CEO in a company. How do you go about establishing this? I'm going to say something I don't usually say, but you start with passion. You start with the passion about who the company serves and why it matters. So you're talking about the purpose, why it matters that we exist and why I personally am excited to be here and to be leading this organization so that we can do X, Y, and Z in the world.

I'm sorry, you said that you normally don't start with passion, because I think passion is completely underrated. I do too. I do too. But it's just, you know, it's not the first thing you think of when you think of psychological safety. And I'm saying more important, it's really important to create psychological safety, which another way to talk about that is a learning environment. Really important. But learning for what? Because learning is effortful.

Speaking up is effortful. Taking risks is effortful. So, the first job, job one, is that passion about who we are, whom we serve, and why it matters. Then, the leader has to be very humble, right? So you're passionate and humble at the same time. Humble about the fact that I'm passionate about where we're going. I don't know how to get there, right? I need your help, right?

I have some ideas and I will be listening. You know, I will be all ears. So they're conveying the message that they know that they are dependent on the brilliant men and women working for them. And then they are overt in their quest to learn more. They ask good questions. They lead good team processes. others in the organization to ensure that there's the right kinds of training programs or structures or systems to kind of help people have great teams and create learning environments throughout

because as a leader i depending on the size of the company i don't get to interact with everybody directly anyway but i can ensure that i can try to set a model whereby those who are interacting with others directly are showing up with a similar level of energy and humility, curiosity about harnessing people's ideas and perspectives. You often say that leaders need to show weakness and make mistakes. So first of all, you need to be pretty confident to do that, right? Yes, you do, exactly. But listen to what you just said. It's almost paradoxical that showing weakness is actually a sign of confidence.

And I think intuitively we understand that. Like when someone, you know, there's a little part of our brain that worries, well, if I admit a mistake, then people will think

I'm incompetent or less good at something. When in fact, they go, well, you know, she's confident enough to say, oh, I got that wrong. I got that wrong, right? So there's a confidence in being willing to say, I missed that. I didn't see that coming. Then there's also the reality that any leader is vulnerable. I mean, any individual is vulnerable to the actual uncertainty in our

environment. In other words, anything can happen, right? A global pandemic can happen that I didn't see coming. And so, once you recognize that vulnerability is a fact, not a choice, then you realize that your only choice is whether or not you admit it. And I think it's a sign of strength to admit it. I think it's a sign of strength to admit it. I think it's also interesting that, I mean, you speak to somebody like Rachel Botsman, she claims that when you admit mistakes, you also establish trust.

Yes. So it works in many different ways. That's right. Yeah, in a funny way, you're more likable. Absolutely. I mean, nobody likes perfect people. Nobody likes perfect people. Nobody likes to know-it-all.

Transparency is another thing you talk about. Why is that so important? Transparency is important in part because of trust, right? It comes back to trust. When you are being transparent, you are more trustworthy. You've put it all out there. It conveys the reality, which you need others, right? Sort of here's what we're up against i always think that the you know the art the leadership challenge is how to be transparent about reality which is sometimes grim without making people despondent and so you have to be transparent you know here we are here's this global pandemic this is what we're up against while also conveying hope and that's the creative part i think while also saying i believe that if we work together we can get through this you know for the following reasons one thing you don't um talk so much about

is humor and in the fund we start all the leadership group meetings with, you know, a short, funny video clip. And it's a leveler. It's shown that it creates more creativity. And it gets people to relax. And so why are you not spending more time on that? experienced all those things you just said and i i haven't studied it i haven't um but you're right i haven't emphasized it the only thing to keep in mind with humor is that um i think it's a great leveler i think it's a great energizer yeah and you have to be very aware that it's not um humor that is mocking others self absolutely self-deprecation is fine in fact powerful yeah and just sort of human condition humor is fine. But the kind of humor, and you often do see it in work environments, that is inadvertently jeering at someone or at a group does exactly the opposite. It makes people feel more anxious and less comfortable.

