October 1, 2025 • 53 mins
What does psychological safety really mean beneath the buzzword? In this episode, Jade Garratt, co-founder of Psych Safety and colleague of past guest Tom Geraghty, shares practical ways leaders can move past misconceptions and create environments where teams feel safe to learn, speak up, and perform at their best.
Resources:
- Psych Safety website
- Psychological Safety Course: Train the Trainer (highly recommend!)
- Connect with Jade on LinkedIn
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teri-m-schmidt/
Get 1-on-1 leadership support from Teri here: https://www.strongleadersserve.com/coaching
Set up an intro call with Teri: https://calendly.com/terischmidt/discoverycall
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Today on Strong Leaders Serve.
We're continuing our series ongoing beneath the buzzwords by
tackling one that shows upeverywhere, psychological safety
to help us move past the surfacelevel talk and into the
practical.
I'm so excited today to bejoined by Jade Garrett.
(00:22):
Jade is a writer, facilitator,and learning designer with
nearly two decades of experienceacross education, charities,
universities, and businesses.
She's a senior fellow of theHigher Education Academy,
currently immersed in her PhDresearch, and she's also a
co-founder of Psych Safety.
(00:42):
She's passionate about turningbig ideas into everyday
practices that make workplaceshealthier, happier, and high
performing.
And if the name psych safetysounds familiar, it's because
Jade Works alongside past guestTom Garrity from episodes 1 48
and 180 2.
(01:02):
Together, they continue theimportant mission of helping
leaders and teams build trulysafe spaces for learning growth
and performance.
This conversation goes beyonddefinitions.
We explore the misconceptionsthat leaders often hold about
psychological safety.
Why it's much more than justbeing nice and the practical
(01:25):
behaviors that can make or breaka team's ability to learn and
thrive together.
And the two practices that Jadeshares for making this really
practical are ones that Ihaven't necessarily heard
before.
And that can have such a bigimpact, not just on
psychological safety.
But also on the effectiveness ofyour meetings.
(01:49):
So I won't make you wait anylonger.
Let's get into it.
I'm Terry Schmidt, executive andleadership coach at Strong
Leaders Serve, where we partnerwith organizations to prepare
leaders for those everydaystretch moments of leadership,
the promotion that makes oldhabits obsolete, the reorg that
shakes trust, or the high stakesproject where influence matters
(02:11):
more than authority.
And this is the Strong LeadersServe podcast I.
Teri Schmidt (03:11):
Hi Jade.
Welcome to the Strong LeadersServe Podcast.
I'm really looking forward toour conversation today.
Jade Garatt (03:17):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Really happy to be here andlooking forward to getting stuck
in.
Teri Schmidt (03:23):
Yes, And as you know, we're doing a series of
going beneath the buzzwords.
You know, some of the terms thatkind of just get tossed glibly
around on LinkedIn.
What, what do they actually meanand what does it take?
For leaders to engage inbehaviors that make those
buzzwords actually meansomething.
(03:44):
And I thought, who do I wannatalk to about this term of
psychological safety?
And couldn't think of anyonethat I would rather talk to than
you.
So I'm so happy that you werewilling to make some time for
this conversation.
Jade Garatt (03:56):
Oh, wonderful.
Well, thank you.
What a compliment for a startand yeah, absolutely.
I think this is a great topicand you are so right.
There are so many buzzwords thatit can be very easy to throw
around terms and assume thatbecause we can say the word that
means we've done the work andit's fine.
And as long as we say the rightwords, we've done it.
And psychological safety in manyways, as it's become better
(04:19):
known as a concept has.
To some become something of abuzzword.
And yet actually doing the workof fostering psychological
safety in teams and inorganizations in practice is
really hard and can be quitechallenging and quite
confronting at times.
So it's great that we're gonnaget a chance to get stuck in
today and consider some of thosechallenges as well as some of
(04:41):
the considerable benefits todoing that sort of work.
Teri Schmidt (04:45):
Yeah.
Excellent.
Well, let's, before we get intothat, let's start with you.
I'm curious to learn about whatdrew you to focus on
psychological safety and reallyhow has your own growth as a
leader kind of shifted the waythat you approach it?
Jade Garatt (04:59):
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for giving theopportunity.
So I I started my career as ateacher, so I'm based in the UK
and I was a secondary schoolteacher in the uk so I taught
students from 11 to 18 years oldand.
Something that I didn't have aname for at the time, but I
really noticed very early on inteaching is that.
(05:21):
In our classrooms as teachers,we were very good at
understanding that we needed tocreate spaces which were safe
for students to speak up in.
We needed to create spaces wherestudents could have a go, could
try when things were difficult,could risk failing, could risk
making mistakes, could talkabout those mistakes, could ask
questions could say, you know, Idon't understand.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
(05:42):
Could say, I, I don't, I don'tthink I'm doing so well.
Could raise a concern like that.
And could say, I've got an idea.
I think I could write thisdifferently, or, I think I
could, I think I could take thisin a different direction.
And, and we got that.
As teachers, we reallyunderstood that we needed to
create the sorts of spaces wherestudents could do that.
Where they could have what wewould now consider to be
psychological safety.
(06:04):
Although I didn't have thatlanguage at the time.
What I also recognized was thatin terms of my own professional
development as a teacher, I'mmore broadly in terms of
relationships with otherteachers and the way in which
teachers certainly in Englandwere inspected and observed, and
I'm, I'm using, supported withmy air quotes, but support to
(06:26):
develop it was actually anincredibly unsafe environment,
an environment where often itfelt very punitive.
It felt very fearful.
There was.
A really high stakes culturearound making mistakes, getting
it wrong, which can mean thatyou tend to keep yourself quite
small and quite safe, and maybeonly try the, the things that
(06:48):
are perhaps more guaranteed towork.
And this sort of stayed with me.
I, I, you know, I, I was in, Itaught myself in classrooms for
five years and then I moved moreinto leadership roles in
coaching other teachers andleadership development type
work.
But this question I think wassomething I was, I was always
chewing on was how do we createspaces where.
(07:09):
Teachers and people, and, and asI've moved out of classroom
teaching and out of schools, I,I worked in environments with
other kinds of leaders, notnecessarily teachers, but I, I
found the same thing.
How do we create spaces wherepeople can have a go, where they
can try, where they can say, Idon't know, I really don't
understand what I'm doing here.
Or, or, I really need some help.
And the sort of challengesaround that, but also the
(07:31):
significant benefits when we cando it.
So when I came across thislanguage of psychological
safety, the this idea ofcreating spaces where people
feel safe to speak up, to sharetheir ideas, their questions,
their concerns, and to admittheir mistakes, it's like, yes,
this is it.
What we've, we've been trying todo, this is what we've been
working on without having thelanguage for it.
And when you have the languagefor it, it's very powerful
(07:52):
because we can then start totalk about it more clearly.
We can be more explicit about itand we can.
To an extent, name the problem.
You know, we can name that.
Actually the problem is whenwe're met with responses, which
are not helping us to feel likenext time it might be safe for
us to speak up.
So so yeah, that was, that waskind of a, a roundabout way of
describing my journey to it.
(08:13):
But I do feel like it's been atheme and.
A lot of the time, what we aregrappling with is, is how do we
do that?
How do we foster the sorts ofenvironments?
How do we demonstrate that thespace is genuinely safe to ask
questions, to admit mistakes,to, to raise concerns?
It's not a sort of fake it tillwe make it thing we, we actually
have to do it.
(08:33):
We actually have to make surethat the space is genuinely safe
for people to do that becausehow else are they going to
learn?
How else are we all going tolearn?
How else are we all going tolearn together and grow and
improve our practice?
Teri Schmidt (08:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that last point there, youknow, how else are we going to
learn?
And it's not, I kind of feellike in the past, maybe once
someone got into the workforce.
Learning wasn't as critical forthem.
But now in the world that welive in, you know, the, the VUCA
(09:06):
world, that's, that's sovolatile and uncertain and
complex and ambiguous.
The fact is we have to learnconstantly.
And without that psychologicalsafety, organizations, teams,
individuals are not going to belearning.
Jade Garatt (09:24):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And, and teaching is an exampleactually of a domain where still
sometimes we hear, talk aboutbest practice as if there is one
fixed way that if we just all,all get that bit better and do
it this one fixed perfect way.
It'll be fine.
And, and the reality is, we, weknow that's not the world that
we live in, that we know that'snot the complexity of the
(09:46):
terrain that we are navigating.
So we have to be creating spaceswhere people can adapt and can
think differently and canproblem solve to these new
challenges, which are coming upall the time, literally every
day, every minute of every day.
And if we are not doing that.
We are not actually going to beallowing ourselves and each
other to, to even functionfully, nevermind get better in,
(10:06):
in the space that we're in.
So it, it's so crucial.
And I think, I think you'reright.
I think maybe has been somethingthat's been overlooked in the
past or perhaps not recognizethat this is ongoing.
I think maybe we've consideredthat someone will start their
career, an early career, will dolots of learning.
They've got a lot to learn atthe start.
There's going to be a steeplearning curve.
(10:26):
But then by the time they're ina leadership role, they'll,
they've got it.
They, they, of course, they mustknow it because they're in a
leadership role, but that, thatdoesn't make any sense.
Right?
Like a, a leadership role.
You're potentially managing awhole load more complexity.
You're potentially looking aftera lot of people and navigating
whatever is going on outside ofyour organization and inside of
(10:47):
your organization.
That's a lot of complexity to bedealing with.
There's no magic playbook that'sgoing to.
Kind of give you a step by stepaccount as to how to work
through this.
We have to create spaces wherepeople can have a go, can try
something, can experiment, canfail quickly, can learn and can
grow in that.
So, so, yeah.
I, I think we should be talkingmore and more about learning.
Teri Schmidt (11:08):
Yeah, the work that you now do is more with,
leaders and organizations as Iunderstand it.
Do you wanna speak a little bitabout the work that you're
currently engaged in?
Jade Garatt (11:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, so the work that we do iswith teams and organizations.
It's often delivering trainingworkshops.
Sometimes it's more through sortof self-guided resources and,
and facilitating learningexperiences in, in more of a
kind of drawn out way.
Essentially what we are helpingteams and organizations, and
groups of people at work to dois to foster environments at
(11:41):
work where people feelpsychologically safer and
therefore can learn togetherbetter and therefore can perform
better.
So, so yeah, that looks likeeverything from healthcare teams
to work in, you know, largecorporate organizations,
businesses, some, most of thetime I'd say our work is with
leaders.
And if we take leadership inour, in our broadest term, you
(12:02):
know, we are all leaders in ourdomains at work.
Sometimes it will be moreworking with a, a group of team
members.
And we'll be considering how to,how do that team as a unit, how
do they work together.
And we'll be perhapsfacilitating more dialogue
between them, more conversationshelping them with tools and
practices that might help themtogether to, to work better
together.
A lot of the time though, it'swith groups of leaders, groups
(12:24):
of managers and considering inin their areas, what are they
doing, what's within their locusof control and locus of
influence to help to create thesorts of environments we want to
be creating at work.
