The Learner Lab
Each episode we focus on one topic that can help you become a better leader and learner. We do our best to keep it short, useful, and engaging. Whenever possible we bring in the experts to share their research and work.
The Learner Lab
Psychological Safety with Daniel Coyle and Amy Edmondson
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All groups are not created equally. Some over achieve, others under achieve, but why is that? What's the cause of that? A Harvard researcher, a bestselling author, and a tech company all asked that same question and discovered the same answer: psychological safety.
Full Show Notes
Featuring:
Daniel Coyle: NY Times Bestselling Author
Amy Edmondson: Harvard Business School Professor
Eric Ragan: Grinnell College Women's Volleyball head coach
Nora Hill: Grinnell College Women's Volleyball co-captain
Quick links:
Project Aristotle
The Culture Code
The Fearless Organization
Amy Edmondson's TEDx Talk
Grinnell College Women's Volleyball
The Leading Learners Toolkit
Help your team learn, adapt, and get results
Everything you need to help your team become better learners: video lessons, discussion topics, facilitator guides
All groups are definitely not created. Equally agree with that. Like some outperform others, some overachieve, right? It's gets kind of like when the two plus two equals 10 sort of idea and more times than not it's plus two equals one the underachieving groups and we've all seen examples of both. Right? And interesting question is like well what's the cause of that? And on the surface we assume it's probably like the dynamics of the group, right? What the team's made up, characteristics do. We have really smart people on this team, but actually a lot of research shows that more important than the dynamics of the team. It's really how the team interacts. That is a better predictor of team success. And I, I think if we zoom out, we've all seen examples of this, like that does make sense. Like more important than the makeup of the team is how they interact and that determines our achievement. The question that we have to dig into though is what is the cause of that? What allows teams to work better together? What's that made out of two camps set out to answer that specific question. Like, what's the secret sauce of helping a group perform better? One was one of the world's largest tech companies and the other was in New York Times bestselling author. They took different journeys with a very, very different approach, but they ended up landing in the exact same place.
Speaker 2I'm Trevor, I'm Alex. Welcome to the learner lab podcast presented by a train, ugly.com each week, something new that can help us learn. Let's go. If you think
Speaker 1give out the nature of the work that we do these days, it's almost always on a team or at least collaborating with someone. The more so than ever, and we're going to continue to head in that direction, more time spent working. And once we understand that, it really illustrates how valuable this pursuit of figuring out why certain teams performed better than others really is. I hate the term game changer, but this actually is, it's like this would be a super power to understand what creates a great group. So finding that answer matters. Right? So let's talk about the first group. Okay. It's Google. Oh many of you probably figured that out. But we tried to create that cliffhanger. So Google spent five years researching like, okay, how do we improve the way groups work together? What are the variables that matter the most? And they actually coined this project project Aristotle, kind of a shout out to Aristotle's famous quote about like a good group should add up to more than the sum of its parts. They studied over 180 teams within their company and what they did is they came up with like a ton of different ways to measure learning performance and they looked at like every variable you could imagine. So these are like things that they thought might relate to better group performance. They had their theories but then they tested like everything. The frustrating was after years of going through the data, they could find like no correlations. Like they could see teams with a lot of high performers that did well and teams with a lot of high performers that didn't. So like we don't really know why this is happening. Here's the list of the variables that they found did not predict group performance at Google, location of teammates, consensus driven decision making, extroversion of team members, individual performance of the team member's workload, size, seniority, team size, tenure, what so like that is crazy. It's like those are all the things that we think matter. If it was going to build a team, I would base it off of those at least half of them and what they found is like there was no correlation in at Google after years of wrestling with this problem and finding like no answers, they stumbled upon a Harvard researcher whose work helped unlock this puzzle. It was a bit out of left field. It was a bit unexpected, but it was a variable that could predict group performance and learning regardless of the team dynamic. While Google was using their own information, looking at the internal, observing their teams in New York Times bestselling author of the talent code, Daniel Coyle explored the exact same question through a very different approach. He decided to hit the road. He selected a number of high performing groups and his plan was, I'm just going to go observe these groups and see if there's pattern. I kind of see what makes them tick. Exactly. So he visited Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs, Upright Citizens Brigade, the Improv troop. He even hung out with a group of jewelry thieves. So he spent like four years on the road observing great groups. He recognized these are all very different groups doing very different things. So you've got jewel thieves and sports teams. They kind of are, I'm good job. There was like some sort of like feeling this vibe he could see and recognize in all these groups.