Yeah, I think you need to be careful with irony because you can really fire the wrong way. And sarcasm. Sarcasm is even worse. No, it's a no. It's a big no. Yeah. And I'm guilty, right?

I will occasionally be sarcastic because it's an easy one. Absolutely. So bad news for the English, basically. Yeah. You talk about all this, but at the same time, you read Machiavelli and claims that the fare is pretty good. And you see some of the really classic, big, fantastic CEOs, you know, Apple, Walt Disney, Henry Ford. Now, they've been successful.

There wasn't much psychological safety there. Not at all. Not at all. How come? Well, different answers for different people. Yeah. And probably with Ford and Jobs, they have in common that they're both geniuses.

Yeah. And I like to say, you know, and Ford was a leader at a time when the name of the game was to sort of tame complexity, get people in line, not listen to them, make them follow the formula that you and your Frederick Taylor buddy came up with, and that was the way to get excellence.

So Taylor invented the Taylorism or... Yes, yes. ...very strict way of working, right? The so-called scientific management, right? Yeah. Which worked when, again, when the project was to tame complexity and conquer production at scale.

But in a sort of knowledge-intensive work, that management style would not work. Now, we come to Jobs, right? So, Steve Jobs was sort of famously unkind to different points of view, not known to be a great listener, and yet really one of the most successful companies in history. There is a way to think about that, that Apple succeeded in spite of that, not because of that. So I like, you know, there's two counterfactuals that you can do. One is, if you think you're Steve Jobs, and you're always going to have the best answers and the best designs and the right everything, and you want to boss people around and tell them to just do it your way

and yell at them if they don't and you think that you can get away with that by all means, go for it. I'm skeptical. I think it's unlikely. And then the other is, again, what could you have done if you listened a little more in that setting?

But let's back up because there's this idea of, and there's plenty of evidence of sort of not good people getting ahead. I don't think too many people are buying into that mode anymore. But here's the sort of model I want to share. There's getting ahead, which is succeeding you know, succeeding in your career, doing well in the world and in society's eyes. And then there's making a difference. And we can fill out all four quadrants of that model. I mean, you can like not get ahead, not make a difference. And that's sad, but frequent, right? And you can, you know, you can make a difference in the world but not get ahead. You could be a healthcare worker toiling away,

really having an impact on people's lives but not in any way having sort of success. God bless them, right? And you can be someone who gets ahead and has tremendous success but doesn't really make a positive difference in the world. I think where most of us would aspire to be is to get ahead and make a difference. And I think if you want to be in that quadrant, you do have to listen

to others. And you do have to kind of keep holding yourself honest. Like, what am I missing? It's like the difference between I'm sure I'm right, and I don't need to listen to anyone to all right, I kind of think I'm right, but what am I missing? Even selfishly, I ought to care about what am I missing. So what can the organization do and how do you go about? I mean, what can the HR department, I know our HR department is really working on this, and what is the thing they can do?

Well, I think they can keep emphasizing both the importance and the nature of the work we do. So this is the kind of work that depends on all of us to bring our A game. And by the way, our A game, we're not here as individuals running a race. We're here as team members coming up with new solutions every day to delight our customers. And that's a team sport. So we're emphasizing that the nature of the work is it requires innovation, it requires problem solving, therefore, you know, it requires your brain, not just your being here. And then, probably importantly, you know, both modeling at the top the kinds of learning-oriented behavior we need and then putting in place systems and structures and trainings and reminders that just help us help people become more self-aware, more other-aware, more curious, more about the quality of the work than about the self-protection. I mean, I think we are naturally about self-protection unless we overcome that.

So I can see what the leader can do. But what if you, let's say now you're like a, you know, normal employee. Same thing. And, you know, I just joined the company, Amy Edmondson Limited, and we produce some kind of gadgets, and here I come straight from school, and what can I do?