Teri Schmidt (12:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we've thrown around theterm multiple times, but since
we're focused on going beneaththe buzzword, I think it's
important to really get a cleardefinition of the phrase itself.
And I think I heard AmyEdmondson even talk about how
she wishes it wasn.
Called psychological safetybecause it is kind of a, a
(12:59):
complex not complex, but it,it's a, a difficult phrase to
get out of your mouth, I wouldsay.
You can kind of feel smart whenyou're saying it, but it is one
of those terms that is a littlebit long.
But I would love from yourperspective what does it really
mean?
And then after that, you know,what are some of those
(13:20):
misconceptions that leaders haveabout it that you see most
frequently?
Jade Garatt (13:24):
Mm.
Yeah, great question.
And, and to your point aboutit's, it's difficult to say,
it's also difficult to type andI type it multiple times a day,
multiple times have to go back.
I do know how to spell it, ofcourse, but but trying to type
all those letters in the rightorder is is an everyday
challenge for me.
So, yes, I also, it wasn'tcalled psychological safety,
something much shorter would bebetter please.
But yeah.
(13:45):
In our work we use AmyEdmondson's definition, which is
a shared belief that it's safein a team to to speak up with
your mistakes, your questionsyour concerns and to share your
ideas.
So.
It's a shared belief that thatteam is safe for what we call
interpersonal risk taking.
So that doesn't mean, you know,taking some wild business risk.
(14:06):
It doesn't mean we're all gonnago bungee jumping together, but
it means that I feel safe enoughin this team.
I have enough faith in this teamthat I will not be punished or
humiliated if I take theinterpersonal risk of admitting
a mistake or of saying I've gotan idea or of saying I'm a bit
concerned or of asking aquestion.
And each of those.
Four ideas, ideas, questions,concerns, or mistakes all bring
(14:28):
a slightly different flavor towhat we're talking about.
There are differences betweenspeaking up to share a new idea
that you've got and thepotential barriers to doing
that.
And perhaps the barriers tospeaking up to say, I messed up
there, I made a mistake.
So, so this already brings somedifferent dimensions into the
term.
But in a way, my, my workingdefinition of psychological
(14:49):
safety is that.
It's the conditions necessaryfor a group to be learning
together.
And this, this leads back reallyto my sort of fundamental
understanding of, ofpsychological safety, which,
which goes back to my teachingdays and goes back to, to my
central focus on how, how are welearning together Is if a group
of people.
Do not have psychologicalsafety.
If they do not feel safe toshare their ideas, to ask
(15:13):
questions, to make mistakestogether, you will not be able
to facilitate them learningeffectively together.
Or certainly there'll besignificant barriers to them
doing that.
So, so that's, that's thedefinition that we work with.
We always find it's useful tostart, and actually in all of
our training sessions, we, wecheck in with the definition
because there are so manymisconceptions about what it
(15:34):
means.
For some people they, they hearthe word psychological and they
instantly kind of jump to, oh,this is a wellbeing initiative.
This is a mental healthinitiative.
And of course, fosteringenvironments where people can
speak up is, is actually crucialto any kind of wellbeing
initiative or any kind of mentalhealth initiative.
But it, it's not the same thing.
And the term wellbeing, forexample, is a much, much broader
(15:55):
term, a much broader concept.
So we're talking about somethingquite specific and it's helpful
to make sure when we have thisshared language that we're
talking about the same thing.
So that's, I think one of themisconceptions is just muddling
it with these other terms.
You know, other ones would beinclusion and belonging as if
it's all the same.
It's all the same thing, andit's not, it's all connected.
(16:16):
But these concepts are not allthe same thing.
And one of the things that Iquite like about working with
psychological safety is we canbe quite specific about what it
is that we're working on thatcan help us when there are
challenges to better pinpointwhen there's a problem.
And we can sort of start fromthere and then we can talk about
how it connects to inclusion, towellbeing, to mental health, to
belonging, or any number ofother impor very important
(16:39):
concepts.
So, so that's sort of some ofthe misconceptions that come in.
We also get.
Perhaps more fundamentalmisconceptions about actually
what does this mean?
A really common one is, it, itjust means being nice.
It just means being nice to eachother all the time.
And of course, I, I, I'm often abit conflicted with this because
I think, well, I, I do wantpeople being kind to each other
(17:00):
for sure.
Like, that's really important towork.
And actually, if you want tofeel safe to share your idea,
knowing that your team memberswill be kind is going to help.
Undoubtedly, and yet that aloneis, is not enough.
And sometimes this sort of let'sjust be nice, can then get
warped into it.
Let's just be positive all thetime, even when actually we're
(17:21):
concerned, which is the exactopposite of we're try what we're
trying to do with psychologicalsafety.
We want people to feel safeenough to say, I'm worried about
that.
I don't think the idea willwork.
I've seen that go wrongelsewhere.
Here's what I'm concerned about.
We want to be creating spaceswhere people can safely dissent
and express a, a divergingperspective or just say, I can
(17:46):
see you all, you all for this,and that's wonderful, and I'm
still worried about this aspect.
so, so, you know, this is wherewe have to be really careful, I
think, not to just kind of getcaught up in like, oh,
psychological safety.
Let's, yeah, let's just, youknow, say everything is great.
And, you know, so that's one.
And, and one final one, if Ican, if I can be allowed one
(18:07):
more, is that we can't justassume that we have it.
And this is so tricky because,and and I.
If I can be really honest, I seethis a lot when I explain to, to
sort of people I meet day to dayoutside of my, in my personal
life, and I explain the workthat we do, and very often,
especially if I'm talking topeople in leadership roles, if
(18:28):
they've not really come acrossthe concept, not really worked
with it before, they'll say, oh,I, I think we have that.
I think we do that in our team,and that's great and that's
wonderful, and they may well beright.
But chances are there's always abit more work that we can do in
this.
And it's very easy when you are,when you have power, when you
have authority, when you haveleadership, to assume that
(18:49):
because you feel safe to speakup, to share your ideas, to ask
questions, to admit mistakesthat everyone does and that
everyone does with you.
And that's not necessarily true.
And we don't know the thingsthat we're not hearing.
So so I think just assuming thatit's there, it is a, is a real
risk.
And actually being open to thefact that sometimes it's
(19:10):
ourselves, it, it's perhaps theway we've responded in the past
where it's perhaps a.
A power gradient that we'veinadvertently set up or just you
know, agreed with, sort ofstepped into the place of that
can make it very difficult forother people to, to speak up.
And we, we might not even knowit's happening.
We probably don't even know it'shappening.
Teri Schmidt (19:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so interesting what yousaid that, you know, we don't
know what we can't hear, andthat is, you know, the, that's
the challenge here because ifpeople don't feel safe to speak
up, no matter how many times aleader says, oh, I have an open
door.
You know, tell me anything youfeel and you know, I won't judge
(19:49):
you for anything you say.
That doesn't by itself create anenvironment where people do feel
safe to speak up with ideas orconcerns.
Jade Garatt (20:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
And this, this open door policyis a, is a real kind of, because
I've heard this so many timesand I, I'll be honest, I've
probably said it as wellthinking this is, this is what
you say in order to see this is,this is how you should talk as a
leader.
And yet, actually, if you justthink about the language of
that, you know, my door is open,but presumably I'm in my space
(20:20):
and I'm expecting you to crossthe boundary into my space to
come and speak to me.
You know, I, I find thisparticularly thi this does get
bandied around in, in schools.
My door is always open.
Often it's physically not.
Often there is a physicalbarrier to that.
You know, there's this, my dooris metaphorically always open,
but you are gonna have to knockon it and make sure that I'm not
in a meeting, you're not in acall.
(20:41):
So, you know, often it's a, it'san out and out lie.
But, but also we are putting theonus on the person stepping into
our space and.
If we are the person with morepower in this situation, if we
are higher up the organizationalhierarchy, that's a big ask
actually.
And, and really, you know, weought to be thinking about what
the spaces that we're inhabitingand how are we approaching, how
(21:03):
are we opening up these channelsof conversation that aren't
expecting someone to comethrough through a doorway closed
door open.
Teri Schmidt (21:10):
Right, right.
Such a good point.
So let's get into that then.
I know there's so much that wecould spend time on discussing
and I always recommend you're inTom's newsletter to everyone
that I can.
So you know, I will definitelymake sure that that's included
in the show notes.
'cause people can go much deeperthan we'll have time to go
today, but I would.
(21:31):
Love to hear from you about, youknow, maybe two or three
practices that are reallypowerful for creating
psychological safety.
If it's not saying you have anopen door, what is it?
And, and maybe we can talk, youknow, kind of go in deep one by
one and talk about what thepractice is, but then what makes
(21:53):
it so difficult?
For leaders and what kind ofinternal growth is necessary
perhaps for them to be able tofollow through on this practice.
Jade Garatt (22:07):
Yeah, definitely.
And I, I love, I love practicalstuff.
I'm a very practical person.
I love, I love things that wecan think, right?
Let's do this.
Let's try this.
So the first one, and, and weencourage this with almost all
of the, the teams that we workwith is that whenever you have a
group of people who are meetingtogether for a meeting or for a
project or something thatthey're working on, in any round
(22:28):
of introductions and everyonewho's gathering ought to be
speaking in that ought to beintroducing themselves because
otherwise what are they doingthere?
But we really encourageintroductions with first name
and maximum a sentencedescribing what.
Their role is in that situationof what they're actually doing,
what the action is, as opposedto their job title.
Because it's very easy to comein and say, hi, I'm Josh, I'm
(22:52):
the CEO.
And instantly we've created thispower gradient because we all
know there's Josh and he's theCEO.
But actually if what we can dois say, hi.
I'm Josh.
And I'm here to today to makesure that the whole team is
looked after.
That's great.
Let's start with that.
If we can come and say hi, youknow, I am Ellen.
(23:13):
I'm here today to make sure thatwe launch this next email
campaign on time rather than,hi, I'm Ellen.
I'm head of marketing.
I'm and, and sort of layering inthese details.
It is so much easier to speak upto Josh and Ellen who are here
to look after the team, who arehere to launch the email
(23:34):
campaign than it is.
To speak up to the CEO o to thehead of marketing, to the, the
person who's already told you II'm up here.
And I think you said, you know,why, why can this be difficult
and, and this maybe feels likethis shouldn't be that
difficult, although sometimesit's quite difficult to describe
what we do in action words in areally clear, we sometimes talk
about the.
(23:54):
Explain it to yourfive-year-old, you know, if you
were, if your five-year-old, andthis isn't about being
patronizing towards our teammembers, but it's about can we
be really clear about what theaction is?
What, what's the, what's thework that we are here to do in
this particular context?
Doesn't have to be our entirejob role.
But, but actually that can bequite challenging in itself.
The other thing that can behard, and, and I, I really
understand this, you know, assomeone who worked hard to move
(24:16):
up organizational hierarchiesand was very proud of those
promotions when they came, itcan be hard not to want to lead
with that, not to want to leadwith.
Actually, I am head of thisdepartment and I do lead this
number of people and, andactually it can take an
adjustment to say, actually whatI'm doing here today is being
Jade and I'm here to make surethat we have the best learning
(24:38):
experience that we can.
