fearless teams - dau · 2019-08-21 · source: edmondson, a.c. (2019). the fearless organization:...

FEARLESS TEAMS:Cultivating Psychological Safety

to Increase Innovation

Dr. Bobbie DeLeonDefense Acquisition University

[email protected]

1

WORKING IN TEAMS

• Answer these five these five important questions:

– Did you speak up and take risks without feeling insecure

or embarrassed?

– Could you count on each other to do high-quality work

on time?

– Were goals, roles, and execution plans clear?

– Were you working on something that was personally

important for each team member?

– Did you fundamentally believe that the work you were

doing mattered?

Source: https://www.planplusonline.com/team-answer-five-questions

• Think about your last meeting.

2

Source: Edmondson, A.C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and

Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Topics• Power of Psychological Safety

• Fear on team performance

• Creating fearless teams

3

DoD Restructures its Acquisition, Technology, Logistics OrganizationA NEW REALITY

4

CONFRONTING A NEW REALITY

• Volatile: Rapid changes, ups & downs/big swings

• Uncertain: Difficult to predict future events/values

• Complex: Multiple interconnected elements

• Ambiguous: Unclear meaning of signals/events

= V.U.C.A.5

INNOVATION IS MISSION CRITICAL

• Innovative product: A new product that seemed previously

unimaginable. (e.g., the telephone, MRI machines)

• Innovative service or process: A service or process that follows

a cultural or technological change. (e,g., ride-share, telework)

• Innovative improvement: A new version of an existing product that

works significantly better (e.g., Dyson vacuum, I-phone)

6

Source: Your Creative Mind: How to Disrupt Your Thinking, Abandon Your Comfort Zone, and Develop Bold New Strategies by Scott Cochrane

TEAMS AND INTERPERSONAL RISK

• Teams are highly interdependent -they plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress

• Team members need one another to get work done.

• Interdependent work is vulnerable to interpersonal risk

• Interpersonal risk is higher in a VUCA environment

7

Source: Amy Edmondson (2019). The fearless organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the

Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

MANAGING INTERPERSONAL RISK AT WORK

NO ONE WANTS TO LOOK:

Incompetent

Intrusive

Negative

Ignorant Asks Questions

Admits Weaknessor Mistakes

Offers Ideas

Critiques the Status Quo

SO, NO ONE:

8

Source: Edmondson., A.C. (2012) Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass..

FEAR AND THE STRESS RESPONSE SYSTEM

Cortisol

INCREASED

BLOOD SUGAR

HEIGHTENED MEMORY

AND ATTENTION

SUPRESS THE

IMMUNE SYSTEM

DECREASE SEROTONIN

INCREASE IN BLOOD PRESSUREDECREASE

SENSITIVITY TO PAIN

9Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/memory-medic/201808/how-stress-changes-your-brain

FEAR AND CREATIVITY

Source: https://www.healing-power-of-art.org/positive-art-news-creativity-turns-scary-mri-scanner-for-kids-into-an-adventure/

Barriers to Creativity:

• Fear of the Messy Unknown

• Fear of Being Judged

• Fear of the First Step

• Fear of Losing Control

Creativity is something you practice, not just a talent

you’re born with.

Creative Confidence — the natural ability to come up

with new ideas and the courage to try them out.

Source: https://hbr.org/2012/12/reclaim-your-creative-confidence

10

https://hbr.org/2012/12/reclaim-your-creative-confidence

Source: Edmondson. A.C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and

Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETYA belief that the context is safe for interpersonal risk taking – and so one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY: WHAT WE KNOW

• Psychological safety is not about ‘being nice’

– It’s about recognizing what behaviors are needed to cope with dynamic, uncertain, interdependent work

• Psychological safety is not a personality factor.

– Research shows that it is not correlated with introversion or extroversion.

– Its about the work climate and the work climate affects different personality traits in roughly similar ways.

• Psychological safety “lives” at the group level

– Psychological safety varies across groups within organizations

– As such, it’s influenced greatly by local leaders

12Source: Amy Edmondson (2019). The fearless organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

TRUST & PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

• Trust and Psychological Safety

are not interchangeable.

• Psychological Safety is

experienced at the group level.

• Trust refers to interactions

between two individuals or

parties.TRUST

Can YOU count on others to

do what they promise or say

they will do?

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Will OTHERS give you the

benefit of the doubt when

you take a risk or make a mistake?

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?Trust and Psychological Safety

13

Adapted from https://scienceforwork.com/blog/psychological-safety/Source: Edmondson AC. (2004) Psychological safety, trust, and learning in organizations: a group-level lens. In Trust and

Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches, ed. RM Kramer, KS Cook, pp. 239–72.New York: Russell Sage

TEAM SCENARIO

• Rowen is a long time manager known for his technical expertise. For the

past two years he’s worked as manager of team XYZ, which is responsible

for running a large scale project. He upholds very high standards, but in the

past few months Rowen has become increasingly intolerant of mistakes,

ideas he considers to be “underpar,” and challenges to his way of thinking.

