In this episode, we examine what it looks and feels like when a workplace has counterfeited psychological safety, or to put it another way, has made some of the easy steps to merely create the illusion of psychological safety.
Our prescription for this episode: understand the red flags for counterfeit psychological safety, and take the time to learn, measure, and effectively engrain psychological safety into your workplace is you really want to reap the benefits of it.
You can reach out to us to talk more about psychological safety at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
In this episode, we examine what it looks and feels like when a workplace has counterfeited psychological safety, or to put it another way, has made some of the easy steps to merely create the illusion of psychological safety.
Our prescription for this episode: understand the red flags for counterfeit psychological safety, and take the time to learn, measure, and effectively engrain psychological safety into your workplace is you really want to reap the benefits of it.
You can reach out to us to talk more about psychological safety at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby. He's James. So let's get started with a question. What happens when businesses counterfeit psychological safety?
[JAMES]:Yeah, counterfeit, psychological safety is an odd term. But unfortunately, I think it's what many workplaces have inadvertently implemented. They have these great value systems around promoting open and honest conversations, they tell you they seek out questions, they seek out feedback from their employees. and the fact that their environment is safe for people to speak up, safe for people to share their concerns, to ask questions or even to the extent of, you know, we want you to, you can question the decisions as long as you do so in a respectful manner, right? These are really great value statements around psychological safety. The problem is where counterfeiting fits in is when psychological safety is put to the test doesn't actually hold up to scrutiny. So there's a few things today that I had a few topics that I would like to, kind of touch on and it's what doesn't qualify or isn't protected under psychological safety. What are some warning signs of counterfeit psychological safety? What happens when psychological safety is fake? And what happens when psychological safety is broken?
[COBY]:Yeah, I think that you're right. I mean, like the idea of counterfeit psychological safety it's a bit of an odd term but I think it is a good articulation of what happens when organizations, you know, want it or want the benefits or the effect or the reputation of it. But they either don't really understand it. They don't know how to effectively, kind of ingrained in their workplace or they, are not really, you know, putting the effort in that's needed in order to make it an actual part of their culture. And, you know, like we, a lot of conversations we have, around psychological safety have really picked up. I mean, you know, largely thanks to the work of, Doctor Amy Edmondson who kind of coined the term and she's been on this mission to put that out there, you know, left, right and center. But I mean, I think that the shift, that this is important and this is something that businesses need to have to kind of be successful with the future of work. And, you know, and in this world that we find ourselves in. And this is an essential component to it. So a lot of organizations are trying to create, are trying to leverage it or create it or build, build their business around it. But often I think that kind of falls into the trap of they don't fully get it or they think it's a lot more shallow than it actually is and or they just don't have necessarily the leadership or management skills in order for it to kind of live and breathe in the organization every day. But I do think it's really important to first, like you say, kind of talk about what it isn't or what doesn't fall under it because there is some kind of misconceptions around that.
[JAMES]:Well, there is, and I truly believe that 99% of the time it is implemented and these statements are created with good intentions, they are earnest like we want, we understand now that this is important. So this is what our company wants to do moving forward, right? You're right. The conversation around psychological safety has the popularity of the term has exploded and there's now a good amount of data and research that will show that when you have psychological safety in your workplace or that teams with psychological safety will outperform, they will do better, they will make fewer mistakes. They like there are a lot of really good research into psychological safety now. So people are starting to understand that. Oh, well, this isn't just a nice to have, this isn't just about creating a, you know, warm and fuzzy happy, work environment. There's, there's actual true value here. So let's figure out how to do this. Yeah. But it's, I think you're right that people don't truly understand what that term means and they don't define it within their organization.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I mean, because, like, what psychological safety, what doesn't fall under the protection or fall within the scope of a culture that really embodies psychological safety are things like, you know, harassment. You can't, you know, say whatever you feel like to anybody at any time. Right. You know, the unprofessional behavior can't be shrugged off as psychological safety. So I could say whatever I feel like" those do not qualify under it because really a good way to think about it. If you're unclear about kind of where the parameters of it are, is that any behavior, comments or really anything that robs people of their mental or emotional safety does not qualify under psychological safety, right? If you're taking it from others, you definitely are not providing it in the workplace.
