Psychologically safety isn’t just about creating a comfortable climate, but about embracing discomfort. That’s because discomfort helps us grow and address complex problems, which in turn leads to greater psychological safety.

This means shifting from a parent-child dynamic to an adult-to-adult relationship within teams. That involves relating to people's potential, treating them as competent professionals, and involving them in the decision-making process.

A psychologically “safe” environment without a level of discomfort can hinder people’s growth and professional development, which can affect innovation and creativity.

To create a more psychologically safe environment, this week’s guest, Lisa Gill, suggests staying curious for longer, asking good coaching questions, and being honest and open about our challenges as leaders.

Lisa’s tips for a happier workplace

1. Allow space for people to be something other than happy if that's what's real for them.
2. Create a climate of psychological safety by embracing discomfort as well as safety.
3. Practice adult-to-adult conversations by relating to people's potential and being curious and empathetic.

Links

• Episode 10 – Beyond Budgeting, with Bjarte Bogsnes
• Connect with Lisa via LinkedIn
• Why Psychological Safety is Important for Productive Teamwork, by Shane Snow
• Jessica and Douglas Rauch from Aquadec on tradesmen and teal – from Lisa’s Leadermorphasis podcast
• The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier
• Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?, by Aaron Dignan
• Liberating Structures

Welcome to this edition of the Happy Manifesto podcast.

I am Henry

And I'm Maureen Egbe.

And today we've got on Lisa Gill.

Lisa is on the guru radar of the Thinkers 50 list of management gurus.

We had her at our happy conference, so we've got some good, things to look forward to.

Absolutely.

And so tell me about what created joy at work for you.

Well, my thing that's going to create me more joy is going to be out of work because I'm taking some time off.

So I am going to book, I have already booked a week away to go and dance a carnival in the Netherlands.

I'm so looking forward to it.

Is it the equivalent of Glastonbury?

Yeah, without the mud.

was no mud this year apparently.

it's true, but it's more like like Notting Hill Carnival.

Ah,

yes, you've got the floats and the music and so on, so it's going to be lots of fun.

So what brings you joy, Henry?

I attended the Beyond Budgeting course at Happy yesterday and it was fabulous, it would Bjarte Borgsnes who explained that it's not just about going beyond budget, so that's a key part of it, that it's about transparency, it's about freedom, it's about autonomy, it's about all these kinds of things.

And an example he gave was Handelsbanken who are a Swedish bank and they've done beyond budgeting since 1970.

And instead of budgets they basically work on the basis of KPI, cost income ratio.

But the bonus is not based on the branch.

It's not based on the difference between managers and individuals.

The bonus is the same for everybody across the company.

So you're saying that everybody gets the same amount as the CEO, there's no difference.

Exactly.

And where they get it is intriguing because they get it at the end of their career.

So if you've 40 years, apparently, you get a 1.

5 million euro payout, whether you're the CEO or the frontline member of staff.

And I think that's just fabulous.

I think so.

I think we need to be looking at that, Henry.

don't we?

We do.

ha So Henry, where can we find out more about this?

Because this sounds really intriguing.

Well, Bjarte was on our podcast, wasn't he?

He was on a few weeks ago.

so listen to that, folks.

Listen to that.

now on to Lisa.

I'm Lisa Gill.

I'm a coach and facilitator with Tough Leadership Training.

And I also like to sometimes describe myself as like a reporter on the future of work.

So I have a podcast called Leadamorphosis.

Which is brilliant.

Thank you.

So I'm really passionate about sharing stories and examples of new ways of working and being together.

So, at our conference, you talked about psychological safety not being the same as psychological comfort.

Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yes, this comes from an article I read a couple of years ago now by a guy called Shane Snow, and I just loved that kind of tagline that psychological safety is not the same as psychological comfort.

And what he means by that is, I don't know about you, but oftentimes when I'm working with organizations, I find that people Make false assumptions about what psychological safety is.

Sometimes I think we can think of it as like a climate where everyone is kind of like happy all the time or like, you know, everyone's high fiving and all this kind of stuff.

And that's great, but that's not the kind of full picture of psychological safety.

And so what he says is that if you want to create a climate where people can grow and develop and address complex problems and be creative and all of that great stuff that we know psychological safety helps with, then you also need to embrace a bit of discomfort as well.

So it's kind of safety plus discomfort actually equals psychological safety.

Because if it's just comfortable, that's sort of how people go nowhere, as he puts it.

Can you give any examples of that kind of thing?

Yeah, well, one example is, oftentimes, I work with organizations that say to me, you know, we really want to have a strong feedback culture.