• Recently, Rowen publically rejected and belittled an idea offered by an

experienced team member and spoke very negatively about that person to

the wider team behind their back. Everyone else thought the idea was

strong, well-researched, and worth exploring. Ideas have since dried up.

• Rowen’s ideas drove the recent project proposal, but it was ultimately

rejected by the executives because it lacked creativity and innovation.

• Does this reflect psychological safety?

• What behaviors signal a lack of psychological?

• Have you seen this scenario on your teams?

14

DO TEAMS NEED TO LOWER PERFORMANCE STANDARDS?

PerformanceStandards

Psychological Safety

?

15

Source: Amy Edmondson (2019). The fearless organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

NO TRADEOFF BETWEEN HIGHSTANDARDS & PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

high

lowlow high

PERFORMANCE

STANDARDS

PS

YC

HO

LO

GIC

AL

SA

FE

TY

Apathy Zone

Comfort Zone Learning Zone

Anxiety Zone

16


INDICATORS OF HIGH PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

• Curiosity to ask questions and think big

• Trust between employees

• Open-mindedness to change, perspectives, etc.

• Self-motivation and a sense of purpose

• Resilience in confronting and overcoming conflict

17

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY ENABLES …

Behaviors:

• Error reporting

• Requests for help

• Information sharing

Outcomes:

• Quality improvements

• Innovation

• Improved performance

Tucker AL, Nembhard Im, Edmondson AC (2007) Implementing new practices: an empirical study of organizational learning in hospital intensive care units. Management Science 53(6): 894-907.

(Edmondson, 1996, Tucker, Nembhard & Edmondson, 2007, Edmondson & Lei, 2016)Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A

meta‐analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), 113-165.

18

PROJECT ARISTOTLE: Study hundreds of Google Teams and figure out why some stumbled while others soared.

ASSUMPTION: High-performing teams

were founded on the right blend of

complementary hard skills.

FINDING: “No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel “psychologically safe,” we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations. We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad, to have hard conversations with colleagues who are driving us crazy. We can’t be focused just on efficiency.”

RESEARCH

19Source: https: nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from -its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html

THE PERFECT TEAM

“Psychological safety

was far and away the

most important of the

five dynamics we

found -- it’s the

underpinning of the

other four.”

February 28, 2016

Meaning Impact

DependabilityStructure &

Clarity

Psychological Safety

Meaning: Work is personally important to

team members.

Impact: Team members think their work matters and creates change.

Dependability: Team members get things

done on time and meet Googles high bar of

excellence.

Structure & Clarity: Team members have clear roles goals, and

plans.

Psychological Safety: Team members felt

safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of

each other.

20

Source: https: nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from -its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html

WHAT GOOGLE LEARNED FROM ITS QUEST

TO BUILD THE PERFECT TEAM

THE BEST PLACES TO WORK

The Innovation category measures employee perceptions of efforts to improve the way work is done, including their own personal motivation to promote change and the support and rewards they receive for promoting new ideas.

• I feel encouraged to come up with new

and better ways of doing things. (Q. 3)

• I am constantly looking for ways to do

my job better. (Q. 8)

• Creativity and innovation are rewarded. (Q. 32)

Source: https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/categories/mid/innovation/

21

BUILDING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

1. Set the Stage

2. Invite Participation

3. Respond Productively

Psychological safety takes time and a deliberate effort to develop and maintain on your team.22

1. SET THE STAGE• Frame the work accurately – ensuring

shared understanding of the reality of

complexity, uncertainty, novelty, and failure.

Identify what matters and why.

EXAMPLE 1: COLUMBIA

• He requested satellite photos to get a

clearer image

• His request was denied by his boss,

and “engineers were… not to send

messages higher”

• A week later he remained silent during the

formal mission management team meeting.

After watching launch day footage, a NASA engineer noticed what he thought was a chunk of foam falling off the shuttle.

When asked by a news reporter why he didn’t speak up, he replied, “I just couldn’t do it”

24Source: Edmondson, A.C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

3 TYPES OF FAILURES

Preventable Failures• Where we know how to do it right

Complex Failures

• Complex factors (internal, external, or both)

combine in novel ways to produce failures

in reasonably familiar contexts

Intelligent Failures

• Undesired results of thoughtful forays into

novel territory

25Edmondson, A.C.(2012). Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass..

LEARNING FROM FAILURE

26

LEARNING FROM FAILURE

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000

ways that won't work.” Thomas A. Edison.

Source: 1921 Thomas Edison interview with B. C. Forbes for American Magazine

“I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. I recall

that after we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project

without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had conducted the

crowning experiment and it had proved a failure, expressed discouragement

and disgust over our having failed ‘to find out anything.’ I cheerily assured him

that we had learned something. For we had learned for a certainty that the

thing couldn’t be done that way, and that we would have to try some other

way. We sometimes learn a lot from our failures if we have put into the effort

the best thought and work we are capable of.”

27

2. INVITE PARTICIPATION• Invite participation by acknowledging limits or gaps,

asking good questions and providing forums and

guidelines for input and feedback.