Speaker 3They just felt a little different, you know, and, and it's a feeling that we've all had, like you walk into a room, a restaurant, a school, especially a school
Speaker 1in case it's not obvious. That's Dan Coyle. And the journey that we mentioned earlier, a visiting all of those groups, that was his research process for his new book, the Culture Code.
Speaker 3You walk into a family, you walk into this locker room and it's different. There's something going on. They're like, people are switched on, they're a little more attentive. The body language is a little more open. The facial expressions of a more open the energy and the speed of speech is a little higher. You know when you're there, this was like, wait a minute, there's something happening between people here that is super interesting. That's, that's electric. The language you use around culture. It's kind of hilarious because it's like, oh, I just get that vibe. It's just got that sob, that field that, that soft skill that they have. Um, well beneath that soft vibe is a really hard science. That's totally fascinating. And so that's where I went and you quickly light upon the work of Amy Edmondson at Harvard and her work on psychological safety being just
Speaker 4this massive thing that until recently people really didn't talk about it in that, in that way.
Speaker 1Remember that Harvard researcher who helped solve the Google puzzle? Of course I do. That was Amy Edmonson. This is mind blowing to me. Google and Dan Coyle didn't collaborate. They were searching for the same answer to the same question in very different ways. And they landed in the same place. Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety. So who would be able to explain this concept the best to explain Amy Edmondson's work? The vest? Yeah. Who would do it? I don't know.
Speaker 4Okay. I'm with you. Hi, I'm Amy Edmondson and I'm a professor at Harvard Business School.
Speaker 1Amy's been studying how groups interact since like the mid nineties now. She didn't like coin the term psychological safety, but she's on the forefront of showing why it's like the most important thing as far as how groups interact. So Amy's been researching this for decades and has really like understood its power for a long time. Right. And Google and Daniel Coyle both arrived at this same place through their own research. So what is it? What is psychological safety? Really good question. So here's the game plan. This is the season finale and we're going to go out with a bang. This is one of the most important topics we've ever touched on and we want to do it right. We're going to talk about what this is, why it matters and most importantly, how do you build psychological safety within a group. We have some special guests that we're going to bring in to help us with that and I couldn't be more excited to get after this, but first let's look at what it is.
Speaker 4It's that we have created a work environment where we're candidate, where we speak up
Speaker 1when we're in a group that feels like psychologically safe, we're more likely to like ask questions, experiment, try new things like the risks that matter. Yeah, asked for feedback and honestly, we're just like more likely to be yourself, be authentic and all that has made possible when we feel safe and supported. Now there's a few myths around this term psychological safety that we need to put on the table.
Speaker 4There's this myth about good cultures that they're like these happy, happy, you know, seashell and balloon type places. And that is a massive myth when you go and visit Pixar. I mean watch people work together. It's not like we, it's not, it's not happy when you watched the San Antonio Spurs work together. It's not happy. It's a different kind of energy. It's the energy of like working on really hard problems with people that you admire. Unfortunately in many companies, the word nice is used to kind of following in a meeting. You say something that I think is ridiculous. I don't say it to your face because that wouldn't be nice, but I tell my colleague in the hallway, I mean that's not really very nice if you think about it, but we use it that way. It just being polite. You know, our students here at Harvard Business School, they're all, they're all using this term now, but unfortunately some of them are using it to say can't upset anybody. You know that it has to be purely comfortable. You know, in our classroom you can't say something that someone might disagree with or be uncomfortable about. Which of course is ironic because it's almost the exact opposite of what I'm all about, right? I, I mean, I'm not, I'm not actually all about upsetting people, but I am all about how we need to be candid and we need to be direct and we will, we will mess up. We Will, we will stumble and fall, but then we're going to pick each other up, you know, spotters ready. And so I'm trying now to talk about this much more as a need for candor. You know, a need for, uh, you know, a belief that even if I get it wrong and sort of step outside the lines, you know, as long as I'm sort of on purpose, I'm trying to do my work well or trying to make our team better, then you will forgive me. You know, you catch me when I fall, you'll give me feedback which I need and deserve.