And that's what I'm here to do.
So it can take a little bit ofjust reflecting on which bit of
this is my ego
Teri Schmidt (24:48):
Mm-hmm.
Jade Garatt (24:49):
that's okay.
Like we can be friends with ouregos.
We can, we can say that's okay.
I am still head of this.
I'm still director of that.
I'm still CEO.
That's fine.
That still sits on.
Cb, it's still on my LinkedInprofile, wherever you want it to
be, but we don't necessarilyneed to lead with that when we
are meeting with people andwe're working directly with
people and, and it, it can justtake a little bit to kind of go,
(25:11):
I'm still credible.
I'm still a valuable person inthis, in this context, and I
don't need to lead with that inthis particular situation.
Teri Schmidt (25:20):
Yeah.
Yeah, that, that sounds sosimple.
And I have a couple of follow upquestions about that.
I, I guess the first one wouldbe what, how effective is this
when everyone already knows thatthat's the VP of marketing, or
that's the CEO?
Like, is it, is it stilleffective for them to introduce
themself in a different way?
Jade Garatt (25:41):
Yeah.
So yes, I think so.
One thing that's reallyinteresting, if you get into
approachability research, whichis sounds very neat, it kind of
is.
But is that we assume thatapproachability or we tend to
assume is, is a fixedcharacteristic as in.
I'm an approachable person orI'm not an approachable person.
And that's kind of an innatepart of who we are.
And, and this often catches someof us out'cause we can assume
(26:03):
that, well, I'm a nice person,I'm a good person, that people
will approach me.
But actually what you find whenyou start to research
approachability in the sense ofhow, how, how willing, how ready
are people actually to come andapproach you.
You find it's highly, highlycontextual.
So even if you are typically avery approachable person.
If someone in that momentperceives you to be a bit
(26:24):
stressed or to have maybe justsnapped about something or to be
just preoccupied, distracted,maybe on your emails or
something in that moment, theystill won't approach you.
Teri Schmidt (26:35):
Hmm.
Jade Garatt (26:35):
It's much more contextual than we think it is.
Which is is both a kind of, ohno.
We can assume that we've gotsome stuff in the bank'cause
we've been approachable in thepast and we think we're an
approachable person.
But it can, we can also use thisto our favor because.
Even if you are the CEO, even ifyou're the director of, you
know, whatever facultydepartment you know, whatever
(26:55):
division you can still influencethe way that you're perceived in
that moment, in that context.
Through the way that youintroduce yourself, through the
way that you come across,through your presence in that
space.
So we have more influence in themoment than we think we do.
It's not going to erase it.
Like, like you said, people willstill know you're the ceo.
People will still know you're,you're this person.
(27:17):
And that is probably still goingto have an inhibiting effect
because there is still a powergradient there.
But what we don't want to bedoing is exacerbating it.
And what we wanna be doing is,is just actually saying to
people right now.
This is safe right
Teri Schmidt (27:30):
Mm.
Jade Garatt (27:31):
here to be talked to.
That's, that's what I'm in thisspace for.
Teri Schmidt (27:36):
Yeah, that's fascinating.
I didn't even know there was afield of approachability
research and now I want to learnmore about it.
But that is so powerful that youcan change it in the moment with
these, you know, smallbehaviors.
And again, they're much morepowerful behaviors than saying
your door is open or anyone isfree to speak up in this meeting
(27:59):
and.
How more effective would ourmeetings be if everyone knew
exactly what they were there todo and to contribute and was
able to voice it, like you saidin their introduction.
Jade Garatt (28:12):
Yeah, exactly.
I, I think it can really helpwith us being much clearer about
what that space is for.
It can help us to stay much morefocused.
And maybe also, you know, if weare taking that moment
beforehand to think.
How am I introducing my actions,my role, my, my, you know, what
I'm doing in this space?
If I'm really struggling withthat in relation to this
(28:33):
meeting, do I need to be there?
Like, do I have an importantrole to play here?
Or actually, is it somethingthat I could be updated on
afterwards?
Does this need to be a meeting?
You know, oh, does it need to bea meeting?
Could it be any of, but actuallyif, if I can't be really clear
about what that role is, whatI'm here to do, then perhaps I
need to reconsider what thismeeting is for, or what the sort
(28:53):
of shape of this meeting is.
And, and that in itself is, isgonna help us all out.
I think you know, few peopleknow that they don't have
enough.
Teri Schmidt (29:02):
Right, right.
No, I have never heard thatcomplaint.
You know, and, and just beforewe kind of move on to the next
one, I think what you saidabout.
Yes, I still have credibilityeven though I didn't kick off
with my title is such a bigthing.
You get into this role andthink, well, I have to.
(29:22):
Promote myself.
I have to engage in theself-promotion in order to look
like I belong here in order tobuild that trust so that when I
speak up, people will think thatI'm coming from a place of
authority or, or fromcredibility.
So how have you seen leaderseffectively manage through that?
Jade Garatt (29:45):
Yeah, so, so I think it's recognizing that
probably does have a place stillthat there may well be times and
places where actually we do needto establish our cred
credibility, where maybe we'respeaking to an external audience
or maybe we're entering acompletely unfamiliar and.
Possibly hostile environmentwhere actually what we need to
do is say, I know my staff, I,you know, I'm here, I've got
(30:08):
this credibility.
And, and we may need to startwith that.
Where I think it becomesproblematic is where we lead
with that in all of our workinteractions.
And especially when actuallywhat we're doing is, is working
with colleagues.
We're working on a definedproject and then in a defined
way because we are notrecognizing.
The significance of the way thatwe, that we introduce ourselves
(30:28):
and you know, if a, if a surgeonis able to come in and rather
than leading with, you know, I'mthe chief consultant in this
area of medicine, but to say,I'm, I'm here today to make sure
that this patient gets safelythrough this procedure, then,
then we can all kind of take.
Some lessons from that.
If a, if a pilot, a captain ofan airline, airline can come and
(30:50):
say, I'm here today to fly theplane.
You know, and and actually all,we're not in any way questioning
that credibility.
We're not in any way questioningtheir expertise or their
authority actually, but we aresaying this is what they're here
to do right now.
So, so it can be really, reallypowerful and I'd say.
What I found very interesting isit often is the leaders who find
(31:12):
this most difficult are perhapsthe ones who are most
established in their roles.
They're perhaps most senior.
They're very used to doing this,and I I remember in, in a fairly
early middle leadership role,going to a going on a leadership
development course, and Iremember being made to rehearse
my elevator pitch for who I was.
(31:33):
Why, and, and being made topractice that as a kind of, this
is what you should do, this ishow you should introduce
yourself.
And I, I'm not saying that thatdoesn't have a place, but I, but
I don't know that it'snecessarily a kind of, I don't
know that it should have beenfirst thing on the leadership.
It almost came from this deficitthat sort of, assuming
everyone's going to think you'renot credible and you've gotta
(31:55):
prove to them that you are.
Whereas actually, I, I reallyprefer now to think I will let
my actions determine that.
Teri Schmidt (32:03):
that is, that is so true, and I think, you know,
especially in.
The development of in, and maybeit's for everyone, but I, I've,
I've seen a lot of that in theleadership about women as
leaders and, and needing to havethat executive presence.
And, and really maybe becausethey are thinking that everyone
(32:28):
is going to assume that they arenot credible.
And I guess this would probablygo for, you know, any.
Marginalized group.
They're thinking that thenatural assumption is that they
are not credible, so that it isnecessary to always own that
title, own that education, ownthat experience, and, and put
(32:49):
that right upfront whenintroducing themselves.
So I guess, how would you reactif someone were to bring that
point up?
Jade Garatt (33:00):
So, so I think it's valid.
I, I, you know, I, I absolutelythink that there is, there are
going to be occasions where someof us are going to be read to be
more credible than others, to,you know, to, to perhaps better
align with the dominant norm ofan organization and therefore to
be more readily perceived to bea leader.
(33:22):
And as I say, I think there aretimes where it is appropriate to
just be absolutely clear aboutthis is my role and, and, and
here's my elevator pitch if weneed it.
But I, I would like todifferentiate between those
times and the times when we areactually setting up environments
where we want people to workwith us.
And I think we need to justpause for a moment and reflect
(33:45):
on the kinds of leaders we wantto be.
And do we want to be the kindsof leaders who set ourselves up
here and have.
Everyone else knowing theirplace and knowing that we are
this much above them, or do wewant to be the kinds of leaders
where people will come to uswith their questions, with their
concerns, with their new ideasabout how we can improve it?
Can we reconceptualize the sortsof leaders that we want to be
(34:09):
and accept that that might thenneed to take?
More time for people to go, yes,they really are a great leader,
but when they do, it will bebecause of what we've done, not
because of the way that we'vepositioned ourselves from the
start to to to appear this kindof power over model.
I'm often really drawn to MaryParker Follett's work on on
power, and so much of this comesfrom our.
(34:32):
Internalized, sort of innatefeeling that what we need to do
is have power over people thatwe need to elevate ourselves
and, and extract more from them,put them in their place and
extract more from them.
Whereas what she advocated forwas, was power with people and
power for people, for them to,to go and do the work and, and
do the great stuff that, that wewant them to be working with us
(34:53):
to do.
It takes some rethinking and,and I recognize it doesn't
always fit within theorganizational structures that
we might be battling.
But.
What we want is a different kindof workplace if we want, we want
is different kinds of teams andteams that can actually perform
really well.
We have to recognize thatthere's a cost when we do the,
(35:13):
hello, I'm the CEO and I've gotthis many years experience and
because we instantly say topeople, be careful.
Be careful in coming to me and,and it an implicit message, but
it's, but it's there for sure.
Teri Schmidt (35:25):
Ha ha.
I, I hadn't thought about thatimplicit message, you know, be
careful about coming to me.
That makes it very, veryconcrete.
And I think what you said alsoabout it may take longer, but
people will know you because ofyour track record in a sense,
you know the work that you'vedone and that is so much more
durable in terms of credibilitythan someone thinking you're
(35:50):
credible and trustworthy justbecause you stated your title.
Jade Garatt (35:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and there are also wayswhere, you know, we can
recognize that, that what we arehere to do is, is a big thing.
You know, we may well be in thisvery senior role because what we
have is a significant job is ina session recently with someone
who, who said, you know, I, I amhere.
To look after all 800 peopleacross this plant and make sure
(36:13):
they are safe, you know, that ishuge.
To me, that's more impressivethan saying you're director of
safety or your, you know, that,that in itself, that lands, and
yet I'm clear on what you'rehere to do.
I'm, I'm clear on.
So, it's a different tone, butit's, it's also emphasis to, to
what I'm doing.
I'm not saying I'm here becauseI'm in this role with this
(36:36):
seniority and the status.
I'm here saying I'm here to doan important big thing.
You know, I'm here to find theplane.
I'm here to keep people safe.
I'm here to keep this number ofpeople safe.
Teri Schmidt (36:45):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Love that.
Well, we may have time for maybeone more practice.
If you have one that, that isyour favorite or a, a favorite
that you've seen work reallywell with corporate teams, I'd
love to hear about it.
