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Why psychological safety is not a nice-to-have · Project Podcast

0:14
Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
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the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
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the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host.
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The subject of this podcast is Psychological safety and I'm
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joined by James Evans, Programme Manager at NHS Wales Joint
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Commissioning Committee, who has a deep interest in the subject
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and contributed to the forthcoming APM e-learning
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course on Psychological Safety. James is here to tell me what
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psychological safety actually is and what it isn't and the
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reasons why it's such a hot topic in project management.
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He's here to give advice on how to get started with
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psychological safety as a project manager or leader and
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how to make a success of it. Psychological safety is no
1:00
longer a nice to have. It's become a critical factor in
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managing projects successfully. So listen on to get some expert
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advice from someone who's spent years putting it into practise
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in highly complex projects. Welcome James to the APM
1:14
podcast. Thanks for finding the time to
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speak to us. No problem at all.
1:18
Thank you for having me. That's OK.
1:20
Why don't we begin by you telling us a little bit about
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your current role of responsibilities?
1:26
OK. So I'm a programme manager in
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the NHS Wales Drunk Commissioning Committee, but as
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part of my role as a programme manager I also lead the PMO,
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which for us is a portfolio management office.
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And my sort of primary responsibilities within that is
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the sort of oversight of our portfolio of work within the
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Drunk Commissioning Committee, monitoring things like
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governance. But the more important part and
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where this sort of conversation comes in is where they're to
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really enable delivery. And that is both the more hard
2:02
skills like governance, but also some of the softer skills like
2:06
psychological safety as well. And but I like to really think
2:10
that it's all about the roles, not about making projects look
2:14
good in any sort of way. It's just making sure that we
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have a real sort of transparent reality of what's going on,
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whether that's good or bad, and that's what my sort of core role
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is. I need to ask the obvious
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question, which is what is psychological safety?
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Because people might have an idea of what it is, but
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particularly when it comes to project culture, I guess it is
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to do around the culture and leadership and management of
2:37
projects. But how do you define
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psychological safety? What does it mean in the kind of
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messy world of delivering projects?
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So I suppose the the definition I was first introduced to was
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the definition that Amy Edmondson shared, which was that
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shared belief that a team is safer interpersonal risk taking.
3:00
But for me, when I was trying to work on this with my team and
3:06
introduce it to the organisation, it was actually
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came down to around 3 sort of core principles.
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And it was the ability to speak up early, the ability to
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challenge the decisions and also admit mistakes and those 3
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without any fear of any sort of repercussions or being held.
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And to a different there's, there's the difference between
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being held to account versus punished.
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And you don't want to be punished forever doing any one
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of those reactions. But I think it's also really key
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that when we talk about the definition of psychological
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safety, we talk about the definition of what it's not.
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Because sometimes it can be really easy to mix it up with
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being really nice or lowering standards or going too far.
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And actually psychological safety is never about saying yes
4:00
to everything or being overly nice.
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It's actually just creating a culture and environment where we
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can actually just challenge in a professional way.
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That's interesting, you say, because it sounds as though
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there's an art to getting it right because on the one hand
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you could be too nice, but then in contrast, like, can you be
4:19
too nasty? Can people take it kind of
4:23
permission to really, you know, be nasty?
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I mean, I'm joking, but is that actually a real does that?
4:28
Is that something that happened? Yeah, I've I've actually seen
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both ends the scale a bit. So when you've got no
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psychological safety, teams do tend to shut down, delivery
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tends to shut down and starts to fail because people are afraid
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to talk to speaker and things like risks start to become
4:49
issues. And it becomes it just spirals
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into a bit of a mess. But also going the opposite way
4:56
where teams are trying to be too supportive and too far to
5:01
enabling everyone and coming back to what we talked about
5:04
start pleasing everyone really going into that side of it.
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And you start to lose accountability because you've
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start the teams don't want to basically put any pressure on
5:15
people. So they go, oh, that's OK.
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And we, we want, you know, there's no one to blame.
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And like I said, there's a difference between blame and
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accountability. And when we're talking about
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right, something has gone wrong, right?
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Where's the accountability set with that?
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Well, it could be an individual or it could be a team.
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But what we're seeing is now is that person is accountable, but
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what we're saying is how do we actually learn from that?
