Posts

The Blurry Lines of Blame: Psychological Safety in the Workplace…

/in , /by

The Blurry Lines of Blame: Psychological Safety in the Workplace…

Guest writer Sonya Law is here to enlighten us again from the world of Human Resources with her latest blog post, “The Blurry Lines of Blame: Psychological Safety in the Workplace…”

“Be the leader that you wish you had, when we become a leader, it is important to remember the IMPACT that we have on others with our words and actions…” Sonya Law

Psychologically Safe workplaces take Ownership

We know that sinking feeling as a leader when something goes wrong in a team, or a mistake is made, especially when the impact on the business is significant.  In that moment it’s easy to assign the blame to someone, in order to direct the spotlight away from ourselves.  

However, this does not provide a psychologically safe environment for employees.  When we immediately pull the blame lever, it makes the employee feel small and powerless, its disempowering. 

Good leaders know about the blurry lines of blame. The better approach is to:

  1. Focus on the problem not the person
  2. Root cause the problem 
  3. Implement process improvements
  4. To stop the problem from reoccurring
  5. Involve the team who are responsible 
  6. EMPOWER the team to be part of the solution
  7. Transfer ownership to the team in a positive way.

The reason that blame is such a slippery slope is that it’s a toxic emotion.  We all have at some stage in our careers been on the receiving end of someone’s negativity.  The risk to the business is the employee feeling disempowered, disengaged and leaves the business adding to the staff turnover.  

It’s not about minimizing accountability it’s about taking a more considered, thoughtful and collaborative approach that produces better outcomes for the business.  When we tackle problems together, we ALL grow.

Positive, Innovative Cultures thrive

It also serves to provide a psychologically safe environment for employees and positive culture in which to thrive.  At a time when there is a talent shortage, it’s important part of the retention strategy that we are supporting employees to feel safe at work.

More importantly when you empower employees to be part of the solution it promotes innovation in the business.  

When we take this role as leader as coach and to role model positive behaviors around making mistakes it leads to improvement in critical thinking and problem solving.  Which are key business skills as we face an uncertain world and business environments. 

Happy employees are productive, open to learning and change

Happy employees are also more productive and likely to take on more complex work or stretch projects and set more challenging goals, when it feels safe to make mistakes.  They tend to be more open to learning new skills.  Leaders and businesses who role model a growth mindset and a curious mind, will have the competitive advantage when it comes to people, product, service and technology and respond better to change.  

Agile businesses position themselves well for Growth 

It’s important that businesses are agile, the ability to adapt and change leads to Growth in any business.  A leader who understands this will be able to attract top talent and have a collaborative work environment where the work gets done but they can also have fun and celebrate the wins along the way.

It leads to better outcomes for the business when you take care of people and take them along on the journey and GROW together.

“View every problem as an opportunity to GROW” Bill Marriott.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.

Personal Responsibility – Part One

/in , /by

Personal Responsibility

I recently discovered a fascinating individual by the name of Jordan B. Peterson. I have to admit to a little personal disappointment that I had not discovered him earlier as he has been out there roiling the pot for some years. Dr. Peterson has a PhD in Psychology which he obtained from McGill University in 1991. I have been watching and reading on him and his thinking for the past week or two.

Some things from him become incredibly clear and they pertain to learning. For instance: “Learning is Remembering.” In many ways I view teaching as a discipline in which we search for devices to assist people in remembering. We use various forms of communications – voice, gestures, body language and we use props such as books and black boards(whiteboards) for example. What we, as teachers are trying to do, is find THE device that triggers in each individual the ability to remember. And this is made incredibly more difficult by each of us being individuals with differing triggers. The teacher has to find the triggers. It is what I like to call watching for the lights to go on in people’s eyes. It’s that moment when you see they just GET IT. And I get incredibly excited when I see that look. It really turns my crank.

You get this phenomenon, in a classroom. You do not have it happen in a webinar. We are trying to inject it into our internet-based learning programs. With various devices. Primarily with questions that allow us to asses the progress in the learning and the effectiveness of our teaching. To some degree when people learn something there are “aha” moments. I know that I just couldn’t put it into words. Then you know there will be remembering from the learning.

Learning is hard work. You have to come to learning with an open mind. When dealing with adult education that is already a flawed starting point. Adults come to a class with preconceived ideas and thoughts. We cannot avoid it. In many ways, as adults we don’t feel the need to learn about something we already know or have been doing for years. We naturally question the expertise of any teachers. “Who are you that you can teach me something about a subject I have been doing for these past years?”

I invite you to reflect on these questions this week, and be sure to look up Jordan B. Peterson.  Next week, we will continue our topic of personal responsibility in our learning.

The time is now.