Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 338: Misconceptions About Psychological Safety (Part 1)

Transcript

Episode 338: Misconceptions About Psychological Safety (Part 1) · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  You.
• 0:03
  Welcome to The Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by AMP close in the studio here today. Doctor Drew Brannon, joined by doctor Corey Schaefer, back from his 4th of July holiday. Welcome back. Welcome back to you. I believe it was also a holiday for you as well.
• 0:20
  Welcome back to both of us. Yes, we are back in the office this week and yeah, excited to be jumping into this one today. Cory, on a topic that, you know, it's I feel a little bit conflicted about this in the sense that although it's a really great thing that you hear the term psychological safety more now than you probably did in the past.
• 0:46
  The fact that you're hearing it more now also means that some folks who are talking about it are a little bit off target. Right.
• 0:56
  Yeah. This this seems to happen. From time to time we were talking offline here, before we started, very similar sort of trajectory or arc as the term or concept of like growth mindset.
• 1:09
  You go back just a handful of years and very similarly, Carol Dweck herself, sort of the pioneering researcher on growth mindset, actually coined a new term which was false growth mindset because it had become so like colloquial that people were misinterpreting it, not fully understanding it. Watering it down into essentially like something that it wasn't.
• 1:32
  Yep. And it seems just based on, you know, the article we will share with, the listeners today, that psychological safety has become that new concept. Yeah. Well said. And, you know, one of the common reasons why that happens, and this is maybe just a little bit of a nudge to all of us, is it's normal for people to get just the vaguest understanding of what something is and then quickly start kind of touting it
• 2:02
  placing the burden of expectation on others related to it.
• 2:05
  They just they almost start to, to really kind of hammer or, hey, you need to do this. But they don't they haven't done the work yet. They, they've not yet done the work to educate themselves. Yeah I agree. It's too, it's too shallow. Yeah. Because the understanding is usually it's way too shallow. There's more nuance to it.
• 2:23
  Again, especially thinking back on on how growth mindset sort of became misused in misinterpreted that that was the big takeaway for me is you hear a lot people use the phrase, but then you actually ask them to explain it and there it is, only give you, you know, sort of like the first bullet point in what would be ten bullet points.
• 2:42
  Yeah. Of some of the most important elements of the concept. And so, yeah, I think that's part of what's going on here with psychological safety, like you mentioned. I think it's great people are aware of it and starting to talk about it. It's become a buzz word. So this article is great because it attempts to, break down some of the misconceptions around it.
• 3:01
  Yep. And so that's the approach we're going to take here. Actually, over the course of two episodes. We're going to break down and really kind of elaborate on and supplement from some of our own experiences. A great article that was recently published in Harvard Business Review. If you're not reading Harvard Business Review, please put that on your radar.
• 3:24
  Doesn't matter what industry you're in, doesn't matter where you see yourself and kind of the find yourself in the org chart. Great content. Great great content.
• 3:32
  just a note there. We are not in any way. This is not a plug. Harvard compensating or affiliated with Harvard Business Review. It's just a great publication that I love. Yeah.
• 3:42
  And the the researchers who wrote the article. One probably name we've we've mentioned on the podcast previously, but Amy Edmondson, one of the primary researchers in, psychological safety, so very similar in that way to what I mentioned about growth mindset. One of the first people to stand up and talk about how the phrase was being misused was Carol Dweck.
• 4:00
  Yup. What makes sense that Amy Edmondson, is at the forefront of like, hey, let's make sure we really understand what this means. Let's break down some of these misconceptions. So Amy Edmondson and Michaela Christy, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correct, but yeah. Great article. So where do we start? I do think if someone's going to point out some misconceptions.
• 4:19
  Amy's the one to do it for sure. In fairness, you know, she's done more work in this area than anybody. All right. So, Corey, I think the place to start to answer your question is because knowing that and when you think about kind of our listeners and supporters of the podcast here, varying levels of understanding of the term, obviously.