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What are the lessons we're taking from that?
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But where we go to to, we don't do the lessons learned.
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We don't pick up the lessons from it.
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And actually we just sort of sweep the lens of the carpet and
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move on, which is not more supportive either.
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I did want to ask what what, what your where your interest
5:56
came from in psychological safety, but actually as well how
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it fits into the bigger picture of what you're describing, which
6:03
is about having that transparency, transparency and
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clarity when it comes to project delivery, especially complex
6:10
ones. Yeah.
6:12
So my interest in psychological safety was actually was actually
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born out of accidents if it's the best way of describing it.
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So about four, 4-5 years ago, I rose just embarking on my
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master's degree in project management, and it was coming up
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to the point where I was having to pick a dissertation topic and
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I wasn't really sure what I was going to do.
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I knew deep down that I wasn't going to touch anything around
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leadership and management or any of those soft skills.
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I was really trying to steer clear of them.
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But I happened to go to a a conference at the time which was
6:54
on patient safety in a clinical setting.
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And then there was a psychologist there who presented
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on a case study from the NHS and it was a case study around
7:07
Elaine Bromley and a clinical setting where something went
7:11
wrong in the operating theatre where no one felt safe that they
7:14
could speak up. And then the outcome was
7:17
actually quite catastrophic. And then the patient didn't make
7:21
it. And when I heard that and was
7:24
actually listening to what they were describing as clinical
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psychological safety, something just clicked.
7:29
And it then took me back to a week earlier when I was at a
7:33
project board meeting and everyone in the room knew
7:37
something was wrong with this project, but no one was coming
7:42
forward and actually saying not something's not, not right here.
7:45
There was almost like an underlying fear and tone in that
7:49
in our meeting. And it just clicked.
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Then I thought, well, actually, if they're promoting
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psychological safety so big and so around clinical settings and
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around people, why aren't we doing it in delivery as well?
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Because it's the same, same thing.
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We're delivering something, we're producing something.
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And that was the, the start of my sort of deep dive.
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And I went on to do a master's dissertation into it and really
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got interested then and how and the subtle changes that we can
8:18
make, make such a big impact. And even though the study I did
8:21
around my masters was quite small scale at the time with
8:24
just a small team and the information I started to gather
8:28
was huge. And that's only grown as time
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has gone on. And I've realised that 4-5 years
8:35
later, psychological safety seems to have become a real big
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topic area now and it's becoming bigger and bigger and project
8:43
management and it's really, really good to see.
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But yeah, that's where my interest came from.
8:50
That's really interesting. It reminds me of this is a big
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deal within the aviation industry, isn't it, with airline
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pilots and the hierarchy, strict hierarchy they used to be and
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how they needed to overcome that because people were too scared
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to speak to those senior and there was a lot of work in that.
9:08
Is that was that? Is that something you've heard
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about too? Yeah, it it was interesting that
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like from the clinical setting that's what that's this type of
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examples they use as well around the airline example.
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And it was the same the clinical that people just felt that
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because the hierarchical nature that some of the positions come
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in to where you would have consultants and then you would
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have the sort of fear to nurses. And then some of the supporting
9:36
roles that sort of come in. They just felt like, well, they
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were a lot more experienced. Like I don't want to say
9:42
something because they obviously know what they're doing and it's
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not always obvious. And so I guess it's that we need
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to just reflect on and those situations that we put ourselves
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in. And I think some sectors are
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really more prone to it than others.
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I'd love to find out from you because you've been thinking
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about this so much and putting it into practise.
10:03
What have been if If you could draw out some key principles
10:09
about how to get it right in practise, what might those be?
10:15
So you mentioned the word clarity earlier on.
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I think clarity is probably one of the key, key principles here
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and clarity around expectations, the tasks.
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So we focus a lot on roles and responsibilities when we set up
10:32
any project or programme, but around that as well, it's the
10:35
clarity of what's expected of the individuals, the teams and
10:41
the overall project and what it's trying to deliver as well.
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So everyone is in tune with that message.
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How do you actually make that happen?
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Is it sitting down individually? Is it a group meeting?
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This is This is really useful to know how you actually achieve
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that. What works?
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What doesn't work? So for us it's, it's making sure
11:03
we try to adjusting different mediums as well.