Jade Garatt (37:01):
Yeah, so I, I'm gonna go to, so I, I love 15
fives.
So if you haven't heard of them,15 fives are essentially like a
reporting mechanism.
It's a communication channelthat you can open up with
members of your team.
And it's great for what we mightcall direct reports, people who
directly report into you.
But you can also, if you havematrix management type
(37:21):
arrangements in an organizationand you want to better open up
those communication channels,you can use it for that as well.
The idea of a 15 five.
So the reason it's called a 15five is that it should take the
person doing it, writing the thelittle report on how their week
has gone.
No more than 15 minutes towrite, and it should take you no
more than five minutes to read.
They're not meant to replaceone-to-one meetings or any other
(37:42):
meeting structure that you'vegot, but it's an alternative
communication channel that youare saying, fill me in, let me
know how things are going.
And you can do this in a waythat works for you.
So sometimes people like to havea, a few key questions for 15
fives.
Things like what's my you knowwhat have, what have mostly been
working on this week?
What's been a challenge?
(38:03):
What's gone really well?
What's something I like a bitmore support with.
So you can, you can alter thequestions, you can make it fit
to your context.
You can tell people to coloroutside of the lines, and if the
questions don't feel relevantand they just want to write you
a paragraph about what's goingon for them right now, that,
that's fine too.
But maybe set it up as arecurring calendar, invite a
little reminder to people.
And then they just.
(38:23):
Fill out their 15 five, email itover to you and you can Then,
the way I, I've seen it workreally nicely with teams is
where the, the team lead willacknowledge receipt of it, will
say, you know, thanks so much.
Really helpful.
Sometimes they'll also sharetheir own with the team, which
can be a, a really nicereciprocal practice as well.
But anything that warrantslonger discussion then gets
(38:44):
picked up in a one to meetingform more of a discussion.
The reason that I love it isthat even when we think we have
great communication, and evenwhen we're.
In almost constant contact witheach other through teams,
messages, slack channels,whatever it is that we are using
at work, emails, all the rest ofit.
Even when we've got our regularone-to-ones in place there are
(39:04):
sometimes opening up a differentway of communication means we
hear different things because wecarve out a different space for
it.
So in that space someone mightfeel more able to share.
My dog died last week and I'vejust not.
Been firing on all cylinders.
It work.
I'm not, not having a great timeof it.
Whereas in person, they mightfind that difficult to share.
It might not feel like itwarrants an email all of its own
(39:26):
'cause you know that it's mydog.
It's not a, it's, it's, it's nota, not a person, but it, but,
you know, as a family member ina sense.
And so we actually are justcreating this different channel
for people to, to communicatein.
And it's surprising, you know,we.
We started, didn't we Weresaying we, we don't know the
things that we can't hear.
And this is one way to getbeneath the surface of what are
(39:47):
some of these things that wemight not be hearing.
Now, interestingly, when I'veshared this practice some of
them, the, usually people lovethis practice and, and often
it's really adopting quitereadily in teens.
But in, in one particularsession I was in there, there
was more pushback.
And when I sort of, you know,explored like.
All practices are optional.
It's always an invitation, it'salways an offering.
You don't have to do anything.
(40:08):
The reason for it was, well,that'll create loads of
problems, won't it?
And there was this idea that ifwe're surfacing issues, that it
might actually create more ofthem.
Which I, I, I.
Understand where that from, andif you are feeling overwhelmed
and as a leader, you're alreadyfeeling like I'm up to, I'm not
(40:29):
gonna.
Teri Schmidt (40:31):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jade Garatt (40:32):
But of course we need to then recognize the
problem is that maybe you aremanaging a bit too much, maybe
you need a bit more support.
Because actually, if we're justhoping that we can squash
everything down then there willbe things bubbling up that we're
not hearing and that we shouldbe hearing.
And you know, I love the youcan't fix the secret.
You know, we, we have to knowthis.
We're going to be able to workeffectively with it.
(40:53):
So you know, I think when we areat the point of thinking like,
oh, I can't ask the question'cause what if they say there's
something wrong and then I mighthave to deal with it.
That's when we actually need tosort of take a moment for
ourselves and think, okay, am Idoing too much?
Am I managing my timeappropriately or do I need to
ask for some support?
Because if I feel like I haven'tgot time for the people I'm
(41:14):
working with to share the thingsthat are important for them,
that's a problem.
Teri Schmidt (41:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it allows those issues tobecome visible, when they maybe
are in their infantile stay ortheir, you know, very small
problems as opposed to when theyare affecting multiple people,
multiple projects when theirimpact is much bigger.
Jade Garatt (41:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and you know, as hard as itcan be to hear something's a
problem or there might be anissue I hadn't even seen.
And, and this is one of thechallenges of fostering
psychological safety, it won'talways feel good because.
Sometimes we are finding outthings that we really, we'd
really rather not have had todeal with.
Really, rather, it was all justfine and all, everything was
(42:03):
just going swimmingly.
But of course if we don't know,then we can't do anything about
it.
And so like we can hold bothshoes, that that can be harder
in the moment and ultimately inthe long run, it, it will be
better and will mean actually wecan, we can.
Perform better perform and wecan all work better together.
It is, I think, better to knowthan not to know.
So, yeah.
(42:23):
But it, it, it's an interesting,I think it's always a sort of an
opportunity to get curious whenwe find ourselves not wanting to
know or preferring not to that'sa sort of opportunity just to
check in.
Teri Schmidt (42:34):
Yeah, and, and I'd love your angle on it too, in
terms of when you feel yourselfnot wanting to check in because
you feel like you can't hearabout one more thing that has
gone wrong, that is a.
Indication that you should belooking, like you said at how
you are managing and if you needmore support.
Jade Garatt (42:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
The, the I used to say when Iwas, I was teaching and, and
leading a team and had really notime to lead the team'cause I
was always far too busy with myown teaching.
But the, the most dreaded phrasewould be, Jade, if you got a
minute.
I think because I didn't know Ihave no minutes, but of course
it's so important that I have aminute and, and actually.
(43:19):
You know, what we will need tobe doing is going, yes.
Thank you so much for asking.
Like, thank you.
Yeah.
Bring it.
You know, like, like, let's,let's on this, but it's very
hard to do that if you don'thave the head space and the
capacity to, to deal with thethings that are going to come up
in that just a minute.
Teri Schmidt (43:35):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Do you have any tips or, youknow, things that you've seen
leaders implement when they arein that space where they don't
feel like they have a minute?
Obviously that, you know, a morein depth look at how they're
managing is important, but evenjust in that moment, if they
feel like they're completelyoverwhelmed and someone asks
(43:57):
them if they have a minute
Jade Garatt (44:01):
So.
Yeah, I mean, like you say,there's a, there's a broader
structural thing, which is, isprobably the role of coaching
and, and you know, something abit more in depth to really
figure out like, is this, thatyou have too much on your plate?
Is it a tricky relationship withyour own manager, is there
something that we, that we needto be working on managing
differently?
Are you struggling to let go?
(44:22):
Are you, are you allowing peopleto run with things enough or are
you taking too much on yourselfand therefore feeling so
overloaded?
But it in that, in that moment,I am such a fan of the, just
giving it a pause, just justtaking taking a pause, taking a
breath, grounding yourself andliterally just kind of going
(44:43):
and, and.
As busy as we are, and even inthe most extreme situations, we
always, always have time to justtake that one breath before we
respond to, to maybe just manageperhaps our tendency to perhaps
roll our eyes or, you know, alittle expression of like, oh
no, not really, but go for it.
And just to check our responsebecause, you know, we talk about
(45:05):
this a lot in human andorganizational performance as
well.
How we respond matters.
And that if we can respondbetter, if we can just give
ourselves a moment beforeresponding or being really
honest and saying right now, no.
Can we chat at the end of theday?
Can we talk at this point?
Because it might be that wegenuinely don't, that we are,
(45:26):
you know, we're on our way todeliver a present presentation
and, and our head needs to be inthat, and we just don't have a
moment.
Right?
Then we literally don't havethat minute, so, so maybe it is
that we need to just take abreath and say, Ooh.
Not right now, but definitelylater.
And then make sure we, we honorthat because there is nothing
worse than sort of a Oh yeah,sure.
(45:47):
When actually we know we'rereally, really not in the place
to receive that right now.
It's gonna make us feel awfulfor the rest of the day, and we
are probably not going to be inthe place to manage our response
in the way that we want to, tomake that person feel the next
time they need a minute from us,that they'll feel able to come
and ask for it.
Teri Schmidt (46:03):
Right.
Right.
And I, I like what you saidabout it.
It's not just saying, no, Idon't have the minute right now.
It's not right now, but thisspecific time, I will, let's
connect then.
Jade Garatt (46:14):
yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then is that okay or or isit something that's so urgent,
such an emergency situation thatyou do need to speak Right now
it's sort of checking in, like,is that all right?
Would, would that be okay?
So, because there will be timeswhen we don't have the minute,
but the person really does needto tell us something right away,
so yeah.
Teri Schmidt (46:32):
Yeah.
Well, I know we only wentthrough two practices today, but
you know, went pretty, pretty indepth into them.
It sounds like a lot of workpotentially for people, so if
they're thinking about this andthey're like, yeah, I, I like
the idea of psychologicalsafety.
It sounds great.
Everyone says it's great.
I read on LinkedIn, it's great.
(46:53):
But I'm, I'm not sure.
What kind of an impact it wouldhave on my team.
Why is it worth investing thistime?
I'm curious, because you'veworked with so many
organizations, you know, whatripple effects have you seen in
teams and organizations whenthey are able to invest this
effort and createpsychologically safe teams?
Jade Garatt (47:14):
Yeah, so, so, you know, I'm biased.
Obviously I work in this area.
I, I clearly think that this is,this is worth doing, but I, I
think the truth and the, thereal value of it does come out
when we actually start seeingpractices.
Being implemented inorganizations, and there's a
tricky balance to be struckbetween warning people, managing
(47:35):
people's expectations, that thiswill create, this will take
time, like it, it will require ainvestment of effort.
It might require rethinking someof your own behaviors, some of
your own ways of being with.
Teams and with people, and thatcan be really difficult.
And that can require exactlylike you've, you've, you know,
really nicely articulated today.
A lot of internal work, a lot ofwork on ourselves to make sure
(47:56):
that we're doing that.
But what we, and, and yes, that,that will take time.
But what's really wonderfulabout this work is often how
quick some of the results are.
And actually, yes, you're, youare not going to go from a team
that feels completely unp,psychologically safe to a team
that feels totallypsychologically safe all the
time, overnight, but very smallpractices, things like the way
(48:18):
that we introduce ourselves whenwe're in a team, the way that
we.
Say our names and and what we docan really quickly start to
shift the, the tone and thequality of the interactions that
we're having and, and thedialogue.
And what we can then do is, iscelebrate those wins.
So the first time that we hearsomething in a team meeting that
we thought, I don't think Iwould've heard that last week.
(48:39):
We really, really thank theperson for sharing that.
We make it super clear toourselves and to them and to
everyone who's.
In that room, in that space thatthis is what we want to be
doing.