• 4:37
  So let's begin by framing up as accurately as we can when we say psychological safety. What are we talking about before we get into misconceptions? Great question. I don't want to you know, Amy's listening this necessarily. Gosh. Psychological safety, is a concept that is related to and relevant for groups of people. So in the context here, we're talking about, you know, primarily like an office setting, a team setting, you know, within an organization where there's inherently a, sort of a trust, a, a feeling that I can share ideas, I can ask questions, I can take risks without, dealing with the repercussions of it.
• 5:29
  So I feel safe enough to be vulnerable, essentially, is maybe a very simplified way of putting it. And because of that, then when it is present within groups, you tend to get the best ideas, because people are actually sharing them. And we're willing to challenge each other and sort of push back on things. And all of it is just essentially in pursuit of truth or the the best way forward or whatever it might be.
• 6:02
  So when that is present within teams, you can imagine how good that is for ultimate athlete performance. Yes. Culture, sure. But like more broadly, you know, performance. So that's my quick spiel, Amy. Hopefully, there are too many notes on that. What would you add? What did I miss? You're hoping that that would be at the end, that Amy would stand up and say, I'm Amy Edmondson, and I endorse this message.
• 6:26
  That'd be great. Oh, no. I think it's very well said. And I just succinctly, I would just say it's an environment where people feel safe, as you said, to speak up. So maybe, you know, a concrete example of this would be if a team, had high levels of psychological safety in a healthy environment, and they were sitting in a meeting in which someone on the team was, strongly communicating what he or she felt like was a great idea.
• 6:56
  And someone else in the room was sitting there thinking, oh, I don't think this is a very good idea at all. In fact, I think this is going to create real problems for us as a team. If there's a high level of psychological safety in that room, that person will feel complete freedom to speak up and say that and that even though they have a difference of opinion, they can all be adults here and have a reasonable, informed, mature conversation.
• 7:23
  And regardless of where that's coming from, to make it within the hierarchy, which I think is really important. And we'll talk more about here later on. You know, that matters because I think that's the perceived, hierarchy and the dynamics of power and authority. I think sometimes are what, limits psychological safety within certain groups. And so in that psychologically safe setting, it doesn't matter where the the idea is coming from, it doesn't matter where the challenge is coming from.
• 7:55
  The point is, we just want to put it all on the table. And like you mentioned, just do it with some candor. Yep. Okay. So well said in terms of framing it. Before we jump into the misconceptions discussion, there's just two quick points I want to add here. Because I do want to address objections. Right, right, right out of the gates here.
• 8:14
  More than one leader over the years has told me candidly that they think this whole thing is kind of soft. Okay, so psychological safety, I mean, the sound of it, the definition, all of it, you know, and and they've said in like, hey, I'm glad people are willing to say that, a more of a results based transactional mindset of like, hey, that sounds kind of soft to me.
• 8:41
  So I want to refute that in two ways. Beginning with number one. None of this is our opinion. This is backed in good behavioral science research and which we have seen without question, psychological safety be one of the most critical amplifying forces to what elevates performance. Like it flat out elevates performance regardless of your industry, according to the science, not according to the growth project.
• 9:09
  Right. And secondly, this is, has been and continues to be talked about in trained in high level military settings. I don't think of those as soft environments, do you? I do not, so, you know, if it's good enough for them. I think it's good enough for most other perhaps all other environments. Okay. So that said Corey what's our first misconception.
• 9:38
  Yeah. Very simply. And it probably comes from the same school of thought, you know, to a degree that you were just mentioning. But that psychological safety just means being nice, you know, to each other, in that group environment or in the team setting. It's okay to be nice for the record. Sure, sure. But but they actually do a good job here.
• 10:01
  And I it was interesting, the nuance here that they sort of separate. There is a difference between being nice and being kind. Yeah I like that a lot too.
• 10:08
  Nice. This is a quote, so psychological safety is entirely consistent with kindness. But let's distinguish being being nice and being kind. Nice is the easy way out of a difficult conversation.