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So we want to make sure that we're asking better questions
11:09
and to try and get back clarity. So we will, we have sort of
11:14
prompt sheets as well that can be used to actually really
11:17
interrogate what we're trying to get out to this, the project,
11:21
the teams, the roles, the responsibilities.
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Some of it is stuff that you would typically expect to see
11:27
around core project roles and responsibilities.
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But what we want to do is bring everyone together and have a
11:34
discussion as well to really invite that challenge as well.
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And I've seen it from the meetings we've had in the past
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that we bring together the entire project team and
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basically say, right, this is what we're looking to deliver
11:50
over the next 24 months. The role of the data team will
11:54
be this, this, and this. And the role of the project team
11:57
will be this, this, and this. And then you sometimes would get
12:02
a discussion starting because the data team would go, oh,
12:05
well, actually that doesn't quite fit into our remit.
12:08
We need the project team to be collecting that.
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And the data team will analyse the, the information coming
12:14
through, for example. But to get those decisions
12:17
really flowing, we needed to present that information.
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And it comes back to that thing around clarity of expectations.
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And when we're presenting these roles and responsibilities,
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clearly people can actually go, yeah, that is right.
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But I appreciate as well not everyone is comfortable with
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presenting or talking in those situations.
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Or sometimes if you haven't got the psychological safety there
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to begin with, some people might be afraid to speak up.
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So the ways we start to encourage that then is giving
12:48
them other mediums. So we've used things like forms
12:53
where they submit in advance or post meetings where they come
12:56
away from the meeting, they reflect on it a little bit and
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then they can reply back and say, do you know what, I'm not
13:02
happy with this, not happy with that.
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And we might have a bit of a like post mortem later to really
13:08
just sort of analyse the results that are coming in.
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But also it's around the leadership in particular,
13:15
whether that's the leadership from the organisation or the
13:18
project leadership to be really mindful of who you've got in
13:22
your settings. So if I'm ever hosting a project
13:25
board or any type of meeting, to be honest, I'll always look out
13:31
for who's quiet and just try and ask them questions, see if they
13:36
interact. And if they don't, again, it
13:38
might be because they just don't feel comfortable thing.
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But what I'll tend to do is if someone's been and usually quiet
13:45
or haven't really interacted, I'll follow up post meeting with
13:49
them. I'll give them a one to one call
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and just check in. Was everything OK?
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Was there anything else that they wanted to add into that
13:56
space? And quite often you get quite a
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lot of information come through from them.
14:01
You're only talking about kind of leadership style, aren't you?
14:04
And being very kind of aware, I guess it's being emotionally
14:08
intelligent about the people in your team and how they best
14:11
communicate. And you're talking about even
14:14
before the project starts. So getting everyone together and
14:19
discussing all of this, which leads me to ask you about how do
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you go about establishing a culture of psychological safety?
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And I think you're already already kind of indicating that
14:31
it's you're sort of role modelling as a leader, you're
14:33
setting expectations as a project leader or project
14:37
manager. Could you, could you tell me a
14:40
bit about that? Like how, how would you go about
14:43
establishing a culture of psychological safety on a
14:45
project right from the start? Because it sounds as though
14:48
you've got to start on the right foot.
14:51
Yeah. So I think you're absolutely
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right. It it starts with leadership,
14:55
It, it definitely you can't delegate the sort of
15:00
introduction of psychological safety.
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It starts at the top and I think from a cultural level it's
15:08
really built in moments and not meetings as well and which kind
15:12
of contradicts some of the stuff I was just saying a bit, but I.
15:16
Forgive you. I forgive you.
15:18
We. Need to.
15:20
We need to like set the expectations early.
15:24
So when you again, it doesn't just have to be like your
15:28
project boards or your project meetings, but when you bring
15:31
that initial group together for any type of task, we need to be
15:36
really clear that we expect issues to be raised.
15:39
What we just want is them to be raised early and we need to
15:43
start to turn the the language around escalation.
15:47
So escalation over the years I keep hearing throughout most of
15:53
my career actually I keep hearing the term report by
15:56
exception, but to me that it has its purpose, but because it's
16:02
becoming overused, we're we're losing some of the quality
16:07
around what escalation is actually for.