And I say, Well, great, you know, what's sort of stopping you?

And, and they say that they at, they're scared to give each other feedback.

You know, it feels like, especially to colleagues, who am I to give someone feedback?

And I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

And so they tend to end up kind of giving feedback, but wrapped in cotton wool, you know?

It's sort of fluffy and, or they don't give it at all.

They're waiting for that like right moment, which will never come.

And all the time people are missing out on those opportunities to grow and develop and know what impact they're having.

And so, giving feedback, especially feedback that might be a bit tough for someone, but is meant with love, is going to be a bit uncomfortable.

You know, that's sort of the way our brain is wired.

So there is kind of this strange paradox that in order to give good feedback and to give, you know, create psychological safety where there is safety and also accountability and development, means being a bit uncomfortable and sort of stepping, you know, over that awkwardness maybe because it's worth it, you know.

So we've talked about adult to adult conversations and it's like how would you link that into the psychological safety?

Yeah, so adult to adult, obviously, like, the opposite of that is what I would describe as like a parent child dynamic.

And again, this can play into the kind of psychological comfort.

If I'm a manager, you know, I might be very empathetic.

And so I might want to protect my team from, you know, bad news or from difficult times, you know, make sure they're okay, take care of them.

And if I do that too much, or if I do that in a way that's not conscious or chosen, then we get stuck in this parent child dynamic, and everyone else becomes, you know, the child, right?

They become a bit dependent on me, and I'm sort of robbing them of the opportunity, actually, to develop or take responsibility if I'm kind of protecting them all the time, or not giving them the opportunity to do something.

So a key kind of principle of adult to adult conversations is to relate to people's potential, to relate to that people can survive things.

People can take, you know, feedback, for example, you know.

People are adult competent professionals.

And again, if I have a way of being that's, you know, empathetic and challenging, it's sort of both and, then I can be really adult to adult.

And that, something happens then in the other person where they also draw on more of their self and they become adult as well.

So we kind of raise the sort of stakes back to adult to adult.

Absolutely.

Yes, because I hope to think, Maureen, do you reckon we are a good adult to adult relationship at Happy, both ourselves and everyone.

Yes, I believe it's something that we really try hard to practice because it's easy to, you know, as you said, when you start feeling uncomfortable to default to, to that, to the adult, to child.

But it's something that we really practice.

It is, and I loved what you just said, that about there, about leading to people's potential and I think that's what we do quite well at Happy, you know, really figuring out what people's potential is.

Well, I was just thinking as you were talking then that I remember years ago when I read your book, Henry, The Happy Manifesto, I remember you have this concept of pre approval, right?

And that's a great example of relating to someone's potential.

Because, and it doesn't mean abdicating completely.

It doesn't mean, you know, like, off you go, do whatever you like.

You know, as I remember it, it's also about stating, you know, here are the requirements, you know, here's what's needed.

Here's sort of the agreements up front.

So, you know, now that that's clear, you know, you have full mandate and authority to go off and do that.

And we'll kind of meet back at the end kind of thing.

So, so part of adult to adult is, it's that balance.

It's about clear communication and sort of what's needed as well as kind of being empathetic.

It's always this kind of both and.

So the sort of main thing that I want to get across is that there are things you can do and practices like pre approval are great examples.

But more than that, it's so much about your way of being.

Thank you and your mindset underneath that.

And that's trickier because we're usually not very aware of that, which is why it's so helpful to get feedback from other people, and practice, you know, difficult conversations, and try things out, and realize, okay, so actually, you know, when someone disagrees with me, I stop listening.

Or, you know, when someone is sort of expressing negative emotions I suddenly go into this, like, overactive parental mode and then the and try to take care of them.

So, okay, what do I want to choose instead?

So it's a lot about self awareness first, and then kind of practice and feedback.

And if you can get some coaching, you know, whether that's from like a buddy or a coach or a trainer, that also really helps.

So when somebody starts at a company, often it is a parent child relationship, the manager to the person.

Any thoughts on how the manager could shift it to adult adult?

Yeah, I think, because often people ask me the question, Okay, well, being adult to adult is great, but what if someone's really junior and it doesn't make sense to just sort of, you know, let them dive into the deep end?

So when someone starts an organization, I could, you know, sit down with them and have a conversation where I say, you know, so here's how I would like it to be with us, with me as your manager.

I would love it to be, you know, you stepping in and taking responsibility and feeling able to, you know, do what you think's best and question me and give me feedback and all of that.

Of course in the beginning, you know, there are some things that you don't know yet and, and there are some times where I'll say, this is how it needs to be, or it might give you some directive feedback or, so I can be clear about the things where I am going to be directive for example, you know, when it comes to this and this, then I'm going to decide, or you know, I'll tell you.