[JAMES]:Absolutely. I mean, it's, we're talking about rights in the workplace and whether you're talking about rights in the workplace or rights in society, my rights, your rights and exactly end where somebody else's begins. I don't have the right to take the rights from somebody else. Right.
[COBY]:Yes. And psychological safety is not a blank check. That you can say whatever you want whenever you want to, whomever you want.
[JAMES]:Which is odd because it's, it's funny because the first time that the idea of harassment came up around psychological safety, my response was, well, yeah, like that's why are we talking about harassment and psychological safety? Isn't that just absolutely obvious? But, I remember where it came up with in one of our programs, talking with, in one of our training programs with a participant and how the understanding of some of the employees was. Well, we have psychological safety so I can just say whatever I want whenever I want. You're right that we, we should not have to qualify that harassment is not protected under psychological safety. But unfortunately, we have to qualify that harassment just is not protected under psychological safety people.
[COBY:Yeah, because really what it is, it's about encouraging professional discourse. It's about allowing people to ask questions to better their understanding and to bring more to the tablein their work and their, and it's allowing people the ability to seek support when they need it and to be able to kind of share their thoughts, feedback ideas without, you know, without fear of being, you know, persecuted, without fears of being, you know, ridiculed. And it's really about bringing forward the stuff you need to provide your best work and advocate for what they need the way that they need it or what they believe to be the right path for the company.
[JAMES]:Can people advocate for that in a way that is professionally, like professional ethics always play a role in this. But can we do that and have a conversation where we disagree with somebody? But at the end of the day, we don't hate a person that we disagree with, right?
[COBY]:Or we don't like, you know, use that confrontation as justification for a, you know, like for a vendetta or you know, you know what I mean? Yeah, like one of the ways. So, again, we have, we do training around psychological safety. We have diagnostic tools to help understand, investigate and really find the level that actually exists in the workplace and everything like that. And two of the categories that we often talk about are the locations that the trust and psychological safety have to be in, the two areas we talk about are The Disputes. So things like, you know, conflict or discourse or you know, anything where it's more of like personal or professional inter you know, all that kind of stuff like that and then around The Advocacies. So The Disputes and The Advocacies, The Advocacies are about advocating for accommodations, advocating for you have a new idea or a new perspective. So do you have the ability in your workplace, in your culture, is it ingrained in the workplace. And in your culture, people can have disputes and have advocacies that are protected by psychological safety. And that a sense of trust is there that what will be taken will be taken professionally and will be, you know, not held against them at a future date? But I think that, you know, that definition, if you're hearing this for the first time, then you might not be, you might be wondering, well, what does it look like in my workplace? Has my workplace define it. And if you are thinking to yourself well, is psychological safety counterfeit or does it exist in my workplace, if you're unsure what it is and it's not really defined in policies or in common conversations, then how do you know if you have it? Right. That's really a red flag. If you don't know how to define it, then you don't know if you have it.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I mean, I like the idea of, you know, what are some, red flags around psychological safety? And again, these are, I still 100% believe that this is largely, done with good intention, but it's just we are implementing things that we don't fully understand. And so if you, you can't fully understand something, if you haven't defined it, I think that is an excellent, first flag to identify. I think the other one of the other big red flags that you can look for to see whether or not psychological safety really exists is if your company is constantly asking or encouraging you to provide feedback, but nothing ever comes from it. That to me is a good indication that something's off, right? If somebody, if there's psychological safety, if we, if we truly value what the feedback that our employees are giving us, then we have to do something with that feedback. We may not course correct. We may not change the direction of the company based on the feedback that we receive, because not all feedback, just because you've given feedback doesn't mean that the company is automatically going to incorporate it and change what they're doing. But have they received it? Have they acknowledged it? Have they told you that, you know what? Thank you for giving for sharing your feedback with us? We've decided not to incorporate it. And here's why that promotes psychological safety because it reinforces that we said we wanted your feedback, we have heard your feedback, we, and we here's what we've done or not done with it, right. Yeah. It means that trust.