EXAMPLE 2: KOREAN AIR

Korean Air commissioned a flight safety team investigation after

experiencing a high numbers of crashes during the 1990’s:

• Modern aircraft are designed to be flown by teams of two, crosschecking each other's actions and interacting with complex flight management systems, (i.e., two equals)

• Command-and-control cultures discouraged subordinates from questioning superiors.

• Effective questioning and crosschecking could have changed situations that led to disaster.

29https://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-on-culture-cockpit-communication-and-plane-crashes/

SPEAKING UP

• Sending an extra email to a

coworker to clarify a point

• Offer a team member for help to

develop a project idea

• Asking for feedback on a report

• Admitting that a project is over

budget or behind schedule

30

Speaking up: The back and

forth exchanges people

have at work.


WORKPLACE SILENCE

Beliefs that sustain workplace silence:

• Don’t criticize something the boss may

have helped create.

• Don’t speak unless you have solid data.

• Don’t speak up if the boss’s boss is

present.

• Don’t speak up in a group with anything

negative about work to prevent the boss

from losing face.

• Speaking up brings career consequences.


FRAMING THE ROLE OF THE LEADER

Source: Adapted from Amy Edmondson (2012). Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Default Frame

The Boss:

• Has the answers

• Gives the orders

• Assesses others’

performance

• Subordinates must do

what they are told

REFRAME

The Boss:

• Sets direction

• Invites input to clarify and improve

• Creates conditions for continued learning to achieve excellence

• Subordinates are contributors with crucial knowledge and insight

32

ASK GOOD QUESTIONS

• To broaden the discussion– What do others think?

– What are we missing?

– What other options could we consider?

– Who has a different perspective?

• To deepen the discussion– What leads you to think so?

– What’s the concern that you have about that?

– Can you give us an example?

– Can you explain that further?

– What do you think might happen if we did X?

33

Source: Amy Edmondson (2019). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

3. RESPOND PRODUCTIVELY• Respond in a way that embraces messengers, expresses

appreciation and fosters learning by destigmatizing failure

and creating sanctions for violations.

EXAMPLE: BOEING 737 MAX

Source: https://qz.com/1584233/boeing-737-max-what-happened-when-one-us-pilot-asked-for-more-training/

A pilot for a US airline told managers,

months before October 2017 Lion Air

crash in Indonesia, that he was

uncomfortable with the level of training

he had received before he was

scheduled to fly the Boeing 737 Max for

the first time.

But when he asked for more training, he

faced difficulties in getting it—and even a

form of reprimand.

35

DESTIGMATIZING FAILURE

36

TRADITION FRAME REFRAME

Concept of Failure Failure is not acceptableFailure is a natural by-product of

experimentation

Beliefs about Failure Effective performers don’t fail

Effective performer produce, learn

from and share the lessons from

intelligent failures

The Goal Prevent failure Promote fast learning.

The ImpactPeople hide failures to protect

themselves.

Open discussions, fast learning and

innovation.


MEASURE IT!

Source: https://www.business2community.com/strategy/measure-psychological-safety-team-01730787

• Establish a baseline for comparisons.

• Dive deep into your data.

• Keep the survey and its results so that you can retest and see your progress.

• Focus your team on new ways of working together.

• Highlight your strongest areas and give the team a pat on the back. But don’t get complacent!

Amy Edmondson, Harvard University

37

The Mayo Clinic, world-renowned for their innovation and

quality of care, created the “Queasy Eagle Award” to recognize

experiments and projects that were interesting and well-

designed but ultimately unsuccessful.

38

AWARD FAILURE

Source: Lewis, S. (2014) The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and The Search for Mastery, New York: Simon Schuster, Inc.

“They got rid of the taboo of failure, and they

exponentially grew the number of patents

compared to the previous 18 months—245 new

ideas whereas before they only had 36.”

KESSEL RUNTHE FUTURE OF DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS

• The Kessel Run culture is the product of

hundreds of thoughtful design decisions that

continually reinforce principles of learning,

collaboration, critical thinking, and agility.

• …they are still learning, still experimenting,

still making mistakes and identifying

opportunities for improvement.

Source: https://innovation.defense.gov/software/

• Replicating the Kessel Run culture requires...

establishing and maintaining a healthy

culture that unleashes people’s talent and

enables them to do their best work.39

REINFORCING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

• Be a role model for accepting news of errors or mistakes:– Quickly correct errors or mistakes– Encourage others to do the same

• Demonstrate situational humility– Admit that you don’t know all the answers– Ask good questions– Express appreciation

• Clear, direct candid communication – Emphasize purpose– Clarify boundaries– Respond to clear violations


SIMPLE AND POWERFUL

What are you concerns?

41

I need help.

I don’t know.

I’m sorry.

I made a mistake.

What can I do to help?

What are you up

against?

What do you think?


FEARLESS TEAMS

INNOVATE• Stop the blame game.

• Distinguish three types of failure.

• Motivate intelligent failures.

• Fail at the right scale.

• Make it safe.

Dr. Bobbie DeLeon, Defense Acquisition University, [email protected]

fearless teams - dau · 2019-08-21 · source: edmondson, a.c. (2019). the fearless organization:...

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