But when it comes to this and this there, I really want you to really take an ownership of that.

And then having kind of laid out, you know, the rules of the game, so to speak, I can ask, so what would you need in order to feel, you know, comfortable with that.

Or what would you need in order to really step into that?

Or what do you think could be challenges for you?

In, in, you know, operating in that way.

And how would you like it to be?

So really kind of involving and enrolling them in how it's going to be.

Because, again, a lot of times, people say to me, Well, you know, I did that, but they're not stepping in, they're not taking any initiative.

So that's why that curiosity piece is so important.

To be like, hmm, okay, so they're not stepping in.

What's that about?

And usually, I remember there was this great trio that an organization called Cornerstone had, where if a colleague was struggling in their kind of autonomous teams, they had this sort of triangle of things, which was clarity, competence, and autonomy.

So do they have enough clarity on what they're supposed to be doing?

If not, okay, how can we give them clarity?

Do they have the competence in order to do what they're doing?

Oh, maybe actually, the reason they're not stepping in is because they're not competent yet.

They don't have that skill set or that capacity.

So how can we support them with that?

And then the third one, autonomy.

Do they have enough autonomy to do that?

If they're not stepping in, maybe it's because actually they didn't realize they had, you know, quote unquote, permission to.

So how can we sort of address that?

So I think that triangle is quite a handy little tool also for trying to establish more of an adult to adult relationships.

Yeah that sounds really great you know and just listening to you in the sense of that how you talk about involving people, it really just reminds me of the coaching style that's that important.

Can you tell me more around how you see coaching fitting into this?

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of different definitions of coaching.

And again, I think you can do coaching and you can also be coaching.

So there's a really great author, Michael Bungay Stanier, I don't know if you've come across his work, yeah.

He's written some of the most well known books on coaching, like The Advice Trap and The Coaching Habit.

And he talks about being coaching.

So one of his little tips is stay curious for longer, something like, you know, just hold on that, because usually we tend to kind of give advice and his thing is just, just wait a bit longer, stay curious a bit longer, and that's one of the, you know, one of the main keys to coaching.

So I think for me, a definition of coaching that my colleague Karen once told me was that coaching.

It's a way of being which enables someone else to tap into their full potential and find a way forward towards their goal or their kind of desired outcome.

So, Lisa, I see you as being at the forefront of the future of work.

And this is very much about self managing organizations, isn't it?

Tell us more about that.

Tell us more about the self managing organizations you've worked with.

Yeah, well, I think what comes to mind now is that I've kind of worked with organizations on a spectrum because some organizations are really radical in that they're exploring kind of self managing decentralized structures and processes.

And they're also exploring a kind of more adult to adult way of being and culture and re imagining leadership and so on.

And then some are more traditionally structured, but exploring a more kind of adult to adult way of being.

And some are more traditional in how they're being, but they're really going for it on the structures and processes.

My colleague Karl Erik likes to use the metaphor of, you know, when you're downloading apps on your smartphone.

If you try and download a new app onto an old operating system and you haven't updated the operating system on your iPhone or your Android, it doesn't work, right?

Either it won't download at all or it does, but it's glitchy.

And so in that metaphor, apps are like structures and processes.

So, you know, and that applies to like Agile.

Hey, let's use like Agile and Scrum or, you know, let's use the advice process as a decision making framework, for example.

And those apps are really good.

But if we install them onto an outdated operating system, like a parent child operating system, like we were talking about before, then it's going to be a parent doing Scrum or a parent giving feedback or a parent doing the advice process, you know?

So I think for me, what's been really key over the last few years with my journey and talking to different organizations, and especially talking to like founders and CEOs, is that operating system piece, that mindset and that way of being is really important to look at as well, because from that, kind of everything grows.

There's a really nice example on my podcast of a construction company in Australia called Aquadec.

And the CEO there tells a very honest story about when he tried to kind of introduce Teal and self management into his company, the construction workers, mostly kind of blokes were a bit like What is this?

I don't wanna read a business book, you know?

And so for a few months, he was trying to push and convince and persuade.

And then he had this really humble realization that, oh, actually nothing is gonna change unless I change.

And so the day when things really shifted was when he had a meeting with the team and he said, look, to be honest, I feel like this isn't really working.

It feels like I'm pushing you to do something you don't really want to do.

And I'm I'm really passionate about this, and I and I have good intentions.

But, you know, what do you think?

And then there was some silence and then people started speaking up and saying, well, yeah, you know, there are some things about this that we think are good, but, you know, we don't want to read a book, and how about if we do it our way, and if we try this?