Well, since you're new, I'm hoping you've got some new ideas that we haven't thought of before, right? So what you can do, oddly, is the same things that I can do. I'm the CEO and the founder of the company, and I think, what you can do, oddly, is the same things that I can do. I'm the CEO and the founder of the company, and I think I should set the stage, and I think I should ask you questions, and I think I should respond productively. But guess what? You should do that too, right? You

should say, hey, I got some, you know, I think we've never done work like this before. I've never done work like this before. This is pretty interesting. And you should ask questions of your new colleagues because you don't know them yet very well. You need to learn about them. You need to sort of connect with them. And you should respond productively to people when they say things you disagree with. You should say like, wow, that's an interesting perspective. I'd like to learn more. But so just take care. In other words, your job as an individual or as a CEO is to control the things you can control and not spend a whole heck of a lot of time worrying about the things you can't control. But your work, do you think it could have, so it resonates extremely well in the times we live in, right? Yes. right yes um because we care a lot and everybody's politically extremely correct and you know we have to be very careful and the young generation is more kind of psychologically fragile and and so on

um it's true so is it kind of symptomatic for the fact that we live in a culture where there is less focus on excellence and drive and you know see i the way i'd like to think about it is that i mean are we like really wet we are and if we want to truly be excellent which i think we do i mean at least i do we need to be learning oriented because yesterday's excellence is not tomorrow's excellence right it's it's we're sort of we're we're playing a game where the where the challenges just keep intensifying and the goal post keeps moving so the the only way to achieve excellence is through learning and the only way to achieve learning is through speaking up and taking risks and trying new things yeah but i think you know you're you touched on this sort of fragileness or the brittleness of, we could say, younger generations or we could say many humans.

And to me, that's the biggest challenge that we have to overcome. Because if we're brittle, we'll be tiptoeing. And if we're tiptoeing, we won't be doing great things. I mean, it is interesting. You know, Yuval Harari talks about an environment where we need to be, you know, more agile, have more confidence, you know, change more and be more resilient. Yet other people, you know, Angela Duckworth and so on, says that the new generation has a lot less grit. So we need more grit, but we have less of it. Right. Going forward.

So we better get to work. Absolutely. And, you know how do you develop grit i think you develop it um through baby steps i mean you give whether younger people or anybody uh the opportunity to kind of have a stretch assignment a stretch opportunity um maybe something doesn't go well they have a they experience a failure and guess what they don't die so then they learn oh that wasn and guess what? They don't die. So then they learn, oh, that wasn't so bad. I mean, part of the challenge with many young people is that they

haven't had a failure experience. They've had nothing but good marks. They get a trophy for coming out for the sport rather than for being the winning team in the league. And there's this, when you have had less experience failing, you have more fear of failing. So we got to give them opportunities to fail in a safe way to then go, hey, that wasn't so bad. What's next? How does it fit in with feedback and the importance of feedback culture? Crucial. I mean, feedback is probably the most important activity for learning. And psychological safety is the kind of climate in which learning can happen. And by the way, I'm more receptive to feedback when I'm in a more psychologically safe work environment.

But feedback is critical. And the challenge of feedback is none of us really like it. We all need it, but none of us like it. And in organizations, a lot of times, it's not very high quality for one of two reasons. Either the person giving it hasn't really thought very carefully about it, they aren't really being data-driven

or concrete in their feedback, or they believe you don't want to hear it or nobody wants to hear it, so they just sort of give you some nice, yeah, you did great um oh this is a small thing but you know and they barely mention it right so you go wow i'm great you walk away it wasn't very useful i mean it was nice you had a nice conversation but you didn't learn anything yeah well it's um it's a tough one how do you get feedback in the best

possible way well it's um i'm looking forward to you get feedback in the best possible way? Well, it's... I'm looking forward to the feedback after this podcast, by the way. Yeah, my husband gives it to me. He's probably... Sometimes my grown sons give it to me as well. One of the downsides of being more successful in any career, I suppose, but in an academic career is you become more insulated right people might you know they might my father used to say um years ago and i used to get good

grades in school and he would say uh your teachers are just scared of you now right they're thanks dad right but you know no i worked hard and he's essentially saying they're giving you an a because they just are scared of you like no no no not true but honestly it's a good question and I think we all need it none of us like it but I think we're able to withstand it