This is what we want to behearing, this is what we are
here for.
And if, if we can do that, theneach one of those times we're
building this positive momentumwhere we're sometimes actually
undoing years of people'sconditioning around what they
(49:01):
think is safe or unsafe to, tospeak.
Every time we get one of theseopportunities, every time
someone says, have you got aminute?
Every time someone says, oh, I'mnot so sure about that, we can
say thank you.
Like, thank you.
Oh, you know, tell me more.
Let's talk about this together.
And demonstrate again and againthat this is, this is safe to do
(49:22):
that.
And, and that's not just greatbecause we're having richer
conversations, we're havingricher dialogue.
It's also great because it meansthat we're able to do the work
that we're here to do muchbetter.
If we are not able to have theseconversations, we're not able to
respond to the changingsituations, the circumstances.
Internal and external for theteams and organizations that
we're working with.
(49:42):
We have to be having betterdialogue around what's going on.
We have to be able to learnbetter together.
And it's a better way to beworking.
Like it's much, much moreenjoyable as well to be working
in teams and spaces where peopleare working well together, where
they're sharing their ideas.
Where when you say, you know,does anyone have any worries
about this?
It's not just a kind of deathlysilence and you're thinking
(50:03):
someone please.
It is much better.
So, oh, actually I was worriedabout that.
I, I have been thinking aboutthat.
And we can have these rich andproductive conversations.
So so, you know, it's a greatthing to do on a number of
levels and these small littleincremental shifts that we start
to see these small interpersonalrisks that people take, which
might seem small, but may havebeen huge for them.
(50:24):
We can celebrate each and everyone and, and acknowledge each,
everyone, and, and then we'rebuilding forward in a positive
way.
Teri Schmidt (50:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it, you know, having those,those richer conversations where
we are learning from and witheach other really seems to be
the point of bringing peopletogether anyway.
You know, if, if we're gonnacome together in a meeting, as
opposed to just having a tasklist that people can check in on
and, and, you know, do theirpart to contribute to the whole.
(50:53):
Instead, we're really bringingpeople together and really
acting as a team, and we wantthose diverse viewpoints.
If we don't have thispsychological safety to be able
to learn together, to be able toshare new ideas, to raise
concerns, why are we doing itanyway?
Why?
Why are we coming togetheranyway?
Jade Garatt (51:14):
Exactly, exactly that.
You know, if, if I just wantsomeone to echo back my thoughts
to me, I can have a littledialogue with chat GPT and that
will really nicely summarizeexactly what I've already said
and, and, you know, shareexactly what I expected to, to
share back the, the reason thatwe are getting humans together
in a room with other humans,with different backgrounds,
different experiences, differentperspectives, who see the world
(51:35):
in different ways, is because wehave something then to offer
each other and we are.
We are better.
We are more powerful with all ofthose perspectives than we are
if we just take ours and hopethat everyone's gonna agree with
it.
Teri Schmidt (51:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
100%.
Well, I think that's a, a greatpoint to end on, but I've
already mentioned the, thenewsletter, obviously.
But if a listener loves whatyou're talking about and wants
to learn more.
About your work, what's the bestplace for them to go?
Jade Garatt (52:02):
Fab.
Yeah.
So so our website is psychsafety.com.
And that's, you know, that's goteverything on there.
It's got articles, it's got allthe past newsletter articles and
resources.
You'll find information aboutTom and I on there and as well
as the work that we do inorganizations and the online
training that you can join withus as an individual exactly like
(52:22):
you've done, Terry.
Teri Schmidt (52:23):
Yes.
And I highly recommend it.
Yeah, one of the, one of thebest that I've taken, and I'm
looking forward to the secondhalf of it coming up in November
as well.
Jade Garatt (52:31):
Fantastic.
Wonderful.
Thank you for that.
Teri Schmidt (52:33):
Yes.
And, and thank you so much foryour time today.
This like I mentioned, couldhave gone much longer, but I
really appreciate you takingtime out of your day to speak
with me about this and kind ofget beneath that buzzword of
psychological safety.
Jade Garatt (52:49):
Oh, it's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much, Terry.
I hope you found today'sconversation with Jade as
thought provoking and practicalas I did.
And if you're ready to take thenext step in building a safer,
high performing workplace.
I really do encourage you to tocheck out Psych Safety's
(53:11):
Flagship program, thePsychological Safety Course,
train the Trainer.
I've participated in half of it,so three of the six workshops,
and am looking forward toparticipating in the remaining
three in November.
As I said before, it really isone of the best training
programs that I have taken.
(53:32):
And of course you can learn moreat the link in the show notes.
Thanks again for joining metoday.
And until next time, keepleading with compassion and
courage.
Today on Strong Leaders Serve.
We're continuing our series ongoing beneath the buzzwords by
tackling one that shows upeverywhere, psychological safety
to help us move past the surfacelevel talk and into the
practical.
I'm so excited today to bejoined by Jade Garrett.
(00:22):
Jade is a writer, facilitator,and learning designer with
nearly two decades of experienceacross education, charities,
universities, and businesses.
She's a senior fellow of theHigher Education Academy,
currently immersed in her PhDresearch, and she's also a
co-founder of Psych Safety.
(00:42):
She's passionate about turningbig ideas into everyday
practices that make workplaceshealthier, happier, and high
performing.
And if the name psych safetysounds familiar, it's because
Jade Works alongside past guestTom Garrity from episodes 1 48
and 180 2.
(01:02):
Together, they continue theimportant mission of helping
leaders and teams build trulysafe spaces for learning growth
and performance.
This conversation goes beyonddefinitions.
We explore the misconceptionsthat leaders often hold about
psychological safety.
Why it's much more than justbeing nice and the practical
(01:25):
behaviors that can make or breaka team's ability to learn and
thrive together.
And the two practices that Jadeshares for making this really
practical are ones that Ihaven't necessarily heard
before.
And that can have such a bigimpact, not just on
psychological safety.
But also on the effectiveness ofyour meetings.
(01:49):
So I won't make you wait anylonger.
Let's get into it.
I'm Terry Schmidt, executive andleadership coach at Strong
Leaders Serve, where we partnerwith organizations to prepare
leaders for those everydaystretch moments of leadership,
the promotion that makes oldhabits obsolete, the reorg that
shakes trust, or the high stakesproject where influence matters
(02:11):
more than authority.
And this is the Strong LeadersServe podcast I.
Teri Schmidt (03:11):
Hi Jade.
Welcome to the Strong LeadersServe Podcast.
I'm really looking forward toour conversation today.
Jade Garatt (03:17):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Really happy to be here andlooking forward to getting stuck
in.
Teri Schmidt (03:23):
Yes, And as you know, we're doing a series of
going beneath the buzzwords.
You know, some of the terms thatkind of just get tossed glibly
around on LinkedIn.
What, what do they actually meanand what does it take?
For leaders to engage inbehaviors that make those
buzzwords actually meansomething.
(03:44):
And I thought, who do I wannatalk to about this term of
psychological safety?
And couldn't think of anyonethat I would rather talk to than
you.
So I'm so happy that you werewilling to make some time for
this conversation.
Jade Garatt (03:56):
Oh, wonderful.
Well, thank you.
What a compliment for a startand yeah, absolutely.
I think this is a great topicand you are so right.
There are so many buzzwords thatit can be very easy to throw
around terms and assume thatbecause we can say the word that
means we've done the work andit's fine.
And as long as we say the rightwords, we've done it.
And psychological safety in manyways, as it's become better
(04:19):
known as a concept has.
To some become something of abuzzword.
And yet actually doing the workof fostering psychological
safety in teams and inorganizations in practice is
really hard and can be quitechallenging and quite
confronting at times.
So it's great that we're gonnaget a chance to get stuck in
today and consider some of thosechallenges as well as some of
(04:41):
the considerable benefits todoing that sort of work.
Teri Schmidt (04:45):
Yeah.
Excellent.
Well, let's, before we get intothat, let's start with you.
I'm curious to learn about whatdrew you to focus on
psychological safety and reallyhow has your own growth as a
leader kind of shifted the waythat you approach it?
Jade Garatt (04:59):
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for giving theopportunity.
So I I started my career as ateacher, so I'm based in the UK
and I was a secondary schoolteacher in the uk so I taught
students from 11 to 18 years oldand.
Something that I didn't have aname for at the time, but I
really noticed very early on inteaching is that.
(05:21):
In our classrooms as teachers,we were very good at
understanding that we needed tocreate spaces which were safe
for students to speak up in.
We needed to create spaces wherestudents could have a go, could
try when things were difficult,could risk failing, could risk
making mistakes, could talkabout those mistakes, could ask
questions could say, you know, Idon't understand.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
(05:42):
Could say, I, I don't, I don'tthink I'm doing so well.
Could raise a concern like that.
And could say, I've got an idea.
I think I could write thisdifferently, or, I think I
could, I think I could take thisin a different direction.
And, and we got that.
As teachers, we reallyunderstood that we needed to
create the sorts of spaces wherestudents could do that.
Where they could have what wewould now consider to be
psychological safety.
(06:04):
Although I didn't have thatlanguage at the time.
What I also recognized was thatin terms of my own professional
development as a teacher, I'mmore broadly in terms of
relationships with otherteachers and the way in which
teachers certainly in Englandwere inspected and observed, and
I'm, I'm using, supported withmy air quotes, but support to
(06:26):
develop it was actually anincredibly unsafe environment,
an environment where often itfelt very punitive.
It felt very fearful.
There was.
A really high stakes culturearound making mistakes, getting
it wrong, which can mean thatyou tend to keep yourself quite
small and quite safe, and maybeonly try the, the things that
(06:48):
are perhaps more guaranteed towork.
And this sort of stayed with me.
I, I, you know, I, I was in, Itaught myself in classrooms for
five years and then I moved moreinto leadership roles in
coaching other teachers andleadership development type
work.
But this question I think wassomething I was, I was always
chewing on was how do we createspaces where.
(07:09):
Teachers and people, and, and asI've moved out of classroom
teaching and out of schools, I,I worked in environments with
other kinds of leaders, notnecessarily teachers, but I, I
found the same thing.
How do we create spaces wherepeople can have a go, where they
can try, where they can say, Idon't know, I really don't
understand what I'm doing here.
Or, or, I really need some help.
And the sort of challengesaround that, but also the
(07:31):
significant benefits when we cando it.
So when I came across thislanguage of psychological
safety, the this idea ofcreating spaces where people
feel safe to speak up, to sharetheir ideas, their questions,
their concerns, and to admittheir mistakes, it's like, yes,
this is it.
What we've, we've been trying todo, this is what we've been
working on without having thelanguage for it.
And when you have the languagefor it, it's very powerful
(07:52):
because we can then start totalk about it more clearly.
We can be more explicit about itand we can.
To an extent, name the problem.
You know, we can name that.
Actually the problem is whenwe're met with responses, which
are not helping us to feel likenext time it might be safe for
us to speak up.
So so yeah, that was, that waskind of a, a roundabout way of
describing my journey to it.
(08:13):
But I do feel like it's been atheme and.
A lot of the time, what we aregrappling with is, is how do we
do that?
