Transcript
Dr H: Hi, and welcome to podcast episode six. This podcast is psychological safety in practice. Silence is not agreement.
Dr H: It's following on from our previous podcast, communication 101 power, trust, safety and shared responsibility. So today's sort of concepts and questions are, you know, have you ever walked out of a meeting thinking everyone agreed, only to discover later that people had concerns and they never voiced those?
Dr H: One of the biggest mistakes we make in communication is assuming silence means agreement. Very often silence means uncertainty, concern, fear of speaking up,
Dr H: lack of confidence, feeling unheard, or really just waiting for a safer moment. So in today's episode, we're going to be exploring what psychological safety looks like in practice and why silence can be misleading.
Dr H: As well, we want to talk today about how team culture influences whether people speak up, and how to access assess psychological safety using your team culture self-assessment in the e-learning on reframingconversations.com.
Dr H: So Dr. Mel, take me through a little bit about reframing silence. What are some common assumptions?
Melanie Barlow: Thanks, Dr. H. So a common assumption I see in leaders and also team members, they interpret silence, particularly in meetings, as that everyone agrees.
Melanie Barlow: So I think a more helpful reframe is rather than silence equals everyone agrees, is silence is simply like a lack of information. Because in silence, we don't know whether a person is agreeing.
Melanie Barlow: if they're disagreeing, if they're confused, if they're still processing information or they're feeling too unsafe to contribute. So for an example, you know I hear it a lot. A supervisor might ask any questions and then there's just like crickets, resounding silence and the meeting moves on.
Melanie Barlow: But later there might be work that goes completed incorrectly. Team members might explain you know, express concerns privately amongst themselves or frustration might emerge. as So the issue wasn't with those errors around capability. The issues was that the concerns were never surfaced in the first place.
Melanie Barlow: So what I want people to start thinking about and asking themselves, when people stay silent in my team, what assumptions am I making?
Melanie Barlow: So that requires, I guess, for people not to be silent, requires a level of psychological safety. And we've talked about this in the past, but just we also talk about communication clarity. So make sure everyone understands, Dr Can you take us through, in this context, what psych safety means?
Dr H: So absolutely. So psychological safety is actually fundamental for these communication processes. It really is building on that question about when people are staying silent in my team, what assumptions am am I making?
Dr H: And one of that is that there is psychological safety. So psychological safety exists when people feel safe to take interpersonal risks. when people are silent, they are not taking those interpersonal risks. So they're not asking questions, they're not raising concerns, they're not admitting that they don't know or making mistakes.
Dr H: But more importantly, they're also not offering a different perspective. So when you have people who staying silent in your team, they don't have that psychological safety.
Dr H: So in psychologically safe teams, People do speak up when something doesn't seem right. People accept and are willing to work with that they might not know everything. and they need help.
Dr H: They also look to challenge ideas respectfully and being curious in those situations. And psychological safety also looks like sharing those lessons from mistakes and the teamwork is around contributing suggestions for improvement.
Dr H: Now the thing with psychological safety is it's not being nice. It's not avoiding accountability. It's not always agreeing with everyone. And it's also not an absence of discomfort.
Dr H: The key with psychological safety is it's creating an environment where honest, candid conversations can occur. And in this situation, we have a healthy team.
Dr H: The healthy teams don't necessarily have fewer concerns, but they have more concerns being spoken about. So can you take me through a little bit about what can we learn from team behaviors, incorporating some research as well as this concept of psychological safety, Dr. Mel?
Melanie Barlow: Oh, sure. So there's research done by Donovan and colleagues in 2020, and their study highlights that psychological safety can be observed through team behaviours, such as voice, silence, level of support, learning behaviours and responses to other people's contributions.
Melanie Barlow: So signs for them that psychological safety was present was diverse voices contributed to the conversation, people actively asked questions, mistakes were discussed openly, ideas were explored rather than dismissed, and team members supported one another's contributions.
Melanie Barlow: They showed that signs where safety was low was the same people kept talking all the time, and we see that in teams, Questions were rare.
Melanie Barlow: Concerns emerged only after the meetings had concluded. Team members deferred a hierarchy. And people avoid disagreement.