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I mean, like, you know, like, because I mean, it's as simple as like, you know, if you work for, for an organization, like let's say you and that it runs off like, you know, like, sign in and and time sheets. And if like, you know, if a bunch of a bunch of the employees have concerns or they really think that things could be done better with their time sheets, then they, you know, and they are encouraged to share the feedback. So they share that with, with management if management goes. Ok, thank you for your feedback and then nothing ever happens. No comments are ever taken. That's a red flag that you may not have psychological safety. But if the workplace says, you know what we considered your feedback, we're unfortunately, we're not gonna change to recommendations because of our system doesn't allow it. It would actually create more complication pieces. It would slow down pay schedules, those types of things you've heard and addressed it. You just didn't hear it and, and ignore it. It's like, you know, like having a suggestion box that feeds right into the shredder, right? Like, you know, you're trying to do something with, with it because again, if one of the things and I think we'll move on to what happens, what I say is fake because it kind of plays into this nicely is that if nothing ever comes from employees feedback, it's because you're often providing the process of feedback collection is just lip service. If we don't really want you to, to have opinions or say anything or challenge us or give us new ideas, we just want you to think that we want you to share ideas and with us, right? And that's kind of what it, you know, a real red flag for when psychological safety is counterfeit because many organizations really want the psychological safety or the reputation or the benefits of the psychological safety, but they don't want to put in the work to have the real version of it. So what they do is they use a cheap knockoff that looks like the real, so like psychological safety from a distance but will not hold up under pressure.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I love the whole suggestion box fading into the shredder because that's what it feels like sometimes. Right? It's performative. It's, you know, we're not, we know that you're opinionated. So we're gonna give you a chance to share your opinions, but it's so that you can write them down somewhere else and I don't have to listen to it. Right. That, that's essentially what it feels like. And it really creates this, when the thin veneer of psychological safety is lifted, it creates a lot of, distrust, a lot of animosity, a lot of frustration with people of, oh, well, you don't actually care about me. You just wanted to shut me up for five minutes.
[COBY]:Yeah. And one of the, I think, like, shifts to psychological safety and I, I actually think that this might actually be people honestly trying their best and just doing it wrong is what one of the big things that, that it's presented as kind of publicly or what the common understanding of it is is that when people talk to you, you know, in meetings or one on one that you listen with, you know, and, and you don't shut them down, you accept what, what they have to say, and you encourage them to, to say more. But what a lot of organizations have done is they've maybe done that part but then they behind closed doors kind of use that against them. They you know, like, like, or say bad man, this person is a real troublemaker or jeez, this person is really unhappy with their job here or, you know, they use it to silently judge them after putting on that thin veneer in front of people because they know that's not OK to shup them down in front of people. That's our psychological safety. We want psychological safety. So we listen with a smile on our face but then when you leave,
[JAMES]:We talk about you behind your back.
[COBY]:Yeah. Yeah. And again, I don't think it, it's as conscious of putting on a fake smile until they leave, but I, I think it's a matter of them again wanting it, encouraging it but not being ready for it. Right. They want the real version but they still look for the cheap knockoff because the real version takes time effort and they're more expensive to actually create that organizational shift and change to really do it. Right. So, they figure, well, I'm sure no one's gonna notice if we have a cheap knockoff. so we'll just go ahead with that. But trust me, people notice.