• 10:20
  Kind is being respectful, caring and honest. Yep. So yeah, I thought that was an important distinction that they made.
• 10:28
  And the point here in what they talk about or use as an example, you know, if you have a team and you feel like or the response here, they use an example again, we have a psychologically safe team.
• 10:39
  We know this because we never argue. So everybody's just so we're nice. Yeah. Everybody's so nice to each other all the time. There's never any disagreements. And therefore we're psychologically safe. Like, man, I couldn't be further from the truth because all you've established there is this surface level. I don't lack of vulnerability. There's probably so much that's not being said.
• 11:03
  There's not honesty. And so, yeah, if somebody came in and sort of,
• 11:07
  just took a snapshot of your team, like, everybody smiles and treat each other well, but that does not mean that it's psychologically safe. No, no, not at all. And you may go back to the example I was giving when you were framing the definition of someone in a meeting setting has a great idea from their perspective.
• 11:26
  Someone else who's sitting at the table thinks differently. The the nice thing to do would be to say nothing. According to that person possibly. Right. Because well I don't want to I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I don't want to like shoot down his or her idea. I don't want to make them feel like they don't know what they're talking about.
• 11:45
  And so all of that could kind of fall under that category of, like, being nice, which is not psychological safety at all. No. You know, because in that situation where we're highlighting or is that person being nice, I guess you could say that. I mean, that's certainly one way you could look at what that person is doing, but the fact that they're not saying what's on their mind equals low psychological safety.
• 12:09
  So these two things are not the same. Yeah. A great line here. Wanting to be nice people avoid being honest and whether they realize it or not, collude and producing ignorance and mediocrity. Yep. So again, at the expense of have it like hurting your feelings by saying, hey, I disagree with your idea, and here's why. We just kind of smile and nod and check the box of like, okay, you got to share your idea.
• 12:33
  Great. So me being nice is not, like you said, doing nothing.
• 12:38
  But that's probably coming at the expense of improving the idea. Yep. And there. Look, there are countless examples in history of people who were involved in a decision, knowing it wasn't a good idea and they didn't do anything for sure. They didn't say anything. And part of it is what we're talking about right now in terms of why they didn't, they stayed passive in an effort to keep the peace.
• 13:05
  Yep. In peace keeping is not an ingredient or a variable that is always necessarily found when it comes psychological safety. Those are two different things. Yeah. You can keep the peace and have very low safety. And you also have very low performance. I can almost guarantee. Yeah. I also like hear how they describe this, psychological safety as a quote shared sense of permission for candor.
• 13:30
  Yeah. It's good, but that was, again, just another sort of good phrase here. And candor and being nice are sort of polar opposites, right? Candor is, I'm going to tell you the truth, or what I really think. And just be honest, being nice is and withholding all of that. Just to tell you what I think you want to hear, to make you feel good.
• 13:49
  Yeah. And let me make this point here too, because, Corey, I know you see this and hear this a bunch from a lot of the organizations that you work with, as do I. Everyone's in a hurry. Like, you know, everyone loves to to I find share how busy they are, how much they have going on and kind of how fast they're ripping and roarin and like, that's cool, good for you.
• 14:13
  That's great. But the things we're talking about right now require you to operate at a little bit of a different pace in order to do that. Well, because, like snapping back at someone in kind of quote, like being honest doesn't usually work very well. Like you have to have a higher degree of conscious thought and deliberate decision making in how you communicate these things in order to do this well, it takes work, it takes time, it takes a slower pace.
• 14:46
  This is kind of the art in the science of leadership. On full display. Yeah. And again, it this to be clear as well. And they, they note this in the article, but
• 14:56
  this is not sort of positioning that you should be insensitive. Right. Yeah. Right. Okay. It's certainly not that. No. That's what but but yes, it does mean, I think slowing down enough to just be more intentional about sort of the structure of conversations and what they look like and what they feel like for the people in the room.