Speaker 5So again, it's not about being like fake, happy, fake, Nice. It's about candor and having the right conversation and saying what needs to be said. So That's myth number one. And number two is this idea that you have to relax your standards to create a safe environment. In fact, once again, it's kind of the opposite of that.
Speaker 4My argument would be in order to achieve high standards and a dynamic, complex, interdependent world, you need psychological safety. You need people to speak up when they're not sure. You need people to take risks that are smart. You know that they've thought about, oh this might work and they try it. It's risky to do that and, and it might work or might not work, but either way it's just a little bit scary, right? So it's not at all. I'm saying high performance requires a sense of psychological safety as long as the context is, it is interdependence. Part of part of being in a, in a, in a great culture is you're solving hard problems together and hard problems are hard. Like you, you don't have, there aren't easy answers where somebody can just say, oh, we do this. That doesn't happen. So you have to instead have to navigate through this, this complex landscape and make and have real arguments and, and real discussions and real debates and that stuff is, is, is hard. Now, I know a lot of you are listening and thinking like, well, we're an all not actually safe. Like my position, my starting role on this team is not technically safe. My job is not technically guaranteed. That's true. All of us are human and therefore anxious about our membership and various groups that matter to us. You know, this is what work is all about. It's always going to be dependent on your ability to add value. Um, and so, um, and this creates a really interesting potential risk and then people are like, well, wait a minute, why are you going, you know, how am I going to feel psychologically safe if I might, you know, be kicked off team or fired and actually in a holding back and being silent is not seen as adding value. Like you're at more risk of, you know, being asked to believe this team. If we don't hear from you then if we do
Speaker 1now the, the fourth myth is like, well this is all good stuff, but I can't do it because I'm not in charge. The organization's too big. I have bosses who control that stuff.
Speaker 4There's the good news and the bad news of the fact that psychological safety scene seems to be very local, right? So within companies it varies and you know, the bad news is, gee, wouldn't it be nice to have just a pure, you know, a completely psychologically safe organization that's just a dynamic learning organization from top to bottom and right to left. Well, yes it would be nice, but it doesn't tend to work that way. But the good news about it being very local is it means that the real leverage is local. And so each and every one of us can show up at work and make a difference in terms of creating the healthy learning climate in our team or with our colleagues. Like just how I just, how I show up actually matters. You can have a, it can have a profound impact on just, you know, the few people around me.
Speaker 1That's right. That's right. The culture is the 15 feet around you is the way I've heard it described and I kind of, I kind of liked that. Okay. So now we know sort of what it is and what it's not. Right. And almost more important to everyone. It's not exactly but where we need to go. Now it's like, look, this is the learner lab podcast. We're concerned with learning and development. Let's look at sort of why it matters as far as learning and performance are concerned. Our brains have evolved on this
Speaker 4planet. What are the important things we've evolved around like whether we're safe or not. And, and, and that is um, a massive, massive part that's been, you know, as our brains have sort of grown in complexity that's, that's been at the core all the time. Everybody's brain in a social situation, continually monitoring environment for any signal of do I have a future with these people? Do they care about my success? Our brains are built to respond super strongly. If these aren't my people, I am not just like,
Speaker 1I'm not just neutral out. So basically our brain is wired to fit into groups. Yeah. And it's constantly scanning for information to answer the question, am I safe? Right. And if the answer to that question is no, we are in trouble, right? One, when the Amygdala is activated and we feel like we're not safe learning centers of our brain, like literally shut down and let's just get to the topic we've touched on in every episode of the learning lab action, we're probably not going to do the things that help us grow. Amy Calls these learning behaviors. If we don't feel safe,
Speaker 4you're going to be able to learn. You gotta learn from mistakes. You've got to be able to speak up. You got to ask for help. Like if you're going to be able to learn, you've got to feel psychologically safe.
Speaker 1That makes perfect sense. Not going to ask questions, not going to own my mistakes. I don't want feedback. I'm not going to try new. I'm not going to experiment. I'm not going to step out of my comfort zone if I don't feel safe. Honestly, this is what Google discovered too. It's like we know the actions that help us grow in the things we want to do. Psychological safety is the underpinning thing that allows us to do those actions. Not only does it affect the way we learn and the learning behaviors, but it has a huge influence on our performance. Both of those things matter to anyone listening.