[JAMES]:People notice. Yeah. No, that's that. Yeah, I like, that's why I like, I, I love and hate this language around counterfeit psychological safety because I think it is such a descriptive term that it and it really does a good job of illustrating the challenges that we are facing when trying to talk about psychological safety. Oh yeah, we have psychological safety. It's this knockoff designer handbag. So like it's unfortunate that we are even having to talk about it because psychological safety is such a foundational piece in if we want to move up The Hierarchy around developing a workplace culture where people actually feel that they belong and can pro you with their best work. Psychological safety is essential to that people cannot feel like they belong to an organization if they or to a group, if they don't feel safe with that group, safe to show some level of vulnerability, safe to speak up, safe to share their opinions. So it it's really a critical part that we need to get right. And that, so what happens when it goes wrong? I guess is the question.
[COBY]:Yeah. Well, and I mean, like the idea around it being this performative, aspect of psychological safety. Like it, you know, it lures people into a false sense of security. They think they have it, they believe that it's there. They see the knockoff handbag from a distance and go, wow, that's the genuine article as far as I know. But the, and, but then they become to rely on it. And this is where the problem comes is that when you say you have it, people rely on it, then when you, then when they realize it's not there, you've pulled the rug out from underneath them. And it kind of reminds me of a bit of a story. So, in our last episode, at the end of 2023 we talked about kind of like, you know, we saw a bunch of like layoffs and people leaving positions, kind of like, you know, high level positions in different organizations. And, so I had a chance to, to grab coffee with, with, with a, with a former colleague who was in this situation, worked at a high level position for this, this really great organization that has this amazing reputation of being this, you know, super impactful and great place to work sort of thing. And she was in a high level position there. And, she kind of told me the story of how she left. And it shocked me because what it was was, you know, she's a kind of person that, you know, she is very analytical thinking, very, very big picture focused at the same time. So she's really good at kind of helping, kind of see how, you know, where plans might go awry or really get a challenging assumptions and ideas to help, kind of get to the heart of it. She's a very great, she's, she's really not a real knack for it. And that's part of what makes her a great employee. And when she was talking about, when she started working for this organization, this was one of the things that they wanted from her was they wanted someone to help, you know, really make sure that they had sure footing and they were really strong when they, as they move things forward. So this idea of her, you know, challenging ideas asking questions, you know, was really kind of what they were looking for in this department that she was that she was leading. And so, and so just the way that she, that became kind of one of her things, but she always, you know, had solutions to kind of recommend when she asked questions or she challenged ideas. and then she was kind of unceremoniously just ki of let go and she was just like, she was shocked. And, and they said, well, you know, over the, over the years you've been here you know, seem to challenge what we're doing a lot and, and you, and, and so you must not be happy with how we do things. So maybe this audition isn't the right fit for you was kind of like almost like what she kind of was saying to me that I said to her, I'm not sure how close that was the actual language, but that was really what she heard was that because she was asking questions because she was, you know, providing recommendations and changes that in, you know, that they were not happy that, that she wasn't happy there. And they, you know, so they're holding what she was saying against her over all this time. And she's like, well, you asked, you know, you wanted me to give my feedback or share my or ask my questions and any kind of any kind of, you know, challenge these ideas have this kind of discourse. And they were like, no, we, we encourage all kinds of feedback but clearly you're not happy with, with our decisions. And she was just like, well, no, I just and she, she, she was just dumbfounded, she was saying, and she said that she was kind of still in shock, you know after we met, like, you know, after, after a while after this happened, and it was the idea of, she thought she had psychological safety, she thought it was real. They said all the right things they made her feel, you know, they thanked her when she would ask questions in meetings and then, but they were quietly holding it against her and building a termination file.
[JAMES]:They were tallying her questions or her concerns, as she was raising them, I mean, it's, it's a terrible situation that this person had to go through. because it feels like a betrayal. Right. When you have an organization, especially an organization that has a really solid reputation in the community, the communities that they serve, they are well known, well respected and they promote this idea of, equality and psychological safety,
[COBY]:Progressive, freethinking that whole thing.