How do we foster the sorts ofenvironments?
How do we demonstrate that thespace is genuinely safe to ask
questions, to admit mistakes,to, to raise concerns?
It's not a sort of fake it tillwe make it thing we, we actually
have to do it.
(08:33):
We actually have to make surethat the space is genuinely safe
for people to do that becausehow else are they going to
learn?
How else are we all going tolearn?
How else are we all going tolearn together and grow and
improve our practice?
Teri Schmidt (08:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that last point there, youknow, how else are we going to
learn?
And it's not, I kind of feellike in the past, maybe once
someone got into the workforce.
Learning wasn't as critical forthem.
But now in the world that welive in, you know, the, the VUCA
(09:06):
world, that's, that's sovolatile and uncertain and
complex and ambiguous.
The fact is we have to learnconstantly.
And without that psychologicalsafety, organizations, teams,
individuals are not going to belearning.
Jade Garatt (09:24):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And, and teaching is an exampleactually of a domain where still
sometimes we hear, talk aboutbest practice as if there is one
fixed way that if we just all,all get that bit better and do
it this one fixed perfect way.
It'll be fine.
And, and the reality is, we, weknow that's not the world that
we live in, that we know that'snot the complexity of the
(09:46):
terrain that we are navigating.
So we have to be creating spaceswhere people can adapt and can
think differently and canproblem solve to these new
challenges, which are coming upall the time, literally every
day, every minute of every day.
And if we are not doing that.
We are not actually going to beallowing ourselves and each
other to, to even functionfully, nevermind get better in,
(10:06):
in the space that we're in.
So it, it's so crucial.
And I think, I think you'reright.
I think maybe has been somethingthat's been overlooked in the
past or perhaps not recognizethat this is ongoing.
I think maybe we've consideredthat someone will start their
career, an early career, will dolots of learning.
They've got a lot to learn atthe start.
There's going to be a steeplearning curve.
(10:26):
But then by the time they're ina leadership role, they'll,
they've got it.
They, they, of course, they mustknow it because they're in a
leadership role, but that, thatdoesn't make any sense.
Right?
Like a, a leadership role.
You're potentially managing awhole load more complexity.
You're potentially looking aftera lot of people and navigating
whatever is going on outside ofyour organization and inside of
(10:47):
your organization.
That's a lot of complexity to bedealing with.
There's no magic playbook that'sgoing to.
Kind of give you a step by stepaccount as to how to work
through this.
We have to create spaces wherepeople can have a go, can try
something, can experiment, canfail quickly, can learn and can
grow in that.
So, so, yeah.
I, I think we should be talkingmore and more about learning.
Teri Schmidt (11:08):
Yeah, the work that you now do is more with,
leaders and organizations as Iunderstand it.
Do you wanna speak a little bitabout the work that you're
currently engaged in?
Jade Garatt (11:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, so the work that we do iswith teams and organizations.
It's often delivering trainingworkshops.
Sometimes it's more through sortof self-guided resources and,
and facilitating learningexperiences in, in more of a
kind of drawn out way.
Essentially what we are helpingteams and organizations, and
groups of people at work to dois to foster environments at
(11:41):
work where people feelpsychologically safer and
therefore can learn togetherbetter and therefore can perform
better.
So, so yeah, that looks likeeverything from healthcare teams
to work in, you know, largecorporate organizations,
businesses, some, most of thetime I'd say our work is with
leaders.
And if we take leadership inour, in our broadest term, you
(12:02):
know, we are all leaders in ourdomains at work.
Sometimes it will be moreworking with a, a group of team
members.
And we'll be considering how to,how do that team as a unit, how
do they work together.
And we'll be perhapsfacilitating more dialogue
between them, more conversationshelping them with tools and
practices that might help themtogether to, to work better
together.
A lot of the time though, it'swith groups of leaders, groups
(12:24):
of managers and considering inin their areas, what are they
doing, what's within their locusof control and locus of
influence to help to create thesorts of environments we want to
be creating at work.
Teri Schmidt (12:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we've thrown around theterm multiple times, but since
we're focused on going beneaththe buzzword, I think it's
important to really get a cleardefinition of the phrase itself.
And I think I heard AmyEdmondson even talk about how
she wishes it wasn.
Called psychological safetybecause it is kind of a, a
(12:59):
complex not complex, but it,it's a, a difficult phrase to
get out of your mouth, I wouldsay.
You can kind of feel smart whenyou're saying it, but it is one
of those terms that is a littlebit long.
But I would love from yourperspective what does it really
mean?
And then after that, you know,what are some of those
(13:20):
misconceptions that leaders haveabout it that you see most
frequently?
Jade Garatt (13:24):
Mm.
Yeah, great question.
And, and to your point aboutit's, it's difficult to say,
it's also difficult to type andI type it multiple times a day,
multiple times have to go back.
I do know how to spell it, ofcourse, but but trying to type
all those letters in the rightorder is is an everyday
challenge for me.
So, yes, I also, it wasn'tcalled psychological safety,
something much shorter would bebetter please.
But yeah.
(13:45):
In our work we use AmyEdmondson's definition, which is
a shared belief that it's safein a team to to speak up with
your mistakes, your questionsyour concerns and to share your
ideas.
So.
It's a shared belief that thatteam is safe for what we call
interpersonal risk taking.
So that doesn't mean, you know,taking some wild business risk.
(14:06):
It doesn't mean we're all gonnago bungee jumping together, but
it means that I feel safe enoughin this team.
I have enough faith in this teamthat I will not be punished or
humiliated if I take theinterpersonal risk of admitting
a mistake or of saying I've gotan idea or of saying I'm a bit
concerned or of asking aquestion.
And each of those.
Four ideas, ideas, questions,concerns, or mistakes all bring
(14:28):
a slightly different flavor towhat we're talking about.
There are differences betweenspeaking up to share a new idea
that you've got and thepotential barriers to doing
that.
And perhaps the barriers tospeaking up to say, I messed up
there, I made a mistake.
So, so this already brings somedifferent dimensions into the
term.
But in a way, my, my workingdefinition of psychological
(14:49):
safety is that.
It's the conditions necessaryfor a group to be learning
together.
And this, this leads back reallyto my sort of fundamental
understanding of, ofpsychological safety, which,
which goes back to my teachingdays and goes back to, to my
central focus on how, how are welearning together Is if a group
of people.
Do not have psychologicalsafety.
If they do not feel safe toshare their ideas, to ask
(15:13):
questions, to make mistakestogether, you will not be able
to facilitate them learningeffectively together.
Or certainly there'll besignificant barriers to them
doing that.
So, so that's, that's thedefinition that we work with.
We always find it's useful tostart, and actually in all of
our training sessions, we, wecheck in with the definition
because there are so manymisconceptions about what it
(15:34):
means.
For some people they, they hearthe word psychological and they
instantly kind of jump to, oh,this is a wellbeing initiative.
This is a mental healthinitiative.
And of course, fosteringenvironments where people can
speak up is, is actually crucialto any kind of wellbeing
initiative or any kind of mentalhealth initiative.
But it, it's not the same thing.
And the term wellbeing, forexample, is a much, much broader
(15:55):
term, a much broader concept.
So we're talking about somethingquite specific and it's helpful
to make sure when we have thisshared language that we're
talking about the same thing.
So that's, I think one of themisconceptions is just muddling
it with these other terms.
You know, other ones would beinclusion and belonging as if
it's all the same.
It's all the same thing, andit's not, it's all connected.
(16:16):
But these concepts are not allthe same thing.
And one of the things that Iquite like about working with
psychological safety is we canbe quite specific about what it
is that we're working on thatcan help us when there are
challenges to better pinpointwhen there's a problem.
And we can sort of start fromthere and then we can talk about
how it connects to inclusion, towellbeing, to mental health, to
belonging, or any number ofother impor very important
(16:39):
concepts.
So, so that's sort of some ofthe misconceptions that come in.
We also get.
Perhaps more fundamentalmisconceptions about actually
what does this mean?
A really common one is, it, itjust means being nice.
It just means being nice to eachother all the time.
And of course, I, I, I'm often abit conflicted with this because
I think, well, I, I do wantpeople being kind to each other
(17:00):
for sure.
Like, that's really important towork.
And actually, if you want tofeel safe to share your idea,
knowing that your team memberswill be kind is going to help.
Undoubtedly, and yet that aloneis, is not enough.
And sometimes this sort of let'sjust be nice, can then get
warped into it.
Let's just be positive all thetime, even when actually we're
(17:21):
concerned, which is the exactopposite of we're try what we're
trying to do with psychologicalsafety.
We want people to feel safeenough to say, I'm worried about
that.
I don't think the idea willwork.
I've seen that go wrongelsewhere.
Here's what I'm concerned about.
We want to be creating spaceswhere people can safely dissent
and express a, a divergingperspective or just say, I can
(17:46):
see you all, you all for this,and that's wonderful, and I'm
still worried about this aspect.
so, so, you know, this is wherewe have to be really careful, I
think, not to just kind of getcaught up in like, oh,
psychological safety.
Let's, yeah, let's just, youknow, say everything is great.
And, you know, so that's one.
And, and one final one, if Ican, if I can be allowed one
(18:07):
more, is that we can't justassume that we have it.
And this is so tricky because,and and I.
If I can be really honest, I seethis a lot when I explain to, to
sort of people I meet day to dayoutside of my, in my personal
life, and I explain the workthat we do, and very often,
especially if I'm talking topeople in leadership roles, if
(18:28):
they've not really come acrossthe concept, not really worked
with it before, they'll say, oh,I, I think we have that.
I think we do that in our team,and that's great and that's
wonderful, and they may well beright.
But chances are there's always abit more work that we can do in
this.
And it's very easy when you are,when you have power, when you
have authority, when you haveleadership, to assume that
(18:49):
because you feel safe to speakup, to share your ideas, to ask
questions, to admit mistakesthat everyone does and that
everyone does with you.
And that's not necessarily true.
And we don't know the thingsthat we're not hearing.
So so I think just assuming thatit's there, it is a, is a real
risk.
And actually being open to thefact that sometimes it's
(19:10):
ourselves, it, it's perhaps theway we've responded in the past
where it's perhaps a.
A power gradient that we'veinadvertently set up or just you
know, agreed with, sort ofstepped into the place of that
can make it very difficult forother people to, to speak up.
And we, we might not even knowit's happening.
We probably don't even know it'shappening.
Teri Schmidt (19:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so interesting what yousaid that, you know, we don't
know what we can't hear, andthat is, you know, the, that's
the challenge here because ifpeople don't feel safe to speak
up, no matter how many times aleader says, oh, I have an open
door.
You know, tell me anything youfeel and you know, I won't judge
(19:49):
you for anything you say.
That doesn't by itself create anenvironment where people do feel
safe to speak up with ideas orconcerns.
Jade Garatt (20:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
And this, this open door policyis a, is a real kind of, because
I've heard this so many timesand I, I'll be honest, I've
probably said it as wellthinking this is, this is what
you say in order to see this is,this is how you should talk as a
leader.