Speaker 4That's it. It's the, it's the platform on which all the other cultural stuff happens. And if you lose it, you lose a lot. So you have to think of it as this as this first, you know, basic space in which you can connect. And if you want to blow up a group, blow up safety. Like that's the thing that wrecks groups. This soil oil has to be healthy soil seeds into it to make that grow or don't grow. So it's the underpinning.
Speaker 1So it doesn't matter what industry we're in or what field we're in, what plants were growing. The soil matters a lot. You could argue more than anything. So now that we understand what safety is, what it's not and why it matters, let's transition to looking at how we can build it time to get into the weeds and come up with some like concrete applications. And the cool thing is for almost everything we're going to touch on, it's relevant to anyone in any place, in any group, regardless of where we're at on the totem pole. Now to help us with this section, we have two special guests. We have two members of the Grinnell College women's volleyball team. This team has gone through a massive transition in the last few years. Literally Four seasons ago they won two matches. Oh, that's, that's not great. Not the best. And this previous season they finished second in the conference and won more games than any program in school history. Wow, that's really great. Big Leap. We have their head coach.
Speaker 4My name is Eric Reagan. Uh, I'm the head volleyball coach at Grinnell College. We have one of their co captains, Nora Hill. I'm a senior captain of the Grinnell College volleyball team.
Speaker 1And here's the cool part. The focus of the team this season was building psychological safety. And not only was it building psychological safety, but they used the book, the Culture Code written by Daniel Coyle. To do that.
Speaker 4I think that the culture code really, I recommend every single person who works in a group with just humans in general read it and best practice is telling us right now that if we can build a culture that does have a shared purpose where people share vulnerability and they're safe enough to do so, they're going to achieve at a higher level and learn a ton along the way
Speaker 1to get the ball rolling with this. Let's head back to our expert Amy. Smart idea. Yeah. She says that to build psychological safety, there's three big things we need to look at.
Speaker 4I like to put them in three buckets and they're, they're kind of temporal buckets, you know, first, second, third. But I don't mean to imply a sort of simple linear path and then you're done. It's a little ongoing journey. Uh, but, but bucket one is kind of stage setting and, and to me, stage setting is kind of the work we do to remind ourselves and each other that we face uncertainty or challenge or interdependence or all three.
Speaker 1So basically it's being real about the work that we're going to do and it's going to be uncertain and we have to acknowledge that. Absolutely. Regardless of what it is we're doing. If the goal is to grow, to innovate, to be creative, sort of the price of admission there is struggle and mistakes and failure and it's about putting that on the table and kind of owning that, that it's not always comfortable to do these things. And when we share that and own that with our people, I think that's a great way to set this stage.
Speaker 4Yeah. And even acknowledging that fear, it's okay to feel that fear right now, but you have all no five women on the court and a bunch of women not on the court supporting you. And so even if you feel fear, creating the safety to talk about that I think is important.
Speaker 1And I think another component of this is sort of connecting the broader why, like why are we doing this? Absolutely. And getting people on board with like, Hey, there's a reason that we're doing this and providing maybe the underlying science that supports it.
Speaker 4Like, we just can't do it. We have to educate our people on the like the research behind it, right? And that was the value of us. Like reading the book together as a team, starting that and like creating that buy in in the group from the good apples or the leaders or whatever you want to call can take sort of a lot of energy up front. And so I think that you have to get in that mindset of like this is worth it. And like there's a reason, a purpose that I'm doing this because we're really talking about the functions of a culture, right? They've, the functions are, we need to stay together that safety, we need to share information. Well that's vulnerability. Like that's how we share information and we need to figure out where we're going. Well that's, that's purpose. So however you do it, there's not one way to achieve those three functions. There's a lot of different ways to do it, but those have to happen because you need to, if you're a group, you need to navigate through these complicated situations together. And the second bucket is proactive inquiry.
Speaker 1When she touches on this in her book, the free of this organization, she calls us inviting engagement or inviting actions. The way I see it as the focus of this bucket is we grow through action. So it's about finding ways to encourage action. And so our people are getting the reps of sharing and asking for feedback and doing the things that builds safety. And there's no definitive blueprint here, but there's a lot of ways to go about this.