16:10
Sorry, can I, could you just I'll stop you there just to ask,
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what do you mean by? Report by exception, sure.
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So report by exception, it's often we're finding it used in
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sort of project boards or governance meetings, but instead
16:26
of instead of listing everything that they want to report by,
16:30
it's usually just stuff that is glimly obvious or might be the
16:35
the highest priority stuff. So by exception, what is the top
16:38
priority things we need to report on today is where they're
16:42
bringing this in. And I think it does, it does
16:46
have a purpose, but we also see that it's degrading some of the
16:52
bits around psychological safety because you'll have people
16:56
within those meetings as well who want to report on
16:58
information, but just because it's not seen as important to
17:02
one particular personal body, they don't get to report or
17:05
escalate their information. So that escalation is not
17:09
happening and it's actually being stopped.
17:13
So that that's one of the things I'm starting to see.
17:17
And we need to be really clear when we're setting those
17:19
expectations early that we want the things like risks, issues
17:24
and even things around decision making to be escalated early
17:28
when they need to be so that there's no sort of punishment
17:31
around it either. And also, I guess you have to
17:34
convey the ideas that the earlier you escalate something,
17:42
the perhaps easier it is to solve or to deal with quickly
17:46
and efficiently rather than something that's been festering
17:49
and kept unspoken for a long time because you might not then
17:53
have a chance to rectify all all come together as a team to sort
17:57
of improve things. Yeah, absolutely.
18:01
The, and that's the one of the core messages we tried to pull
18:05
out there. And the even before like
18:07
psychological safety, that was one of the messages we would
18:11
always have around risk management.
18:13
And issue management is let's address the risks and the issues
18:17
as early as possible, get them escalated because the earlier we
18:21
can tackle them, the more chance we have of mitigating them and
18:26
reducing the impact of the issues if they have actually
18:29
happened. And and I think it's given the
18:33
forum spaces for this to happen as well.
18:36
So to create that culture of psychological safety, you've got
18:40
to have the, the right spaces for it to, to grow.
18:43
And, and too often we see stuff being quite rigid with
18:49
governance being established. But actually, we just need to
18:53
make sure that we're having things like regular check
18:55
insurance that we are revisiting conversations.
18:59
So as as I previously mentioned that if you notice someone's
19:03
been quiet or you noticed someone might have become
19:06
visibly frustrated or you know, emotional within the meeting
19:12
because of a point they were trying to cover, go and like
19:16
cover it off with them following the meeting and encourage those
19:19
open conversations. Especially where we're in this
19:22
day and age now where remote working is becoming, well, it's
19:26
increased massively and it's only getting bigger.
19:29
And with more virtual presence and AI coming into it as well,
19:34
we need to start encouraging those water cooler type
19:37
conversations again, where in the office you would go up and
19:41
have those more, right? Do you know what?
19:43
I got a bit of a concern. My gut's telling me this.
19:46
And people would feel more comfortable raising those
19:48
conversations virtually. I think it's almost the fear of
19:52
dialling the button and ringing someone to actually have that
19:55
conversation now because it's a, it's a, it's another barrier in
20:00
between two people. Yeah, you have to work hard.
20:02
Is that, do you get around that by just how do you recreate
20:07
those water cooler moments virtually?
20:10
Is it just by giving someone a ring?
20:16
I think that's probably the one thing we're still, still trying
20:20
to find the answer to ourselves. There's, there's some things we
20:23
found that have worked and putting deliberate time in
20:27
whether it be with individuals or teams.
20:29
And from a typical sort of leadership management point of
20:33
view, you're going to be doing your sort of 1 to ones and your,
20:37
your line management conversations where they need to
20:40
be. But for us, we've tried to,
20:43
we've tried everything. We've done virtual water cooler
20:45
type meetings. We're just like grab a coffee
20:50
and that and then just come on for a call and just check how
20:52
everyone is. And we've tried to do daily
20:55
stand ups where it's less about project delivery in the
20:59
mornings, but it's more about just a well-being check in and
21:04
seeing if there is any big barriers that they want to talk
21:06
through at that point. It sounds as though it's it's
21:11
not necessarily about the formal process.
21:13
It's about finding common, sensical, informal ways of
21:18
allowing people to communicate sort of freely, more openly.