And yet, actually, if you justthink about the language of
that, you know, my door is open,but presumably I'm in my space
(20:20):
and I'm expecting you to crossthe boundary into my space to
come and speak to me.
You know, I, I find thisparticularly thi this does get
bandied around in, in schools.
My door is always open.
Often it's physically not.
Often there is a physicalbarrier to that.
You know, there's this, my dooris metaphorically always open,
but you are gonna have to knockon it and make sure that I'm not
in a meeting, you're not in acall.
(20:41):
So, you know, often it's a, it'san out and out lie.
But, but also we are putting theonus on the person stepping into
our space and.
If we are the person with morepower in this situation, if we
are higher up the organizationalhierarchy, that's a big ask
actually.
And, and really, you know, weought to be thinking about what
the spaces that we're inhabitingand how are we approaching, how
(21:03):
are we opening up these channelsof conversation that aren't
expecting someone to comethrough through a doorway closed
door open.
Teri Schmidt (21:10):
Right, right.
Such a good point.
So let's get into that then.
I know there's so much that wecould spend time on discussing
and I always recommend you're inTom's newsletter to everyone
that I can.
So you know, I will definitelymake sure that that's included
in the show notes.
'cause people can go much deeperthan we'll have time to go
today, but I would.
(21:31):
Love to hear from you about, youknow, maybe two or three
practices that are reallypowerful for creating
psychological safety.
If it's not saying you have anopen door, what is it?
And, and maybe we can talk, youknow, kind of go in deep one by
one and talk about what thepractice is, but then what makes
(21:53):
it so difficult?
For leaders and what kind ofinternal growth is necessary
perhaps for them to be able tofollow through on this practice.
Jade Garatt (22:07):
Yeah, definitely.
And I, I love, I love practicalstuff.
I'm a very practical person.
I love, I love things that wecan think, right?
Let's do this.
Let's try this.
So the first one, and, and weencourage this with almost all
of the, the teams that we workwith is that whenever you have a
group of people who are meetingtogether for a meeting or for a
project or something thatthey're working on, in any round
(22:28):
of introductions and everyonewho's gathering ought to be
speaking in that ought to beintroducing themselves because
otherwise what are they doingthere?
But we really encourageintroductions with first name
and maximum a sentencedescribing what.
Their role is in that situationof what they're actually doing,
what the action is, as opposedto their job title.
Because it's very easy to comein and say, hi, I'm Josh, I'm
(22:52):
the CEO.
And instantly we've created thispower gradient because we all
know there's Josh and he's theCEO.
But actually if what we can dois say, hi.
I'm Josh.
And I'm here to today to makesure that the whole team is
looked after.
That's great.
Let's start with that.
If we can come and say hi, youknow, I am Ellen.
(23:13):
I'm here today to make sure thatwe launch this next email
campaign on time rather than,hi, I'm Ellen.
I'm head of marketing.
I'm and, and sort of layering inthese details.
It is so much easier to speak upto Josh and Ellen who are here
to look after the team, who arehere to launch the email
(23:34):
campaign than it is.
To speak up to the CEO o to thehead of marketing, to the, the
person who's already told you II'm up here.
And I think you said, you know,why, why can this be difficult
and, and this maybe feels likethis shouldn't be that
difficult, although sometimesit's quite difficult to describe
what we do in action words in areally clear, we sometimes talk
about the.
(23:54):
Explain it to yourfive-year-old, you know, if you
were, if your five-year-old, andthis isn't about being
patronizing towards our teammembers, but it's about can we
be really clear about what theaction is?
What, what's the, what's thework that we are here to do in
this particular context?
Doesn't have to be our entirejob role.
But, but actually that can bequite challenging in itself.
The other thing that can behard, and, and I, I really
understand this, you know, assomeone who worked hard to move
(24:16):
up organizational hierarchiesand was very proud of those
promotions when they came, itcan be hard not to want to lead
with that, not to want to leadwith.
Actually, I am head of thisdepartment and I do lead this
number of people and, andactually it can take an
adjustment to say, actually whatI'm doing here today is being
Jade and I'm here to make surethat we have the best learning
(24:38):
experience that we can.
And that's what I'm here to do.
So it can take a little bit ofjust reflecting on which bit of
this is my ego
Teri Schmidt (24:48):
Mm-hmm.
Jade Garatt (24:49):
that's okay.
Like we can be friends with ouregos.
We can, we can say that's okay.
I am still head of this.
I'm still director of that.
I'm still CEO.
That's fine.
That still sits on.
Cb, it's still on my LinkedInprofile, wherever you want it to
be, but we don't necessarilyneed to lead with that when we
are meeting with people andwe're working directly with
people and, and it, it can justtake a little bit to kind of go,
(25:11):
I'm still credible.
I'm still a valuable person inthis, in this context, and I
don't need to lead with that inthis particular situation.
Teri Schmidt (25:20):
Yeah.
Yeah, that, that sounds sosimple.
And I have a couple of follow upquestions about that.
I, I guess the first one wouldbe what, how effective is this
when everyone already knows thatthat's the VP of marketing, or
that's the CEO?
Like, is it, is it stilleffective for them to introduce
themself in a different way?
Jade Garatt (25:41):
Yeah.
So yes, I think so.
One thing that's reallyinteresting, if you get into
approachability research, whichis sounds very neat, it kind of
is.
But is that we assume thatapproachability or we tend to
assume is, is a fixedcharacteristic as in.
I'm an approachable person orI'm not an approachable person.
And that's kind of an innatepart of who we are.
And, and this often catches someof us out'cause we can assume
(26:03):
that, well, I'm a nice person,I'm a good person, that people
will approach me.
But actually what you find whenyou start to research
approachability in the sense ofhow, how, how willing, how ready
are people actually to come andapproach you.
You find it's highly, highlycontextual.
So even if you are typically avery approachable person.
If someone in that momentperceives you to be a bit
(26:24):
stressed or to have maybe justsnapped about something or to be
just preoccupied, distracted,maybe on your emails or
something in that moment, theystill won't approach you.
Teri Schmidt (26:35):
Hmm.
Jade Garatt (26:35):
It's much more contextual than we think it is.
Which is is both a kind of, ohno.
We can assume that we've gotsome stuff in the bank'cause
we've been approachable in thepast and we think we're an
approachable person.
But it can, we can also use thisto our favor because.
Even if you are the CEO, even ifyou're the director of, you
know, whatever facultydepartment you know, whatever
(26:55):
division you can still influencethe way that you're perceived in
that moment, in that context.
Through the way that youintroduce yourself, through the
way that you come across,through your presence in that
space.
So we have more influence in themoment than we think we do.
It's not going to erase it.
Like, like you said, people willstill know you're the ceo.
People will still know you're,you're this person.
(27:17):
And that is probably still goingto have an inhibiting effect
because there is still a powergradient there.
But what we don't want to bedoing is exacerbating it.
And what we wanna be doing is,is just actually saying to
people right now.
This is safe right
Teri Schmidt (27:30):
Mm.
Jade Garatt (27:31):
here to be talked to.
That's, that's what I'm in thisspace for.
Teri Schmidt (27:36):
Yeah, that's fascinating.
I didn't even know there was afield of approachability
research and now I want to learnmore about it.
But that is so powerful that youcan change it in the moment with
these, you know, smallbehaviors.
And again, they're much morepowerful behaviors than saying
your door is open or anyone isfree to speak up in this meeting
(27:59):
and.
How more effective would ourmeetings be if everyone knew
exactly what they were there todo and to contribute and was
able to voice it, like you saidin their introduction.
Jade Garatt (28:12):
Yeah, exactly.
I, I think it can really helpwith us being much clearer about
what that space is for.
It can help us to stay much morefocused.
And maybe also, you know, if weare taking that moment
beforehand to think.
How am I introducing my actions,my role, my, my, you know, what
I'm doing in this space?
If I'm really struggling withthat in relation to this
(28:33):
meeting, do I need to be there?
Like, do I have an importantrole to play here?
Or actually, is it somethingthat I could be updated on
afterwards?
Does this need to be a meeting?
You know, oh, does it need to bea meeting?
Could it be any of, but actuallyif, if I can't be really clear
about what that role is, whatI'm here to do, then perhaps I
need to reconsider what thismeeting is for, or what the sort
(28:53):
of shape of this meeting is.
And, and that in itself is, isgonna help us all out.
I think you know, few peopleknow that they don't have
enough.
Teri Schmidt (29:02):
Right, right.
No, I have never heard thatcomplaint.
You know, and, and just beforewe kind of move on to the next
one, I think what you saidabout.
Yes, I still have credibilityeven though I didn't kick off
with my title is such a bigthing.
You get into this role andthink, well, I have to.
(29:22):
Promote myself.
I have to engage in theself-promotion in order to look
like I belong here in order tobuild that trust so that when I
speak up, people will think thatI'm coming from a place of
authority or, or fromcredibility.
So how have you seen leaderseffectively manage through that?
Jade Garatt (29:45):
Yeah, so, so I think it's recognizing that
probably does have a place stillthat there may well be times and
places where actually we do needto establish our cred
credibility, where maybe we'respeaking to an external audience
or maybe we're entering acompletely unfamiliar and.
Possibly hostile environmentwhere actually what we need to
do is say, I know my staff, I,you know, I'm here, I've got
(30:08):
this credibility.
And, and we may need to startwith that.
Where I think it becomesproblematic is where we lead
with that in all of our workinteractions.
And especially when actuallywhat we're doing is, is working
with colleagues.
We're working on a definedproject and then in a defined
way because we are notrecognizing.
The significance of the way thatwe, that we introduce ourselves
(30:28):
and you know, if a, if a surgeonis able to come in and rather
than leading with, you know, I'mthe chief consultant in this
area of medicine, but to say,I'm, I'm here today to make sure
that this patient gets safelythrough this procedure, then,
then we can all kind of take.
Some lessons from that.
If a, if a pilot, a captain ofan airline, airline can come and
(30:50):
say, I'm here today to fly theplane.
You know, and and actually all,we're not in any way questioning
that credibility.
We're not in any way questioningtheir expertise or their
authority actually, but we aresaying this is what they're here
to do right now.
So, so it can be really, reallypowerful and I'd say.
What I found very interesting isit often is the leaders who find
(31:12):
this most difficult are perhapsthe ones who are most
established in their roles.
They're perhaps most senior.
They're very used to doing this,and I I remember in, in a fairly
early middle leadership role,going to a going on a leadership
development course, and Iremember being made to rehearse
my elevator pitch for who I was.
(31:33):
Why, and, and being made topractice that as a kind of, this
is what you should do, this ishow you should introduce
yourself.
And I, I'm not saying that thatdoesn't have a place, but I, but
I don't know that it'snecessarily a kind of, I don't
know that it should have beenfirst thing on the leadership.
It almost came from this deficitthat sort of, assuming
everyone's going to think you'renot credible and you've gotta
(31:55):
prove to them that you are.
Whereas actually, I, I reallyprefer now to think I will let
my actions determine that.
Teri Schmidt (32:03):
that is, that is so true, and I think, you know,
especially in.
The development of in, and maybeit's for everyone, but I, I've,
I've seen a lot of that in theleadership about women as
leaders and, and needing to havethat executive presence.
