If you read my last blog post, ‘Five Features of Awesome Cultures’, you’ll already know my thoughts on cultivating awesome cultures in organisations. But, I wanted to write a bit more about feature number one.
Having real conversations in real time counts the most towards awesome cultures. If you need a refresher, I strongly believe in having important conversations in the here and now – having informal chats, daily huddles, one to ones, and not letting things go unsaid.
This mindset is built into my own work, as a Learning and Development director. And now, I have another skill to add to my toolkit, which lends itself to this idea of talking about things at the right time.
“Psychological safety is the soil not the seed”.
I am over the moon to announce that I became the 91st practitioner (in the whole world!) to complete the Psychological Safety Index accreditation.
The PSI is a team development tool, designed to help organisations measure and improve psychological safety. But, what is psychological safety?
Psychological safety is “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes”. It’s about having those important chats for the sake of your team – for the sake of people and how they feel.
A high psychological safety opens the door for an inclusive, effective and high performing environment (more here).
Here’s another way of thinking about psychological safety, and whether it’s active in your culture:
- Would you like your team to have more open conversations?
- Would you like problems to be shared so they can be avoided in the future?
- Would you like ideas to be put forward so work is always improving?
- Would you like people in your teams to feel 100% themselves at work?
If you answered “YES” to any of those questions, reach out to me here. Let’s have an informal chat about improving psychological safety in your teams.
And one last question to mull over: What would an increased willingness to help mean for your teams?
Let’s improve your culture, together.