• 15:16
  And again, you said that just goes counter to so many cultures where things are just moving at such a rapid pace. We just kind of don't do that. Yep. But like so let's, let's take this, let's do a quick example. So those are listening. You know you're more than likely on some kind of team. And imagine the scenario.
• 15:34
  Imagine you're in a meeting with your team, whoever you consider to be your team. And, someone is advocating strongly about a strategic move that you need to make the team. Like, here's what we need to do, guys. And, you know, their moment of stillness pops up and someone else on the team says, yeah, actually, I have a I have a different take on that.
• 15:57
  I don't think this is what we should do. What happens next, you know, is it just like is there's like a collective gasp. Is there, is there like a tension filled moment? Is there do we now break into profanity like what happens next? Well, and I think I think but you're spilling out there. Why. So why this doesn't happen, right.
• 16:19
  Because number one, it's like I don't want to be the person to bring the meeting to a halt. I don't want to be the person that says something that leads to the audible gasp and the like. Well, now what sort of situation? Yeah. So just don't say anything, right? Be nice. Exactly. Okay, so one last thing here before we get to the next one.
• 16:37
  I thought this line was so compelling. And again, this is, really well backed by a lot of the work that's been done in this area. And this is, you know, teams that don't surface hard truths perform worse than those that do. Pretty self-explanatory. Yeah. But if you want to think about, okay, what's the ROI on not just being nice?
• 17:01
  There it is. Okay. Misconception number two I'll take is there psychological safety means of getting your way? That didn't sound so bad. Yeah. Well again this kind of builds on number one. So let's just say okay, we we've sort of gotten over this idea of being nice. And now we communicate with candor. So people are more willing to share their ideas.
• 17:28
  But psychological safety doesn't mean that just because you share your idea that we go with your idea. Bingo. That that, you know, that's ultimately the path that we choose to take as an organization or as a team. And so again, that that is unfortunately a misunderstanding. I think people,
• 17:43
  feel as though like, well, I shared my opinion and then we didn't do what I said.
• 17:48
  Therefore, we don't have psychological safety. Like that's sort of the school of thought here. That's it. Exactly. And it's the, you know, the example, the thread that we've kind of continue to pull on and will throughout our conversation is when you speak up and say, actually, I think we should go west instead of going east. If the collective opinion ends up being that we're going to go, we think West is the direction to go.
• 18:14
  Don't cite a lack of psychological safety on your team because you're not going east. I think that's that's what happens when it comes to decision making, which should be a collective thing, is, yes, psychological safety means you should have an opportunity to have the floor and be respected when you have the floor. And for what you're saying to be valued, all of that, all of that.
• 18:37
  But it's not equivalent to. And then at the end I get what I wanted. Yeah, exactly. Again, the goal is to reach a good decision. Prevent mistakes from happening, prevent a defect in a product like these are examples at the article. This out.
• 18:50
  just a line here that I thought was good. It's able to think of psychological safety not as a gift for one participant, but rather as an environment for the whole team.
• 18:59
  So if I just because I have an idea or a suggestion or whatever, that it's not just some gift to me of like, well we just do it because everybody's involved in the conversation and we should all be sharing ideas and trying to come to the best possible conclusion. That's the point. Yeah. That's right. And here's why.
• 19:17
  Like, let's think about the kind of the totality in the full loop of psychological safety is, let's say this exact scenario has played out of where in a meeting there was a collective opinion, someone had a different opinion. He or she's minority opinion was not the one that went with, they went with. And so it became noticeable and evident in the meeting that that person who wasn't the winning opinion kind of pouts.
• 19:44
  And, you know, their body language gets bad and it's just going, oh, you can just tell what's going on here. If that team has psychological safety and a healthy degree, healthy measure, what should be able to happen is later that day, someone should be able to kind of, you know, hey, can I check in with you for a second, have a reasonable adult conversation around it.