21:22
Yeah. Absolutely.
21:24
I guess it's about having in an office you would if you did have
21:27
an office or your own office. It's that open door policy isn't
21:30
it? Like, but it's trying to
21:32
recreate that online. Thank you.
21:35
Were there were there any other points of advice you'd give
21:38
around establishing a culture of psychological safety that you've
21:42
learnt by by actually doing it over the past few years?
21:47
I think if anything, the last point you made then around that
21:51
sort of open door policy, it is making sure that it's really
21:56
clear when you are working with your team that they understand
22:01
that anything, anything that's going wrong or anything that
22:05
they need to talk to about, there is a, there is a clear
22:10
process, but a clear path. And they've got clear points of
22:13
contact for people they can just go and talk to about these
22:17
problems. And as I say, everything is seen
22:21
as a learning opportunity, not as a punishment opportunity.
22:27
And that's, that's one of the things we really try to heavily
22:30
promote is that yes, people will get frustrated, things will go
22:34
wrong. There is no such thing as a
22:36
perfect project. And you can always guarantee in
22:41
almost every project there will be something that goes wrong.
22:44
But what we need to do is just learn from that.
22:47
And psychological safety really comes into that.
22:49
But the more learning actually comes from the projects that
22:52
have the greatest psychological safety.
22:55
That's a really good point and whilst I'm talking to you, I'm
22:58
wondering do you have any advice to people who are managing a
23:01
project, managing others, about how do you then deal with the
23:07
situation? If someone comes to you and says
23:09
like I'm concerned about this, what is the best way to handle
23:13
that that you've you should learn?
23:16
And so for me, I've, I think it's some of it sounds almost a
23:20
bit, a bit too simple. But the, the first part is
23:25
whenever anyone has come to me with any sort of problem and you
23:30
want to thank them. Like first of all, because
23:33
especially the ones who are not very confident or you can tell
23:37
there's actually being a bit of fear of it is thanking them for
23:40
coming forward and sharing the concerns and start talking to
23:45
them about, right, OK, you've brought me brought me this.
23:49
How do you think we can solve it?
23:51
And where do you think we go with this?
23:53
And they start to have a think about it then and they start
23:55
talking to her about it and go, great, this is brilliant.
23:58
Now, if it's the type of thing you think they can actually give
24:01
it back to them, take, let them take ownership of it and say,
24:04
right, go and then explore these options.
24:08
Come back to, to me or come back to, you know, at the project
24:11
board. We'll get you to, to talk
24:13
through this in a bit more detail now with the, the
24:15
solution you've come in and I've got your back in our meeting.
24:18
So if anything, you know, I'll step in and, you know, jump in
24:23
where needed. If anyone does start to cause
24:26
any tension when needed, they know that they've got your back
24:29
in them. Full support.
24:31
That's probably the more like straightforward example I could
24:35
give on that. No, it sounds, it might, might
24:37
sound obvious to you, but I mean, if, if you you've never,
24:40
if you want to be more like this, there's some basics you
24:43
need to get right. And I think yes, that's right.
24:45
It's acknowledging that it must have been hard for that person
24:48
to come and tell you these things.
24:50
If, if they're fearful of the repercussions or I mean, one of
24:55
the questions I was going to ask you is that how, how common
24:57
psychological safety is across projects.
24:59
I know you're you're within the NHS and I don't know what the
25:03
culture is like where you are, but it sounds, you know, I mean,
25:07
for you to be doing all of this stuff, it sounds very positive.
25:10
But I imagine there are many project teams where it's still
25:14
very much a blame game. But like, how do you judge
25:19
things are generally? Are we do you feel as though
25:22
people have seen the light when it comes to psychological
25:24
safety? Or do you sort of think it's a
25:27
bit of a battle that the challenge what you know, what
25:30
are the challenges to establishing psychological
25:32
safety? Is it seen as a fluffy soft
25:35
thing? I think there's there's a risk
25:39
that it's seen as a fluffy soft thing.
25:42
And whilst I was doing part of my master's research and I was
25:47
having conversations about a year ago as well on the topic,
25:53
it was really clear then that people were seeing it as a bit
25:57
of a soft, soft issue and seeing it as always nice to have.
26:02
It's not something we can really waste company resources on.