[JAMES]:You've hired somebody who is very driven by, they need to understand why they don't need, like just telling them what to do isn't good enough. They need to understand the why? So they challenge that they, until they can stand behind, why are we doing this the way we're doing it? Just what, you know, we've always done it this way is never a good enough answer to then turn around and say, well, because you've been challenging or asking all of these questions or, you know, it really seems like you're just not happy here at the organization. So thank you for your years of service. And the, you know, we value your feedback, but we're going to let you go because we're making assumptions that doing exactly what we asked you to do means that you're unhappy.
[COBY]:Yeah, because like, I mean, she got the idea that we're happy to take your feedback as long as your feedback is that we are doing great. And, I mean, the thing is that I don't think, you know, that this organization was two faced. I don't think that they were like, you know, really try to get her. I really think that they were like, you know, what, we need to listen to our people. We need to do all these things. We need to provide, like, collect people, we need to encourage people to challenge us. They knew what they needed to do, but they didn't know what they needed to do with it. They didn't know what infrastructure had to be in place in their culture, in their strategy to account for it. Because really, I think this was, they put the suggestion box over the shredder, right? But, you know, by accident because they, they, they didn't know what else to do with it. And this is why we talk about real psychological safety has to be ingrained into the culture and into the way that leaders lead because like, again, a good leader and a good leader and a good manager is about trying to get the best of the people that report to them. And one of the ways that you do that is by letting them bring as their thoughts, ideas, you know, opinions, you know, requests forward so that you can, you know, so they can tell you how to do how they can provide the best work. But all so that, you know, you need someone to, you, you need a diversity of perspectives. If you really want to innovate, if you really wanna grow, if you really want to, you know, be competitive in this world, you have to allow for different perspectives, different views, different ideas, to be, to be part of your decision making process. And if you don't have the infrastructure in place, if you don't know what it means to have leaders who can really actually use psychological safety as well as, you know, provide it, then you're really not, then you're really creating counterfeit psychological safety.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it's really unfortunate because, I mean, I mean, it's often unfortunate when somebody loses their job, right? Like there's, there's a whole lot of things that go along with that. It's frustrating for me knowing the organization, knowing this person, knowing that I, you're right. I do think that they were well intentioned. I, we know this organization and the reputation and some of the players there and they are good people. Yeah, authentic people who want to do what's best. But psychological safety needs to be descriptive. It needs to, if you cannot define it, if you cannot describe it, if you cannot articulate it in a way of not just we want your feedback, but what does this actually mean for our organization? That is a problem because it's not a loose term, it's not just listening to people's feedback, it's creating a sense, you're building trust, right? And I think this is what leads really nicely into that. Last point is what happens when psychological safety is broken, right? And unfortunately, when it's broken, you've broken a trust, psychological safety at its essence, if you want to boil it down in a terrible term, but it's a pinky swear that I as a manager am not going to use what you tell me against you. Right? And psychological safety exists until that manager breaks the trust, or the organization breaks the trust. So how do you, what happens? How do you get that back? Well, it's like any relationship, whether we're talking a professional relationship, employee/employer, you know, colleague, business partner, or we're talking about a personal relationship between friends or romantic relationship. When trust is broken, the only way to start to resolve that, to try to build that back is that you need to acknowledge that the trust has been broken, right? And you need to accept and recognize that you've done something wrong. Either. Apo like I say apologize but apology is not really what it's, you actually need to look for forgiveness, right? You need to do, make some change from that because apologizing, recognizing that I've done something wrong, doesn't change the consequences of the actions. And it's what's what I find so frustrating about this whole situation is that we often get questions, we often hear a lot of questions around. What can I do as a manager to build trust with my team? Whether you are a new manager or whether you are a seasoned manager, having a team that trusts you is critical to the team's success and performance and psychological safety is one of the first trusts that you can build with your team and you build it by keeping your word, you build it by saying that I'm, you know, a when you ask for feedback from people or when you give people the opportunity to speak up and share concerns that you are going to treat that with the respect that it deserves and that you're not gonna hold it against them.