• 20:11
  Seem like you were kind of off after we made that that choice. Talk to me about that. And like, that's where it kind of comes full circle, because you got to do something. You got to do a little bit of recovery work there. Yeah. You can't let that fester. Yep. No, I said, but if you don't like I think what are scenarios in which that's less likely to happen?
• 20:30
  It's a team that lacks that safety. Right. And again, I think that's the the art of this as opposed to the science of it is, as you noted, just having your, your sort of fingers on the pulse of where the team members are at following these meetings, paying attention. What are you observing and then doing the work to kind of loop back around and make sure that, you know, those types of things are discussed and, they're free to share and speak their mind around why they acted the way they did or whatever it might be.
• 21:00
  I think, like you said, that that's the sign of healthy team organization. Go. Okay. What's next? All right. Next misconception, psychological safety means job security. Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't. So there's a great example in here. And I was not familiar with this. But this is interesting. The article cited the fact that in 2020 3rd January of 2023, Google actually laid off about 12,000 employees.
• 21:29
  You know, you're a big organization when you lay off 12,000 people. It once. So they laid off all these folks in, malls. I don't know how many multiple layers, but multiple workers evidently posted on their social media accounts that the action was counter to the company's commitment to psychological safety. You know, stating that. Well, hold on a second.
• 21:54
  I thought we were a psychologically safe workplace. This shouldn't be happening in a psychologically safe workplace. Which, you know, if the ship's going down and you're on it, that seems like a reasonable thing to say. If you're trying to kind of salvage what you can salvage. But it's not at all consistent with what this means. Yeah, well, I think the context of this matters a ton to it.
• 22:14
  So just to fill in the gaps here really quickly for our listeners,
• 22:17
  this is really relevant being Google because Google is kind of the forefront. Yes. Some of the research involved on psychological safety. Amy Evanson did research, on Google like their teams. I'm glad you're saying that. Right. So that's why I think this is really relevant and why I think the people had the stance that they did is like, oh, we want to be champions of psychological safety.
• 22:39
  And yet we're left in the dark about these decisions. And now I don't have a job. Yeah, you've been standing up here in front of us talking about this since, you know, there a study, you're talking about Project Aristotle. Essentially, like since we did this study, we've been hearing about this, and now you're telling me I no longer have a job here, right?
• 22:54
  You know, go back to a couple of years ago, we're grandstanding talking about how, you know, great. We are because we value psychological safety. And yet here you are laying off 12,000 people. So that's where it's coming from, from their standpoint. I think that context is really important here. This isn't just company X, this is Google who's at the forefront of a lot of this research.
• 23:13
  And then what's ironic is, you know, this led to town hall meetings and people were allowed to kind of voice their opinions and ask questions and so on. So somebody's actually doing this. And basically, what's funny is like that's actually demonstrating psychological safety. Yes. So the very thing they're saying, like you guys don't we weren't psychologically safe this whole time.
• 23:35
  Like you lied to us. We're losing our jobs. And yet they had a town hall meeting where they were allowed to share their thoughts. That psychological safety. Yep. And I mean, let's get down to it. The you can have healthy measures of psychological safety, and yet that doesn't free you from business necessity decisions. Those are two completely independent things.
• 23:59
  You know, if your business outcomes are such that you aren't winning, however, you define that, you have to make choices, and that doesn't mean you don't care about people. That I think the way you demonstrate your care is how you go about those things. And there isn't a perfect way to tell 12,000 people they no longer have a job.
• 24:20
  There's no perfect way to do that. Yes, you should do try to do that with a high degree of sensitivity and respect. But at the end of the day, probably what they care most about is the decision. Yeah. I mean, this in particular, I think it's just it's missing the mark because,
• 24:35
  they very well could have not had psychological safety.
• 24:38
  Right. There could be truth to that. But I find it hard to believe that 12,000 people on all these different teams like this, none of them had psychological safety, right? When it's something, again, that they value talk about. And so, sure.
• 24:49
  it's assuming that because of this decision, it just was never there. And that's obviously where, you know, they're just missing the mark.
