Bonavue Organic Clothing Co. was in trouble. Revenue had been declining for a year, despite a well-paid staff and a solid culture of psychological safety. The Board of Directors decided to intervene, and called an all-company meeting.
The founder began the meeting by asking the 25 employees to recite the company’s mission statement from memory. No one could do it. He looked around the room, his gaze settling on one employee.
“Darren, how long have you been with the company?” he asked.
“8 years,” Darren replied.
“8 years. And you can’t recite the company’s mission. That’s shameful,” the founder retorted.
The founder then tried to open a discussion about why the company wasn’t performing but was met with silence. It was too late, the damage had been done. The employees gazed downward, afraid to look up, much less speak up.
Darren was laid off a few days later, along with a few others. Within 2 months, 13 more employees quit, many without jobs lined up. They just couldn’t take the shift from a culture of trust, respect, and teamwork to one of fear.
So What Went Wrong?
In five minutes, the founder completely destroyed any sense of psychological safety. And it turns out that a study by Google found that psychological safety is the number one indicator of a high-performing team. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni has written extensively about vulnerability-based trust:
“(Trust) requires team members to make themselves vulnerable to one another, and be confident that their respective vulnerabilities will not be used against them.”
Small wonder that no one spoke up. Vulnerability and safety are absolutely essential for creativity, giving and receiving feedback, and especially for difficult conversations like “what have we been doing wrong?”
Three Ways to Create Psychological Safety
Deliver critical feedback in private. Scolding an employee in front of his peers is nothing more than bullying, shaming, and humiliation. It accomplishes nothing positive and instills fear in everyone within earshot. The employees now see the founder as a tyrant and will be reluctant to share ideas.
Set clear expectations. No one in the room could recite the mission statement, so it wasn’t Darren’s fault. If memorizing the mission statement is important, start meetings with everyone saying it together. Post it on the office walls. Make it a part of everyone’s email signature. Tell everyone they need to memorize it! With a clear expectation, there is no need to shame the employee, even in a private conversation. Ask if the employee understood the expectation, and if so, why he didn’t follow through. Then help them identify how to resolve the issue going forward.
Most importantly, recognize your “executive presence.” With a single look or word, as a leader, you can instill panic or creative genius. It’s up to you how you show up. Practice mindfulness meditation as a first step towards developing emotional intelligence. Basically, stop and think about what results your actions will bring. Be the leader your people want to follow, not flee.
Tales from the Trenches are real stories from real companies. The purpose of these stories is not to point fingers, but to view them as learning opportunities. To this end, specific details, irrelevant circumstances, and names have been changed.
Matt McLaughlin helps conscious companies build transformational leaders and teams. He has over 20 years of experience building high-performance teams and has practiced and taught meditation for 30 years. He brings a deep passion for companies that foster social and environmental sustainability and views business as a crucial component of societal change.
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