Speaker 4You know, by by asking, by asking good questions and that can be just subordinate to, you know, to bosses or, or to peers. Do you have any thoughts about this product, this project, this, you know, this customer or this experience I've just had and you would be, it would be very awkward for you not to respond. I mean, you're not going to just sit there mute when I asked you if thoughtful question, you could say, no, I really haven't thought about it and don't feel like I have something to add. But you're not going to be just mute. But this kind of proactivity and that sounds so obvious and it is, but the reality is if you actually tape record a lot of workplace conversation, the jet new in question is a rare beast, right? There's a lot of rhetorical questions, you know, I'm right, right? It, you agree with me, don't you? You know, or um, well, wouldn't that fall apart if we did it that way? I mean really. Okay, boss. Yeah, it would fall apart if we did it that way. But, but the genuine question that kind of invites your thinking and gives people room to respond is, is pretty unusual and very powerful. And any one of us can use it. It's free. I mean, for me, the number one way that I think I created safety was like by being vulnerable myself. And I think that even though it gets brought up a lot, modeling is so important. And behavior, heart of inviting engagement is often modeling it. You know, if I'm unwilling to tell you three things, I just messed up. How, how can I expect you to do the same? And then the third, the third bucket is monitor your responses, right? Cause there will be, in our today's workplace, and especially anytime that learning is needed, there will be, there will be bad news, there will be disappointment, there'll be dissent, there'll be things I disagree with and have to just, you know, to help foster psychological safety, they have to kind of take a deep breath and say, oh that's interesting. Thanks for that clear line of sight. What do you think we should do?
Speaker 1The big idea here is, okay, when these actions start to occur, how are we responding to them? If a mistake happens, how do we respond? If we ask for feedback and get feedback, how are we responding to that? That makes a lot of sense. So if you told me that you wanted me to give you feedback, but then when I gave you feedback, you've lashed out at me, right? I'm not going to do that again. I don't feel safe doing that. Exactly. And this is super common. Hey, give me some honest feedback. Let's practice candor, right? Then you give it to me and I get real mad. It's like, guess what, you're not going to continue to give that. So the way I see it is the way we respond can either encourage more action that builds the safety or it totally shuts it off.
Speaker 4I can respond in such a way that invites more input. They can respond in such a way that invites a joint problem solving or both. And in fact, another way to think about this response really isn't new. I have a productive response or an unproductive response to what comes my way. It doesn't mean, you know, it's not happy, sad, it's not good bad. It's just, is this, it's going to help us, oh in the direction we want to go. Uh, I think one thing that we do really, really well is celebrate mistakes. And if people are trying
Speaker 6to develop specific things in their skillset, right? So if my teammate can recognize me struggling with that and trying to get better, that makes me feel safe and I'm more apt to do that again, which is really, really special.
Speaker 3Talking think about mistakes is very different than teams that are really outcome focused, I think. And that comes from, you know, our philosophy as a team, but then also how we interact with each other and how you respond when someone makes an error. It doesn't go the way you want I think is very, very important. There's a guy who studies critical moments theory where it's like, look, you know, group norms get formed and like these just these infant, what happens at the first disagreement, any group come together. What happened to the first disagreement? That is huge. That is a massive turning point for setting up a norm of how you're going to interact or are people going to share weakness or are they not going to show weakness in a bad culture? 10 Texans ended up pulling you down in a good cultures. Tensions ended up being a source of fuel because you are always turned toward them and you're always trying to to figure him out. Everyone on the team is not going to be best friends, not the end goal. I think at any one point, cause that would be not genuine. That'd be fake. That'd be false niceties. But I think it's about having enough of a team culture of safety and vulnerability that even if this person is not your favorite person on the team, you can still take feedback from them positively.
Speaker 5The big idea here is that the way that we respond is that they're going to encourage more of those actions we want to see or shut them down. Now look like this isn't always going to be easy and it's not going to go perfectly. No. Like this is a learning process and there's gonna be bumps along the way. But the idea is to be aware of setting the stage, inviting action, and being very aware of our response.