Melanie Barlow: And so this paper has the psychological safety tool that they used, and we've integrated that in our e-learning. And so want listeners to think about the last team meeting they were in in their workplace and just reflect on, or maybe the next one that you go to after listening to this and ask yourself who around the table or in the room spoke, who didn't speak, who stayed silent, were concerns openly discussed?
Melanie Barlow: Were the disagreements or different perspectives welcomed? And did people appear comfortable asking questions? Just sit back and, yeah, make those observations.
Melanie Barlow: What do you think, Dr H?
Dr H: do you think? Yeah, so really, it's a great point of reflection on meetings that are either occurring in your current environment, or workplaces and meetings that you've had in previous work environments. Think about, you know, best practice, think about what worked, what didn't work.
Dr H: And we've got a e-learning on reframingconversations.com, which is a assessing psychological safety in our team culture. So in the Your Team Culture e-learning,
Dr H: Our listeners can complete a questionnaire which is designed to help assess psychological safety within their team. So this questionnaire is informed by the work of O'Donovan, Van Dunn, and McAuliffe, whose research really looked at how psychological safety can be measured through both survey responses and observable team behaviors.
Dr H: So I want the listeners to have a little bit of a think as well about why this assessment matters. Because when we're thinking about our teams, we all often assume that they have psychological safety because people are friendly, because people are laughing and kind and and and joking, or that conflict in that team situation is uncommon and that all the meetings run smoothly.
Dr H: But that doesn't necessarily mean that there is psychological safety in that team. because it's the silence behaviors that research suggests can exist even when our survey results appear positive.
Dr H: And this is really important because this highlights the importance of looking beyond first impressions. So like you suggested some questions earlier for our listeners, I want the listeners to also think about as they complete the questionnaire, can people challenge decisions safely?
Dr H: Do concerns get raised early? As we're completing this questionnaire, have a bit of a think about do people feel comfortable admitting mistakes? Are all the voices heard or only a few?
Dr H: You know, would a new team member feel safe to contribute on day one?
Dr H: So Mel, I'm wondering if you could take us through some more practical actions based on your experience to create more voice.
Melanie Barlow: Great, thanks. And I really like those questions. I guess some practical suggestions is instead of asking in a meeting, does everyone agree?
Melanie Barlow: Reframe it and try and ask what concerns might we be overlooking?
Melanie Barlow: Instead of asking any questions, try a reframe and say, What's one thing that might make this difficult to implement?
Melanie Barlow: These questions encourage participation. So it invites those quieter voices into the discussion. It gives people felt permission to raise concerns, to separate ideas from individuals and to respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness.
Melanie Barlow: So in these meetings, remember, the goal isn't to just simply get agreement. The goal as a leader is to get more information to make the best possible decisions.
Melanie Barlow: And you need your team to contribute for that to be achieved.
Melanie Barlow: You've a few key takeaways, don' don't you?
Dr H: key takeaways content Yeah, so I really like how you're talking about separating the ideas from individuals and that curiosity rather than defensiveness.
Dr H: So a key takeaway in today's podcast is really around that silence is not evidence of agreement.
Dr H: Today's podcast, we talked a lot about psychological safety and how it allows people to speak up, how it allows people to challenge ideas, ask questions, and also admit their mistakes.
Dr H: But that our team culture really is reflected in everyday behaviors. It's not just our good intentions. I'd also like our listeners to think about and observe who is speaking, who's staying silent, and and how our ideas are received can really reveal a valuable insight about psychological safety.
Dr H: Today we also talked about the Your Team Culture assessment that provides an opportunity for our listeners to reflect on the current state of psychological safety within their teams.
Dr H: So this e-learning, reframingconversations.com, we can complete this questionnaire designed to help assess that psychological safety.
Dr H: As a final reflection I'm thinking about today, the next time that you're met with silence, don't assume that you've achieved agreement. Instead, ask yourself, have I created enough safety for people to share what they're really thinking?
Dr H: So to explore this further, I welcome our listeners to complete the questionnaire, and we'll put the link in the comments, Your Team Culture, to reflect on what it reveals about psychological safety in your team.
Dr H: And tune in next time for our next podcast, which will be Psychological Safety in Practice. The past is present in every conversation. Thanks so much, Dr. Mel.
