Trust: creating psychological safety

I have been talking and listening with many global business leaders over the past 6 months, while writing my new book. I have become a bit obsessed with trust, creating new ideas and finding innovations that change how we work or live.

Leaders create the conditions

New ideas or innovations at work emerge as solutions to problems. Generally, we need a REASON to focus our ideas, such as a goal or a challenge. Our ideas are rarely complete. So, we then typically involve others to REFINE them.

The essential conditions for generating ideas go beyond these. In order to generate ideas, we have to feel able to RESPOND and do so freely. We can’t do that without trusting the team and leader.

In a safe team and a place where we are free to have and share ideas, we simply put our ideas forward as the norm. We don’t stop to think if our ideas are valued or if we will be sacked for failure. This isn’t the case in every team.

Creating the right space for our teams to RESPOND requires leaders to ensure everyone feels safe to share ideas, take risks, fail and generally try things out without fear of retribution. They need trust. Some teams can’t trust their leaders because the conditions aren’t right. They are operating in an infertile space where ideas are not nurtured.

Google agrees with me

Data from Google shows that ideas in response to business challenges need psychological safety, based on trust. When this exists, innovation and change happen more easily and with greater success. In this sense “HOW” a team works, can be much more important than “WHO” is actually on the team when it comes to innovation or change.

Low trust = low results

Take the scenario where a team is made up of very experienced and engaged employees. Their leader might also be highly experienced but doesn’t create a safe place to share ideas or make mistakes. So they cant thrive. They lack trust, so, their outcomes are reduced and their ability to advance is limited because the leader is closed. Sad place.

Google data showed that trust and psychological safety is the number one driver of successful teams. Happy place.  

It’s yet another example of how a leader’s communication lifts or limits the team’s outputs.

I was recently chatting to Ted Stuckey, Former Managing Director of QBE Ventures. They invest in technologies that have the potential to transform QBE. Ted explained the role of leaders in building the right conditions for change and ideas:

“Psychological safety is the foundation of innovation. Honestly, everything else builds on that. Involvement and conversation are a panacea when it comes to innovation and change. Organisations and leaders need to find ways to create conditions and environments where we can have crazy ideas and do so easily. This needs leadership by example, to perpetuate other people to also have ideas".

To succeed we should ensure we nurture and harvest ideas from the team. Our communication should be based on trust and use conversations to grow new ideas. As leaders it is our job to create these conditions.

I would love to hear from you about how you are helping create safe spaces for ideas and learning. Have your say in the comments below.