WLP311: Foundations of Asynchronous Communication: Psychological Safety
A different kind of episode for today, and we would love your feedback.
Simon and Pilar are working on an audio-first self-paced course on asynchronous communication. Today’s episode is an example of the content they will include. It was also the first bit of material they created in audio format for the course, which was supposed to be a classic, text-first programme. But after recording this one, and one other module, they decided that audio should be the main way for people to access the material. Let’s get people away from their screens!
We’d love to hear from you what you think, through our page Your Opinion .
We encourage you to take notes as you listen. In particular, think about:
Q1 Is this what I’m experiencing with my team?
Q2 Given what I’m hearing, what small change could I make to improve things? Or, what are we already doing that I should make sure we continue doing?
Q3 What are the challenges here for myself, as manager?
What is psychological safety?
“A belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.”
From How to create psychological safety in virtual teams by Alexandra Lechner, Jutta Tobias Mortlock
https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/blog/psychological-safety-virtual-teams
“Psychological safety is not to be mistaken with trust, however. One key differentiating factor, according to Edmondson, is that trust can only exist in the relationship between two people, while psychological safety permeates an entire group.”
We’ve heard a lot about psychological safety in meetings, Simon and I both refer to it in our books and blog posts.
Why is psychological safety important in asynchronous communication?
Asynchronous communication in teams is mostly done in the open. We comment on others’ works, we discuss in chat room style apps, we share the progress of our tasks… unless we feel safe that everyone has access to this information,
If people don’t feel safe, why might they avoid communicating asynchronously, in the open?
There’s the general “Have I had past negative experiences where my ideas etc were not respected?”. It’s bad enough to happen in a meeting, where time passes on, but to see this in async…
A permanent record
Will I look bad if I admit my mistakes?
How will my ideas land?
Will it be shared beyond the group?
Will it be held against me in the future?
What’s the level of psychological safety like in your team? If it’s low, these practices might be difficult to implement, so start with the ones where sharing in the open feels less risky.
However, there is also the opportunity to slowly introduce them and guide the team, and actually increase the sense of safety through sharing.
What can we do to increase or sustain psychological safety in the team?
1. Start with something about contracting (ground rules) to be agreed by the team in terms of how to feel safe working together.
This is different to the team agreement, which is more technical. Some of the questions you can discuss: what do I need to feel safe here? what do I need from my peers / fellow team members? what are the risks in this conversation?
2. Clarity in how we communicate, and who is involved in the conversation. Pilar when appearing in DistantJob was asked, what if people give me feedback on my work that I don’t need? As a manager that takes discipline! Am I the best person to comment on this? Am I the best person to answer this?Move private conversations into the open, if suitable, and explain why. Eg by when do we need to do the show notes?
3. Address mistakes as learning opportunities - what happened and what can we learn from it, or what could be different next time? Make a point of coming back to difficult conversations that get taken offline, to close the loops Eg “I’m sorry, I messed this up, I sent the wrong document to the client”
4. Start and end conversations or activitiesIf nothing happens as a result of an exchange, it seems like it’s not valued. You want to avoid comments like, “we’ve already closed that conversation”
5. Role-model sharing learning, what are you learning, how are you feeling when things are difficult?Some managers struggle with this because they don’t want to lose face. Then it might be a matter of addressing trust in the team.
6. From recent research:
Accept the virtual team challenges
Be specific about what isn’t working. Look for opportunities, not always replacements.
Connect as human beings - Every small opportunity to be more human in communication. Can be as small as uploading your avatar to every platform. And watch out for being intrusive, respecting how much people are comfortable to share.
Defining the rules of the game. Which space/tool when?
Add “tech challenges and opportunities” into your team agenda.Technology is an added factor in how safe the team feels. Some might not want to be seen as not tech-savy.
It make take time to achieve psychological safety in a team, especially if it’s currently low, or if it’s a new team and many have had bad past experiences.
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