26:05
And in fact, more recently I was with another organisation and
26:11
saw saw that first hand that the room was almost divided.
26:14
You had half of the room that were very pro psychological
26:18
safety and you could tell that they'd done their research on
26:21
it. But there was a minority within
26:24
the room that just didn't seem to really connect with it or
26:27
engage. And there was you could almost
26:30
sense the the reluctance to buy into it.
26:33
And then I was quite interested to try and explore that a bit
26:37
more. So as some of the questions I
26:39
was asking about what it was and what it was and I think and the
26:43
ones who were seen it as a fluffy type subject, the I was
26:48
getting a lot of well, you know, we can't please everyone.
26:53
We can't just keep doing this and doing that because it means
26:56
we can't operate as they as an organisation or a business.
26:59
It's catch. And I was like, well, actually
27:01
then it's not being done correctly.
27:04
It what we were talking about earlier.
27:06
You've got the two far, one side too far, the other side sounds
27:10
like the balance is shifting like either too soft or too too
27:14
harsh. You need to try and get it
27:16
somewhere in the middle. And so within projects.
27:20
And I am seeing a greater focus on psychological safety.
27:25
And as you mentioned my backing from the NHS, it's been there
27:30
for a while, psychological safety.
27:32
But when I first started, it's mostly been more in the clinical
27:36
settings. I think it's only now that it
27:39
seems to be transitioning across to other areas of the NHS and
27:43
delivery and sort of team working and it's, it's now that
27:50
I don't think it was always called psychological safety when
27:53
they were referring to it in that space.
27:55
It was something else. What was it called?
27:58
What was it? Tied up in the whole sort of
28:02
well-being agenda and focusing on well-being.
28:04
I suppose there is a lot of connections in that space and it
28:08
does promote a thing around well-being.
28:12
But I saw an article actually on the weekends about the
28:18
difference between psychological safety and psychosocial safety.
28:23
And psychosocial safety is more around the sort of well-being
28:28
agenda and focusing on that aspect of it, where
28:31
psychological safety is the cultural and creating an
28:35
environment where you can actually be safe.
28:37
It's two very different areas. I thought that was quite a nice
28:41
little contrast that it's a. Good distinction to make.
28:47
Well, why don't we? Why don't we make a comeback
28:50
against all those naysayers who just see it as a fluffy thing?
28:53
So what to spell out the obvious?
28:55
What benefits, what's what advantages does psychological
28:59
safety, if it's done in the right way, bring to a project
29:03
team and to the delivery and outcomes of a project?
29:07
So I think there's there's loads that psychological safety does
29:13
bring really for me, one of the the early parts of just
29:18
introducing very minimal psychological safetyings for a
29:21
team that didn't have any at the time.
29:24
We just started to identify risks and issues so much earlier
29:30
and we were able to resolve them so much quicker as well.
29:33
And I don't mean resolve as in we had the answer to basically
29:37
mitigate them, but we're actually able to come up with
29:40
some sort of mitigation plans. And we went from a raid log at
29:46
the time that had very little on there.
29:51
So actually people were were stepping up and you know, we
29:54
couldn't get enough on there to be honest, where people came up
29:57
with the different bits, which is another problem to have.
30:00
But it was great to see people actually come in with it.
30:03
But with that, it led to much better decision making.
30:08
So we had less group think. We had less of the sort of
30:12
nodding the heads on teams calls.
30:13
We had more people actually talking, discussing the points.
30:19
And you know that you had an actual everyone was on point
30:24
with it. Everyone agreed.
30:26
People weren't just nodding along and going with it because
30:29
they were afraid to challenge it.
30:30
We were actually starting to see real, real discussion and the
30:34
decision then made sense and we know that people were bought
30:38
into the idea, which then meant more engaged teams.
30:43
So these benefits, having a more engaged team that can do quicker
30:49
decision making, better quality decision making, and that's able
30:53
to identify risks and issues much faster and more accurately.
30:58
This all basically comes to your projects just work more
31:02
streamlined, they work smoother, accuracy goes up, quality goes
31:08
up and in the end of it, people are actually really proud of
31:12
what they do and come away happier and they want to put in
31:16
that extra 10% effort to actually deliver something
31:20
they're proud of that's. Brilliant.