And suddenly it was like he went from pushing to sort of pulling, you know?

And he shares Really beautifully, like that process of learning to kind of let go and the sort of pendulum swing of that.

They have this poster on the office that was a sort of gauge between whether he was Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, or whether he was like the Zen Buddhist monk, because he could change throughout the day.

So he's learned a lot about trying to be more honest and open about what's challenging for him as a leader and when he messes up, you know, like owning that is really powerful.

So I think it's not as simple as installing apps, unfortunately.

There's no, you know, button that says install.

It's a process and people go through their journey at different paces and in different ways.

And so, you know, it kind of goes back to that, just to be curious and see what do people need?

What's missing?

What are people ready for?

What feels possible now?

What feels maybe a stretch too far maybe we put that off for a while And to also make it okay that people have skepticisms or concerns or doubts that comes back to the psychological safety piece again.

You know, like, what are you concerned about?

What are you skeptical about?

What are your protests about this?

And really listening so people feel heard.

And then it's like it takes so much less energy then because you're not trying to convince people, but people are actually sort of discovering for themselves what's in it for us and what could the

that is the key isn't it, that you listen and let people feel heard.

Rather than imposing, you know, whatever solution you want to impose.

Yes absolutely, listening so people feel heard is one of the main skills of coaching and then the other one is asking good coaching questions.

But just that example that you gave, just being that really simple, asking what does somebody else need, you know, what do they think, it doesn't take much, you know, and you can get so much from that.

Yeah, and we expend a lot of energy trying to guess often.

Like need is some, you know, five step model of how to do that maybe da da da, and it's like, have you tried asking them?

or a new phone for their ex.

Exactly.

So, Lisa, your three tips for a happy workplace.

What have you got?

Yes, so the first one is a bit of a kind of paradox I guess, because happy workplace, my first tip is to allow space for people to be something other than happy if that's what's going on with them.

Love

So again I think there can be like you know false ideas of what a happy workplace is but...

Really allowing spaces and practices where people can check in and say, actually, you know, I'm struggling today.

And you don't need to rescue them or anything.

But, you know, you might just say, OK, what do you need?

I don't need anything.

I just needed to name it.

OK, great.

The second tip is.

It's actually a question that I've nicked from Aaron Dignan, the author of Brave New Work, which is what's stopping you from doing the best work of your life?

So his kind of prompt is, if you ask that in a team, or you ask that in a one on one conversation, it produces really ripe conversations.

And then out of that, you might discover, you know, some things that you could do as like experiments or, you know, so it's a really kind of juicy question.

I think I will

I know.

I'm already noticing it down.

it down

like that.

And number three is, is to find ways to embrace the uncomfortable.

So, I was thinking before, like one example is there's a liberating structure, which I know Happy is a fan of.

yeah, we're a very big fan of,

Yeah, there's a liberating structure called TRIZ.

And one way you could use TRIZ is in a group to kind of brainstorm together.

If we were designing a workplace that was psychologically unsafe, what would our to do list be?

And the more ridiculous the better, you know?

Brainstorm really silly things.

Like, oh we would blindfold everyone and shout at them day and night or whatever.

And then in the second round, as you know with TRIZ, get people to confront, okay, in what way, even if it's just 1%, are any of these to dos true sometimes here?

And then I think from that, you would generate, kind of go deeper into like, okay, what are the things that we could do to make things safer around here, knowing that it's not possible to make.

How can we make a place ever like a hundred percent safe, or a hundred percent inclusive, but to make it safer, you know, maybe we uncover some gems of like, oh yeah, we haven't really confronted that.

Good tips.

Good tips.

Well, thank you very much, Lisa.

That has been brilliant.

Thank you for having me.

Henry, I could listen to Lisa Gill all day.

Absolutely, she's got such a lovely tone of voice, doesn't she?

She has, you know, in her stories.

I forgot that we were actually interviewing her.

I was just like, oh, my gosh.

But great.

I love the whole conversation around the adult to adult conversation, you know?

And not moving into that adult child and how easy that parent child.

Sorry.

Yes, thank you.

And lots of managers do that.

And of course, when somebody joins the company, they are in that kind of child parent relationship, so you have to get them to the adult adult relationship.

And just using those skills of coaching and asking, remember what she said about that, being more curious, you know, we talk about being curious, but then it's again, taking it a step further to be even more curious.

And that's, I also was fascinated about the whole concept as well of discomfort, you know, sitting in that discomfort, in order to then have that communication and be more vulnerable, so that allows somebody else to be vulnerable and open with you as well.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

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And what do we do?