[COBY]:Yeah. The idea of like, the idea of the importance of trust is something that really cannot be overshadowed because you're right when it comes to like any kind of relationship, you know, trust is the is the stepping stones that you and those in this relationship with again, personal or professional, you're kind of building stairs to ascend the relationship, you're building stronger connections, you're building, you know, you're trying to like, you know, reach new heights in these connections in these relationships. And what you're standing on is trust, the greater, the trust, the higher the steps go. And as soon as you break the trust, your foothold gives way. And if, you know, and the only and, and, and you end up going tumbling down, you know, the, the progression that you've made. But then, you know, if you, you have to acknowledge that you're right, you know, that, you know, that the trust was broken, you have to make your, make your best to make amends. But most importantly, you have to change the behavior to re-establish the trust. Because if you don't, you know, apologize, make amends and change, then you're trying to jump up the skip up the stairs with that are full with cracks in the foundation and you're cruising for another fall. And that's just the reality of, of trust and relationships in general. But one of the things that we talk about when we work, like, you know, because we do a lot of conversations with organizations, you know, HR teams, leadership teams around things like psychological safety because it's so important towards building inclusion and engagement and striving for success that, you know, you have to know what it looks like in your workplace. You have to like, you know, so like we do investigations, we have diagnostic tools where we go into the workplaces. And we kind of say, well, this is, you know, is psychological safety real does it, does it exist there actually like, you know, is, is a part of your every day, is it protected? The employees think they have it. These are all the questions that you really need to make sure that your footing is solid. If psychological safety is going to be what you leveraged towards growth and innovation and inclusion and engagement, all these other kinds of things like that, that the assumption of, well, we ask for feedback. We say, I say I have an open door policy. So clearly box checked. Let's move on. If that is what your workplace does, you're most likely dealing with counterfeit psychological safety.
[JAMES]:Yeah, and it's I keep going back to this, the organization in the story that you told because it's really, it's unfortunate for a whole host of reasons because I know how like this is a person who was let go from an organization that was in a kind of a senior leadership role, your team, their team is gonna know, right? We know how quickly information spreads through an organization, especially information that the company doesn't actually want spread through the organization. Like come on, their team, the rest of the team, the broader organizational team are likely going to hear what's happened and why, why this person was fired. And so when you break that trust with one, it has a broader, larger effect, removing that individual from the organization, did not remove the problem.
[COBY]:No, no.
[JAMES]:And, and I don't have a team that may or may not overtly recognize that, you have that there actually isn't psychological safety here.
[COBY]:Yeah. Well, like, I mean, you know, it's just the idea of like, you know, this team thought they had a, you know, Sony brand Playstation, the real thing for their psychological safety. But when that person got let go and kind of the fallout from that, they realize it doesn't say Sony, it says Phony. And so, so clearly, like, you know, the, the, the counterfeit, the signs of counterfeit have, you know, reveal themselves when, you know, when the trust is broken, right? So and again, that's why, you know, when, and especially if we don't acknowledge that the trust is broken, that really is kind of that third red flag, right? Like we have to really, you know, when it's under the rug when it's like, oh, no, it's, it's the other person's fault or, oh, you know, it, it's all covered up and there's a lack of transparency when there's, when the organization has done, you know, has not fulfilled their kind of social obligation to kind of provide that level of trust that is a major red flag. And one of the things that we talk about when we talk about how do you build psychological safety in your workplace? It's, you know, you have to build it on, you know, on a foundation that will support it. And one of, and we talk about the 7X3 Rule, you know, making sure that the factors of the workplace, you know, are competitive, sufficient, and equitable. One of the key factors is consistency. You want consistency in your workplace to be competitive, sufficient, and equitable. Because if you can't be sufficiently and equitably consistent, then you have no hope of having authentic, real psychological safety. If you're inconsistent with how you provide that level of trust, you have counterfeit psychological safety,
[JAMES]:It's a really good point.