31:22
When when you introduce psychological safety where you
31:25
can imagine if you're trying to do it in an organisation that
31:29
perhaps isn't used to it. What what are the teething
31:33
troubles? It was interesting what you just
31:35
said, like people identifying so many risks and so many.
31:39
Is there a way do you need to be?
31:41
Do you need to establish some parameters of what is
31:43
problematic and what isn't? What do you need to know about
31:46
what what you don't need to know about?
31:48
And is there some correlation then to the people knowing what
31:55
power they have over decision making?
31:57
So who owns the decision making as well?
32:01
Is that a hand in hand thing with psychological safety?
32:05
Yeah, I think it comes back to that, the clarity aspect of it
32:10
and understanding what your role is in the in the bigger system
32:15
of that project. But just because you may not
32:19
have the final decision making authority, you do have the you
32:24
do have your individual decision making ability and you do have
32:29
the your individual discussion ability as well.
32:35
So it doesn't matter what Saturn you're in, if you don't feel
32:39
you're confident or have the ability to raise an objection or
32:45
discuss, then why are you in the meeting in the 1st place?
32:49
Because if you're not actually able to get any points across,
32:53
and this is what historically I would start, I saw a lot of in
32:57
meetings, which you would have meeting people in meetings who
33:00
were silent all the way through in every single meeting.
33:04
And you could just tell that something wasn't wasn't right
33:07
there. And it's not to be horrible
33:10
saying no, what's the point in them being in this meeting?
33:12
We either need to change the meeting to make it more
33:15
inclusive of everyone who sat there and not just have the
33:18
loudest voices talking all the time.
33:21
Because actually some of the quietest voices, they tend to be
33:25
the reflectors in the rooms. They tend to be the more
33:29
analytical ones. And they actually had a lot of
33:32
valuable information that the decision makers need to have to,
33:37
to make those informed decisions.
33:39
But if they can't speak up or don't have it, then that's the
33:43
problem. So you need to really get that
33:46
out of them. So you either change the meeting
33:48
to suit or you pull them out to the meeting and get the
33:51
information in another way. But for me, I think it's more
33:54
about getting them included in the meeting.
33:56
And, and there's a couple of different ways to to go about
33:59
doing that. Some we talked about earlier.
34:01
Some can be as simple as just making sure that everyone has a
34:05
bit of time on that meeting to, to raise anything they want to.
34:10
One of the most powerful things I've actually seen is where
34:14
possible and don't cheer the meeting yourself, Give it to the
34:19
quietest person in the room or rotate the chair around because
34:23
someone who is naturally introverted, so I'm naturally an
34:27
introvert myself. I can remember in some of my
34:31
early days, especially in the project sector, I was terrified
34:35
going into project board meetings.
34:37
I can remember just being that shaky mess, not, you know, but
34:41
wanting to say something couldn't do it.
34:44
And actually thinking back on it, some of those meetings did
34:48
have quite low psychological safety, but something changed.
34:52
Then in one of the meetings I went to where they did start
34:55
this rotate rotating chair type thing.
34:57
And the chair was given to me for the one meeting.
35:00
And it gives you the ability because it's the chair.
35:03
Yes, you would have your standard agenda, but it also
35:05
gives you the ability to to add anything else you want in and if
35:10
you're on the point and talking. So like you've asked me this
35:12
question, I can Chuck something else in because I'm I've got the
35:17
mic at that point and it's the same in that meeting set.
35:20
And so it actually gives more chance to the quieter ones to
35:24
speak out and it improves our psychological safety in those
35:28
settings. That's really good advice.
35:32
What advice would you give to to project manager or leader who
35:40
might feel hesitant about approaching a or trying to
35:46
create a project culture that is psychologically safe?
35:50
Because is there a fear that you might open the door to something
35:54
that you don't necessarily want to hear or that it's going to
35:58
create a load of problems to stack up for you to deal with?
36:02
I can appreciate that it must be a little bit daunting if if, if
36:06
perhaps you want to do this well and properly and you're just
36:10
saying, I just want to hear it all, all the bad stuff that's
36:12
happening. What advice would you give to
36:17
people who are feeling a little scared, a little wary of it?