because of the greater joy of becoming more effective at the things we care about do you think there is more psychological safety in societies where the power ratio is lower? So there is less power distance between the top and the bottom? Yes, on average, yes. And you'll still see enormous heterogeneity. You'll see teams that have very low psychological safety,

maybe because they just have a a tyrant or a bully as the leader or so when you look at corporate structures so for instance in the nordic region is really flat right uh as you've seen it's uh whilst whilst in germany or france there is much more hierarchy and you know like a huge power distance do you feel uh do you think there is less safety there yes and not just at the bottom right it's you know the top is anxious too because they know you know i'm at the top of this hierarchy or i'm near the top of this hierarchy i'm supposed to know things and you know when you have a deep belief in the hierarchy and in the roles that are represented in that hierarchy,

then you have a kind of anxiety about the gaps that you know you have, but you believe them to be undiscussable. What about gender differences? You know, the one robust gender difference that I've found and seen in other data that relates to psychological safety is, on average, and again, there's always variance, but on average, women are less likely to speak up with something uncertain at the same level of confidence as a man. And so, you know, a man might be, you know, I'm not quite sure this is right, but they'll say it anyway. A woman will often put the threshold for when is it okay to speak up quite a bit higher.

How does it change when you're working from home? What are the challenges here? You know, it's funny because on the one hand, you're comfortable at home, right? So there's a kind of, home isn't scary for most people, unfortunately. But on the other hand, the technology that mediates our communication is a hurdle for candor and honesty and jumping in. So there's a potentially, in fact, we're seeing this depressing effect of, at the very least, people working from home are less likely to be collaborating with people they haven't worked with before they're also less likely to be teaming up

across silos you know organizational silos than than they were before the pandemic started so it's like we're still collaborating sending lots lots of emails, I'm having lots of meetings, but slowly but surely I've been having fewer meetings with new people and new employees are getting less mentoring and less exposure to people they didn't know because of the casual interactions. Yeah, I've seen research also that

if you already are insecure, this way of working just makes you more insecure. Oh, that's a good point. It's a very good point. And you take up every comments you take them in the absolutely worst possible way. Right, and you have too much time to stew over Oh, that's a good point. It's a very good point. And you take up every, you know, every comment you take them in the absolutely worst possible way. Right, and you have too much time to stew over it, right? Absolutely, absolutely. Now, what are you working on for the moment?

Well, I'm working on a new book called Right Kind of Wrong, The Science of Failing Well. And, you know, this is, it's very, it's related to psychological safety. And maybe what it does, where psychological safety describes the nature of the environment, the climate that we need to innovate and problem solve together, this book looks at some of the sort of technical details of failing well.

Like what does a good failure look like compared to a bad failure? And how do we avoid the bad failures? And do we increase the frequency of of the good failures and then i dig into three competencies that i think are are necessary not just for failing well but for thriving in the new world and one is self-awareness one is situation awareness you know what kind of context is this what are the stakes and so forth? How much uncertainty? And then the third is system awareness. Trying to overcome our very natural tendency to be preoccupied with me and now so that I can be interested in the larger system and later.

Now, we have thousands of young people listening to this podcast. And what is the advice you give to your students before you send them out in the world? Aim high. Yeah, right. Go for gold, right? Play to win. Don't play not to lose. It's very human and very spontaneous to play not to lose, by which I mean, you know, it's like non-growth mindset. Only engage in things you know you can win. But go for the things that you may not win, which is, of course, related to grit. But aim high. If you are really passionate about solving some important problems in the world, you can't do it alone. So team up.

Team up with people who are different than you. That's not easy. So there will be failure along the way. That's okay. Fail well. Learn fast. Repeat. Aim high.

Team up. Fail well. Learn fast. Repeat. Sounds like some good rules to have. Easier said than done. That's for sure. Well, it's been amazing to have you on.

We are going to take this back home and work on it. And a big thanks for coming. Thank you for having me. Thank you.