Speaker 6I'm thinking of specific examples where we were able to have candid conversations about things and specific examples when it didn't go well, because it definitely did not go well sometimes. And the piece that was missing when it wasn't going well is people couldn't be vulnerable because they didn't feel safe in that particular situation because they either felt attacked, right, and didn't want the feedback, or they felt like they were right and we're potentially above what we're talking about, right? So then it does come back again to that safety piece.
Speaker 3What's happening here is, is akin to a language and like any language, there's sort of a core set of nouns and verbs, but it's a language, not awards, but a behavior. So you, you, you send the signal with your behavior and we're built to receive those behaviors and have our brains light up in response to them. So building the safe environment isn't just like putting a poster up on the wall that, or like people walk in and we go, welcome your safe. Right? The way that we do this is we, we send signals and we send signals through action and behavior. That's what builds this culture. And so realizing that as a leader, whether it's a leader of a classroom or the leader of a group leader of a team, that you have this window in which you to deliver that signal of safety, you need to deliver that and redeliver that and redeliver that. Because our brains are built to require that constant signal. Like it's okay now it's okay, now it's okay. Now we're still connected. There's a lot of different ways to do it. You know, every, every great culture is not the same. But underneath they're sending these basic spin heyvrill signals back and forth through our actions. We're sending the signal, you matter, you belong, we're in this together. That's exactly right. And you can't, you almost can't overdo it when it comes to that stuff. You can be insincere and that doesn't work. But authentic signals of like, Hey, you know, we share a connection, we share a future. We are in a relationship and, and I'm thinking about the past and the future and you and I'm in the moment. Uh, so there's not like a color by numbers way to send belonging cues, but there's a whole sort of symphony of ways to send them. And another one is just eating together. Like, you know, there's something that happens when people eat together and with groups that I've seen that they always, you know, good groups make a priority out of mealtime. You want to create signals that people matter. That's why I think it's really important to spend time like meals and traveling even like on the bus, those signals matter.
Speaker 6Yeah. And I think especially on a college sports team where there are new people coming in every year, it's like they're not freshmen here that are part of our team and it's like it's better for us if we can get them feeling that way right away and feeling safe. And that's where like the belonging cues come in. So like our leaders did a great job with our first years this year. Right? Bringing them into our culture from day one. It's not like they have to prove themselves to be a part of Ge CVB. They are a part of it right away as the season went on, having regular meetings about it. So we just don't want to talk about these things when stuff's not going right. We want to talk about it all the time so we can keep upgrading.
Speaker 3It's like a candle you need to relight all the time. It's not like you can just sort of send them, oh we send them in the first first month of the year and then we're all set like that's not how it works. I think that also once you feel the benefits, I like being a part of a group that feels safe together. You like just want to keep reinforcing that because one, you have more successful outputs, but two, it just feels better. It's the same thing we feel with, with all great sort of coach mentors in our life and when you ask people about their best coach, what they end up always getting around to is like they really believed in me. You literally talking about like, Oh, we had a great skillset of teaching Algebra. Right? They don't talk about that. They talk about that sense of belief that is very individualized, which means a lot. When you say someone believes in me, you're, you're saying they see me same way I see me like they see me as a in a special way. And you can't do that without individualizing stuff
Speaker 2Alex, it's time to do your thing. Give him the recap. If we want to build better teams are more productive
Speaker 1teams and we have to invest in our culture. And the foundation for investing in a culture is psychological safety. Yup. And in order to build that, we need to set the stage. We need to invite engagement. So we get those reps and then we need to be really aware and monitor our responses to those events that happen. And don't forget those belonging cues, the constant signals that you matter, you're safe here and that we're a team and you belong. A couple of important things before we let you go, like to give a special shout out to Nora and Eric for kind of giving us the blueprint of how to dig in and build this. I'm a huge thank you to Daniel Coyle. He's been a great mentor to us. Uh, the culture code is one of my favorite books I've ever read. Please check it out. And I think we have to give a ton of love to Amy Edmondson here. It's like without her work, none of this exists and she's been in the trenches since the 90s working on this, her book, the fearless organization just came out a few months ago. Highly recommend that if you want to really dig into this research, and the final thank you is to all the learners out there. This has been the most incredible project that we've ever done. Um, we had no idea how it would turn out, but it is just blown my mind at like how supportive everyone's been. This is the end of season one, many seasons to gum. We're going to take a little break and we will be back soon and we can't wait to get after it again. Thank you guys.