36:21
Yeah, I think it's don't do it all at once because you would
36:27
never survive if if you did open a place women all it's it's
36:33
finding a small, small iterative changes you can bring in and
36:39
just see how they start to land. So.
36:41
Could you give some, could you give some of the examples of
36:44
that? Because that sounds great.
36:46
Yeah, so it it could be as simple as just starting to focus
36:52
on yourself more than the overarching organisational
36:55
project. So have a look at how when
36:59
something goes wrong, for example, so be that sort of like
37:08
shining an example that you're admitting your own mistakes and
37:12
being quite transparent about it.
37:14
So in the project board, owning up to the mistakes, but being
37:20
this is the lesson we're going to learn from it as well.
37:22
So showing that there's nothing wrong with actually being wrong
37:26
actually sets a massive example and you'll find the teams will
37:29
start to to follow that example as you go as well.
37:32
That's like one of the quick things you could do that doesn't
37:36
actually open the floodgates because it's more about your own
37:38
internal behaviours. But start to some of the bits
37:44
we've mentioned throughout. I would also look at reviewing
37:49
your project teams, reviewing the teams in the organisations.
37:52
Start to look where the quieter voices are who who to hear from
37:56
the least in the in the meetings.
38:00
See if you can work out why. Maybe introduce the odds extra 1
38:05
to one pick up after them following the the meetings as
38:09
well. See if you start to gather that
38:11
information that way. Because you're not again.
38:13
Yep, you're almost doing it by silos at this point.
38:16
You're not completely opening those floodgates, but you want
38:21
to really reward, start rewarding transparency in your
38:24
processes. However you do that.
38:27
Sometimes it's just a simple thank you.
38:30
Sometimes it's through the notes and everything you send out
38:35
following the meeting. And we're not just rewarding or
38:39
celebrating success here. We're actually celebrating the
38:43
stuff that's gone wrong, which sounds really like backwards.
38:47
So this has gone wrong. Great news.
38:49
We've picked it up early and Joe Bloggs is going to do a great
38:55
job now in mitigating this and going forward.
38:59
It's celebrating the third, the thing that's gone wrong instead
39:02
of actually permishing it. And for me, one of the greatest
39:08
things I think they could do is actually make reflection time
39:14
part of the norm. And this is where you are
39:17
starting to open it up a bit. But we're all, we can all lose
39:22
focus. Well, we can all hyper focus, I
39:24
suppose more than anything and get really stuck into things,
39:28
but not actually spend any time reflecting on is everything
39:33
working? Has that project gone OK?
39:35
And focusing on the softer sides of the skills, not just the yes,
39:41
they did deliver on time, quality, cost, and the sort of
39:44
iron triangle. Some was starting to think more
39:47
about what's if we were to develop a sort of human
39:52
triangle, what would that human triangle be?
39:55
And I imagine one of those points on that triangle would
39:58
probably be psychological safety.
40:00
One of them might be something like well-being and the other
40:03
one might be culture. And I think those 3 might be the
40:06
things that interlinked together.
40:09
And there as as important as the other more traditional three
40:14
points are. So in terms of delivering a
40:17
project successfully, that's that's pretty.
40:22
I would like to talk to you for another hour, but I'm afraid
40:24
it's time to wrap up. Have you got any takeaways that
40:27
you'd like to give to people about psychological safety and
40:31
getting it right? I think for me that one of the
40:36
biggest takeaways is that it's not a nice to have.
40:40
It's actually a real delivery enabler.
40:42
And I think going forward in this really sort of uncertain
40:46
world as well, it's only going to become more important and
40:52
more key in the way that we deliver projects going forward.
40:56
Thanks, James. That was so fascinating to get a
40:59
proper understanding of what psychological safety is and why
41:02
it matters and how you can go about doing it.
41:05
So I just want to thank you again for joining us on the APM
41:07
podcast. No problem at all.
41:10
Thank you again for having me, we really enjoyed that.
41:13
Thanks again to James for joining us and to you for
41:15
listening to the APM Podcast. If you're interested in finding
41:18
out more about psychological safety, including accessing the
41:22
new APM Learning module, which is available to APM members,
41:26
please go to theresourcesareaoftheapmwebsite@apm.org.uk/resources
41:32
slash APM Hyphen Learning. Don't forget to look out for
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