• 24:58
  That's why this is a misconception. So and let me read this line here that I think is really good psychological safety doesn't mean freedom from layoffs. Doesn't mean that it's freedom to be constructively candid. And it's what you said. That's the town hall example of like, hey, we're going to have this town hall. We're going to give you the mic.
• 25:16
  We want you to be candid. We're good with all that. However, unfortunately, we have to make a hard decision right.
• 25:24
  All right. What's our next one?
• 25:25
  This one is hugely important. They're all important. But this is one of the most common rubs and tensions that we hear leaders talk about. Psychological safety requires a trade off with performance.
• 25:37
  Meaning I have to pick one or the other.
• 25:41
  when we teach this concept, this might be to me, this is like my favorite part of teaching is a great,
• 25:47
  because I think you're right. I think people inherently think they have to make a choice. It's sort of one or the other.
• 25:54
  And ultimately the influence of, like, well, am I somebody who's going to value psychological safety and develop a great, supportive environment where people feel safe and can be candid and so on, almost like, am I choosing relationships or am I choosing performance? Yeah, right. Like that's a little bit of, I think, where they feel totally insane and just like, well, what's more natural for me, you know, how am I wired, how do I want to lead and so on.
• 26:19
  And unfortunately, that feeling of one comes at the expense of the other is usually why that organization will struggle or the team will struggle or fail is because, you can't sacrifice one for the other. They need to both be present to be a great team. Right. And like, let's get down to, you know, bluff, right. Bottom line up front here.
• 26:42
  Not talking about any particular person, not talking about any particular organization, but in my experience and in my person, from my perspective, one of the most common reasons leaders will start to push back on this is because they're not very good at it. They're just not very good at it. Like they can push really hard on prioritizing results and get real transactional and drive stress and pressure.
• 27:07
  Like, like, okay, that's not that hard. A lot of people can do that, right? Similarly, you can drive and push really hard for psychological safety because then you just get super passive and permissive and it's just like, oh, okay, Kumbaya is the goal. And then you get your butt kicked. Yeah, but few leaders are good at both of these things.
• 27:25
  And so one of the defense mechanisms to that is to be like, oh, I don't really like yeah, I don't agree or this isn't real or that kind of thing. And the, the theory that I've had for a long time and why so many organizations were would end up in, I think, a more stressful environment where safety is not present is because leaders are often just, you know, let's just say the sales leader is just a former salesman.
• 27:52
  Yeah, right. They know what it looks like to sell and how to do the job at a high level. They know how to sell. Yeah. So what are they going to just lean into? What are they going to teach. What are they going to preach. They're going to do that right. Drop everything and sell. And it just becomes about then like the performance and metrics and so on.
• 28:08
  And yeah, people will like you can win a lot of games doing that. Right. Like you can you can meet a lot of quarterly numbers doing that. The problem is would you sacrifice long term? Yeah. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. You're creating probably a toxic environment and culture where people just don't want to be. Yeah.
• 28:27
  that's what I've observed just in my time in working in corporate settings, even in sports.
• 28:32
  Right. Coaches are former players. They know how to do the skills and what it looks like to be done at a high level. They learn from some other coach, they know how to implement a process and systems, but they're not trained in this. People. Yeah, they're normally not right. They're normally not. So that's what's fascinating again is is some of this to a degree maybe comes down to and I know we'll talk some about leadership.
• 28:53
  But,
• 28:53
  a lot of leaders aren't trained in people. They're trained in the task that they're leading. Yeah. And you said it perfectly there of the what it really gets down to here is sustainability. Are you trying to build a high performing team for a season, or are you trying to build a high performing program?
• 29:14
  Right. That's sustainable if we're using sports examples. Okay, let's hit our last one here. What you got for us, Corey?
• 29:21
  Yeah. So the last one that I mentioned, we we we would touch on some leadership stuff. The misconception that psychological safety requires a top down approach almost at least my interpretation of that is, basically, it's just all on the leader.