[COBY]:So, yeah, like, II I really think that this is a, an, an important topic that I hope is giving people something to really reflect on managers need to reflect on. Like, you know, what is it that we do beyond the lip service of saying, we have psychological safety, you know, what do employees, You know, do you know, do you know what is being done with the comments you make the feedback you provide like, you know, the stuff that you say in meetings that you feel, you know, you feel safe enough to say, but you know, have we just have, our organizations just shifted from shutting you down, you know, in the meeting, when share an idea to waiting to leave to hold it against you. Because if so that you, you know, it's almost, you know, like there's, there's bad sides of both, but it's just as bad if possibly not worse because you may be going forward thinking. You're, you're killing it in your job you're doing, you're doing amazing. But then to come to find out that no, we've just started to punish you silently without your knowledge instead of overtly in front of you.
[JAMES]:I, I think it's actually worse to, smile and nod politely and allow somebody to build up that trust and feel that they are safe and to put, because it's about being vulnerable. Yeah. And if you give somebody the opportunity to be opportunity to be vulnerable and tell them that they are safe and then you pull the rug out from underneath them. That to me is far worse than the boss or manager who just shuts down any comments or questions or criticisms in the meeting because at least you know that this person, it's a more honest way of being terrible.
[COBY]:There you go. That's, that's the quote, the takeaway from this episode. If you're gonna be terrible, at least be up front about it.
[JAMES]:At least be honest in how terrible you are.
[COBY]:Yeah. But because I mean, you know, you're, you're right. I think counterfeit psychological safety is worse than no psychological safety in a way that, you know, you're right. If we feel vulnerable, if we feel, or if we feel like we can be vulnerable and we put ourselves out there and then that gets weaponized against us. You're right. I think that legitimately is worse. I mean, you know, but it's, it's, and so there's a reality that, you know, you listening to this may be wondering, jeez, what's this mean for me in my workplace? I think this is when you, you kind of need to, look at the red flags, you know, is psychological safety clearly defined, you know, you know, do they use the term, do they have, do they have it written down or do or do they just talk about it around? Like, you know, we want your feedback, please share your ideas, open door policy. This, that the other thing but you don't, but it's not really clear about what it is and,
[JAMES]:and how it's how it's protected.
[COBY]:Yeah, exactly. And, but also when you do share ideas, when you do share feedback, you know, is it acknowledged, is it responded to, is it implemented? Or again, do they have the shredder below the suggestion box? Because, I mean, that is something that is, you know, is a really big sign if, if, if lots of ideas are put forward, lots of feedback is shared and nothing ever comes of it or falls on deaf ears. Then that's a big warning sign and maybe you don't have the vulnerable, the psychological safety to be vulnerable. And then the third warning sign is you know, when it's not acknowledged, when trust is broken, you know, when the company screws up or when these things happen is it just swept under the rug. So, because again, it's important to realize, you know, again, these are organizations that are not trying to be malicious, they're not trying to pulling over on you. They're trying to get the benefits of something without putting in the work potentially to actually authentically create the real version. Instead they're just settling for a knockoff.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And what I really like about the last point you made is that we are all inperfect humans trying to do our best. Yeah. And even if like in the best situation where psychological safety is defined and it is promoted and it is reinforced and it is protected, we are going to mess up, right? As a leader, I am going to make a mistake, but I need to have the psychological safety with my team to also go to them and say, listen, I messed up. I'm sorry, and I'm gonna try to do better and here's how I'm gonna try to do better. But if I as a leader cannot go to my team and acknowledge when I've made a mistake, how can I expect my team to come to me and say, listen, man, I messed up and I need some help.