• 29:37
  And, you know, again, I even push back on this. We had, a little dialog, leading into our conversation here. What leaders do matters, for sure. You know, I think in a lot of ways I just my opinion, it is their responsibility to set the tone. Of this, but it's not solely on their shoulders to create a psychologically safe environment.
• 30:00
  Again, this is a group thing. And it's a skill, right, that needs to be developed by everyone, not just the person sitting at the head of the table, so to speak. Yeah. That's right. And it's got you've got to have I think in a perfect world, you've got buy in from the person sitting at the head of the table, but you have everybody around the table upholding, implementing, valuing like that, where everybody's running the play and we're all on the same page.
• 30:27
  Yeah. So I think a really simple example. Imagine sitting around conference room table. We're trying to solve some particular problem. We have somebody share a suggestion. Hey, what if we did this. The point is like the the next thing that comes doesn't have to come from the leader. Yeah, right. It can come from anybody, right? Like, even if it's a question or a like, hey, I disagree.
• 30:51
  I think maybe this it can come is it can come from anybody. It may be the leader. Sure, but it's not solely their responsibility to to make sure that like in that moment, let's uphold psychological safety. Like anybody, everybody can and should sort of have a responsibility in taking part in developing that group. Because think about that project is a great example.
• 31:11
  If the leader, whether whoever that is, if he or she in that moment has to be overly focused on like refereeing the psychological safety in the room, think about what they're not focused on. Think about all the things they aren't paying attention to, right? And prioritizing right with their brains. Like that's a problem. Exactly. Again, we said it from the start.
• 31:32
  It's about just finding the best solution, solving the problem, choosing the best way forward. And everybody is responsible and just taking part in that. Yep. You know that's the point. So we should be hearing and this is why some of the research is shown in the article doesn't outline this specifically. But equality in the conversation. Yeah is really important.
• 31:55
  And this is why like this is where that shows up. Because if it's hey person you know employee X share something. And the first rebuttal has to be from the leader. And then employee Y says something. And the first rebuttal has to be from the leader. Well the leader's still dominating the conversation largely. And that's not equality in the conversation like everybody should be taking part.
• 32:18
  Speaking at the same clip. So that's kind of the point here. Yeah. That's how you people brought in all right. So I know we need to kind of move toward a close for today. Corey. I should have references earlier and I didn't, but if you want to go check out this article, it's actually, in the May issue.
• 32:33
  May June 2025 issue. Harvard Business Review. What people get wrong about psychological safety. So, go check it out. I do think you can at least preview the article. I don't have a subscription, and, but it's well worth it. Okay, so as we kind of wrap up, you know, this is this is phase one, episode one of kind of the misconceptions we'll get in, in our next discussion of kind of how you what you do with this going forward.
• 33:01
  But we really want to challenge our listeners to, reflect in and think about where you are when it comes to this concept. And the same is true for your team and your organization. And, you know, if if there's a voice in your head that's maybe kind of saying, hey, but, you know, in this kind of soft or isn't this kind of nebulous, don't listen to that voice.
• 33:22
  And we cited earlier why neither of those things are true. This is a true accelerator of performance, and the science has demonstrated that in some pretty compelling way. So I really want to challenge you to think about where are you on this? And how can your team get better. Final thoughts from your core? No. I think we'll get into more of it in the next episode.
• 33:43
  I think it's a reminder, though, that this is a skill. Yeah, it's a skill, between a group of people. So, yeah, you are dealing with different personalities and motivations, and, you know, it can be complex, but it's a skill that's going to take time and it's going to happen sort of interaction by interaction. It's not just a, switch that we flip one day and it's like, well, now we have psychological safety, you know, we've achieved it.
• 34:08
  This is going to take time to build and develop. So, have patience with it. And then we'll get into more of, I guess, kind of the roadmap forward in the next episode. But I would at least throw that out there. Awesome. As always, grateful to our listeners. Hop over to give us a review, if you can, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and we will look forward to our next conversation.
• 34:29
  Thank you.