[COBY]:Yeah. No, no, that's, that's a fair point that this, this needs to. And this is why I say psychological safety needs to be ingrained in the culture. It needs to, it needs to be so embedded in such a natural part of organizational culture. Otherwise, you know, you're just setting yourself up for the consequences of a counterfeit psychological safety.And again, like, you know, if you want to know how to do that, if you want to know what are the things you have to look for, what are the, what are the places where it has to exist? you know, feel free to reach out to us. These are, these are things that we do on a regular basis. We have tools and resources and we've got great, you know, like success stories and stuff like that around people having or being able to do this kind of stuff when it's done with intention, when it's clearly identified that we're going to invest in this, be a successful component to our culture, then this is then, if you want to talk about that with us, we love geeking out on this topic amongst many others because it is so critical towards creating inclusion, towards improving employees engagement and motivation and towards moving your organization towards operational efficiency. It's not something you can ever skip over and it's not something that you can replace with a counterfeit.
[JAMES]:No, that's good. Yeah, I mean, if you've been tracking with us, this far then, you know, we're giant nerds and just like to talk and, so we, we really do enjoy hearing from you hearing what your questions are, what your concerns are hearing about, even if you have a question of, you know, I like this but how do I actually make it real in my workplace? You know, what? Shoot us a question. We may not be able to help you implement an entire project over the course of emails, but we can absolutely answer some questions and help guide you along that discovery.
[COBY]:Absolutely. All right. So I think I'll do a quick summary. So what happens when businesses counterfeit psychological safety? Well, largely it's important to understand what doesn't fall under the protection of psychological safety. And this is things like, you know, abrasive, unprofessional behavior or harassment or, you know, anything that really robs the mental or emotional safety of others. Psychological safety is about, is about encouraging discourse, allowing people to ask questions to better their understanding and seek support when they need it. It's really about normalizing vulnerability and encouraging people to be vulnerable in how they share their thoughts, ideas, questions, concerns and request for accommodations because largely we talk about psychological safety and trust having to exist in the areas of Disputes, like conflicts and professional discourse and in the area of Advocacies, requesting for help, advocating for ideas and so on. It's important to know the red flags of counterfeit psychological safety. And one of them, the first one is if we don't define psychological safety in our workplaces, then how do we know we have it? If it's not clear and abundant to everybody about what it is, how it's protected, what it looks like, why we need it, then it's really hard to be sure that you actually have it. Red flag number two, when nothing ever comes from getting employee feedback, when employers request it and, and say they want it and it's normal part of their of, of your every day, but nothing ever comes of it or it's never really brought up again, then it may be a case of your suggestion box being placed over the shredder. And the third red flag is when we don't acknowledge when trust is broken, when something happens and we make mistakes and trust gets broken and we sweep it under the rug or we pretend it didn't happen or we blame someone else. We don't acknowledge our impact about what happened and we don't apologize to those that it was affected and we don't make it clear that we're going to learn from this as we move forward and change. Then it's really hard to validate that psychological safety exists in our workplace. We have to understand what happens when it's fake. When it's fake, it's because it won't, you know, we want the veneer of it. We want the look of it. We want the benefits of it without putting the effort into really systematically changing our organization and ingraining it into our culture because it comes from, because when it's counterfeit, that comes from what happens when organizations don't really understand it and don't know what it takes to make it real. And our managers don't know what to do with employees who have it. And last what happens when safe safety is real, but it becomes broken largely. It's the fact that, you know, the first thing you have to do is you have to create trust in your employees again and you do this by, you know, being true to your word, being consistent. You know, again, a what has happened, but also, you know, building your trust that you've lost and, and the, you've lost your foothold and you've tumbled down the stairs of, of this relationship that you have with them and earning it back. But this is done by consistency and transparency. And if all of this is making you question your workplace, that's not necessarily a bad thing Because again, critical thinking is a big part of this as well. We want to make sure that we're not assuming we have it. We want to make sure that we're not, you know, all living under this counterfeit, you know, psychological safety process or environment that we live in. We wanna make sure that we really have it because if we really want the benefits of it. We have to put the work in to make it real so it's sustainable. All right, so that about does it for us. For a full archive of our podcast and access to the video version posted on our youtube channel, visit www.roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[ANNOUNCER]:For more information on topics like these. Don't forget to visit us at www.roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth. A version of the sound of James's voice, desire to find a better podcast....