And, and really maybe becausethey are thinking that everyone
(32:28):
is going to assume that they arenot credible.
And I guess this would probablygo for, you know, any.
Marginalized group.
They're thinking that thenatural assumption is that they
are not credible, so that it isnecessary to always own that
title, own that education, ownthat experience, and, and put
(32:49):
that right upfront whenintroducing themselves.
So I guess, how would you reactif someone were to bring that
point up?
Jade Garatt (33:00):
So, so I think it's valid.
I, I, you know, I, I absolutelythink that there is, there are
going to be occasions where someof us are going to be read to be
more credible than others, to,you know, to, to perhaps better
align with the dominant norm ofan organization and therefore to
be more readily perceived to bea leader.
(33:22):
And as I say, I think there aretimes where it is appropriate to
just be absolutely clear aboutthis is my role and, and, and
here's my elevator pitch if weneed it.
But I, I would like todifferentiate between those
times and the times when we areactually setting up environments
where we want people to workwith us.
And I think we need to justpause for a moment and reflect
(33:45):
on the kinds of leaders we wantto be.
And do we want to be the kindsof leaders who set ourselves up
here and have.
Everyone else knowing theirplace and knowing that we are
this much above them, or do wewant to be the kinds of leaders
where people will come to uswith their questions, with their
concerns, with their new ideasabout how we can improve it?
Can we reconceptualize the sortsof leaders that we want to be
(34:09):
and accept that that might thenneed to take?
More time for people to go, yes,they really are a great leader,
but when they do, it will bebecause of what we've done, not
because of the way that we'vepositioned ourselves from the
start to to to appear this kindof power over model.
I'm often really drawn to MaryParker Follett's work on on
power, and so much of this comesfrom our.
(34:32):
Internalized, sort of innatefeeling that what we need to do
is have power over people thatwe need to elevate ourselves
and, and extract more from them,put them in their place and
extract more from them.
Whereas what she advocated forwas, was power with people and
power for people, for them to,to go and do the work and, and
do the great stuff that, that wewant them to be working with us
(34:53):
to do.
It takes some rethinking and,and I recognize it doesn't
always fit within theorganizational structures that
we might be battling.
But.
What we want is a different kindof workplace if we want, we want
is different kinds of teams andteams that can actually perform
really well.
We have to recognize thatthere's a cost when we do the,
(35:13):
hello, I'm the CEO and I've gotthis many years experience and
because we instantly say topeople, be careful.
Be careful in coming to me and,and it an implicit message, but
it's, but it's there for sure.
Teri Schmidt (35:25):
Ha ha.
I, I hadn't thought about thatimplicit message, you know, be
careful about coming to me.
That makes it very, veryconcrete.
And I think what you said alsoabout it may take longer, but
people will know you because ofyour track record in a sense,
you know the work that you'vedone and that is so much more
durable in terms of credibilitythan someone thinking you're
(35:50):
credible and trustworthy justbecause you stated your title.
Jade Garatt (35:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and there are also wayswhere, you know, we can
recognize that, that what we arehere to do is, is a big thing.
You know, we may well be in thisvery senior role because what we
have is a significant job is ina session recently with someone
who, who said, you know, I, I amhere.
To look after all 800 peopleacross this plant and make sure
(36:13):
they are safe, you know, that ishuge.
To me, that's more impressivethan saying you're director of
safety or your, you know, that,that in itself, that lands, and
yet I'm clear on what you'rehere to do.
I'm, I'm clear on.
So, it's a different tone, butit's, it's also emphasis to, to
what I'm doing.
I'm not saying I'm here becauseI'm in this role with this
(36:36):
seniority and the status.
I'm here saying I'm here to doan important big thing.
You know, I'm here to find theplane.
I'm here to keep people safe.
I'm here to keep this number ofpeople safe.
Teri Schmidt (36:45):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Love that.
Well, we may have time for maybeone more practice.
If you have one that, that isyour favorite or a, a favorite
that you've seen work reallywell with corporate teams, I'd
love to hear about it.
Jade Garatt (37:01):
Yeah, so I, I'm gonna go to, so I, I love 15
fives.
So if you haven't heard of them,15 fives are essentially like a
reporting mechanism.
It's a communication channelthat you can open up with
members of your team.
And it's great for what we mightcall direct reports, people who
directly report into you.
But you can also, if you havematrix management type
(37:21):
arrangements in an organizationand you want to better open up
those communication channels,you can use it for that as well.
The idea of a 15 five.
So the reason it's called a 15five is that it should take the
person doing it, writing the thelittle report on how their week
has gone.
No more than 15 minutes towrite, and it should take you no
more than five minutes to read.
They're not meant to replaceone-to-one meetings or any other
(37:42):
meeting structure that you'vegot, but it's an alternative
communication channel that youare saying, fill me in, let me
know how things are going.
And you can do this in a waythat works for you.
So sometimes people like to havea, a few key questions for 15
fives.
Things like what's my you knowwhat have, what have mostly been
working on this week?
What's been a challenge?
(38:03):
What's gone really well?
What's something I like a bitmore support with.
So you can, you can alter thequestions, you can make it fit
to your context.
You can tell people to coloroutside of the lines, and if the
questions don't feel relevantand they just want to write you
a paragraph about what's goingon for them right now, that,
that's fine too.
But maybe set it up as arecurring calendar, invite a
little reminder to people.
And then they just.
(38:23):
Fill out their 15 five, email itover to you and you can Then,
the way I, I've seen it workreally nicely with teams is
where the, the team lead willacknowledge receipt of it, will
say, you know, thanks so much.
Really helpful.
Sometimes they'll also sharetheir own with the team, which
can be a, a really nicereciprocal practice as well.
But anything that warrantslonger discussion then gets
(38:44):
picked up in a one to meetingform more of a discussion.
The reason that I love it isthat even when we think we have
great communication, and evenwhen we're.
In almost constant contact witheach other through teams,
messages, slack channels,whatever it is that we are using
at work, emails, all the rest ofit.
Even when we've got our regularone-to-ones in place there are
(39:04):
sometimes opening up a differentway of communication means we
hear different things because wecarve out a different space for
it.
So in that space someone mightfeel more able to share.
My dog died last week and I'vejust not.
Been firing on all cylinders.
It work.
I'm not, not having a great timeof it.
Whereas in person, they mightfind that difficult to share.
It might not feel like itwarrants an email all of its own
(39:26):
'cause you know that it's mydog.
It's not a, it's, it's, it's nota, not a person, but it, but,
you know, as a family member ina sense.
And so we actually are justcreating this different channel
for people to, to communicatein.
And it's surprising, you know,we.
We started, didn't we Weresaying we, we don't know the
things that we can't hear.
And this is one way to getbeneath the surface of what are
(39:47):
some of these things that wemight not be hearing.
Now, interestingly, when I'veshared this practice some of
them, the, usually people lovethis practice and, and often
it's really adopting quitereadily in teens.
But in, in one particularsession I was in there, there
was more pushback.
And when I sort of, you know,explored like.
All practices are optional.
It's always an invitation, it'salways an offering.
You don't have to do anything.
(40:08):
The reason for it was, well,that'll create loads of
problems, won't it?
And there was this idea that ifwe're surfacing issues, that it
might actually create more ofthem.
Which I, I, I.
Understand where that from, andif you are feeling overwhelmed
and as a leader, you're alreadyfeeling like I'm up to, I'm not
(40:29):
gonna.
Teri Schmidt (40:31):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jade Garatt (40:32):
But of course we need to then recognize the
problem is that maybe you aremanaging a bit too much, maybe
you need a bit more support.
Because actually, if we're justhoping that we can squash
everything down then there willbe things bubbling up that we're
not hearing and that we shouldbe hearing.
And you know, I love the youcan't fix the secret.
You know, we, we have to knowthis.
We're going to be able to workeffectively with it.
(40:53):
So you know, I think when we areat the point of thinking like,
oh, I can't ask the question'cause what if they say there's
something wrong and then I mighthave to deal with it.
That's when we actually need tosort of take a moment for
ourselves and think, okay, am Idoing too much?
Am I managing my timeappropriately or do I need to
ask for some support?
Because if I feel like I haven'tgot time for the people I'm
(41:14):
working with to share the thingsthat are important for them,
that's a problem.
Teri Schmidt (41:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it allows those issues tobecome visible, when they maybe
are in their infantile stay ortheir, you know, very small
problems as opposed to when theyare affecting multiple people,
multiple projects when theirimpact is much bigger.
Jade Garatt (41:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and you know, as hard as itcan be to hear something's a
problem or there might be anissue I hadn't even seen.
And, and this is one of thechallenges of fostering
psychological safety, it won'talways feel good because.
Sometimes we are finding outthings that we really, we'd
really rather not have had todeal with.
Really, rather, it was all justfine and all, everything was
(42:03):
just going swimmingly.
But of course if we don't know,then we can't do anything about
it.
And so like we can hold bothshoes, that that can be harder
in the moment and ultimately inthe long run, it, it will be
better and will mean actually wecan, we can.
Perform better perform and wecan all work better together.
It is, I think, better to knowthan not to know.
So, yeah.
(42:23):
But it, it, it's an interesting,I think it's always a sort of an
opportunity to get curious whenwe find ourselves not wanting to
know or preferring not to that'sa sort of opportunity just to
check in.
Teri Schmidt (42:34):
Yeah, and, and I'd love your angle on it too, in
terms of when you feel yourselfnot wanting to check in because
you feel like you can't hearabout one more thing that has
gone wrong, that is a.
Indication that you should belooking, like you said at how
you are managing and if you needmore support.
Jade Garatt (42:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
The, the I used to say when Iwas, I was teaching and, and
leading a team and had really notime to lead the team'cause I
was always far too busy with myown teaching.
But the, the most dreaded phrasewould be, Jade, if you got a
minute.
I think because I didn't know Ihave no minutes, but of course
it's so important that I have aminute and, and actually.
(43:19):
You know, what we will need tobe doing is going, yes.
Thank you so much for asking.
Like, thank you.
Yeah.
Bring it.
You know, like, like, let's,let's on this, but it's very
hard to do that if you don'thave the head space and the
capacity to, to deal with thethings that are going to come up
in that just a minute.
Teri Schmidt (43:35):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Do you have any tips or, youknow, things that you've seen
leaders implement when they arein that space where they don't
feel like they have a minute?
Obviously that, you know, a morein depth look at how they're
managing is important, but evenjust in that moment, if they
feel like they're completelyoverwhelmed and someone asks
(43:57):
them if they have a minute
Jade Garatt (44:01):
So.
Yeah, I mean, like you say,there's a, there's a broader
structural thing, which is, isprobably the role of coaching
and, and you know, something abit more in depth to really
figure out like, is this, thatyou have too much on your plate?
Is it a tricky relationship withyour own manager, is there
something that we, that we needto be working on managing
differently?
Are you struggling to let go?
(44:22):
Are you, are you allowing peopleto run with things enough or are
you taking too much on yourselfand therefore feeling so
overloaded?
But it in that, in that moment,I am such a fan of the, just
giving it a pause, just justtaking taking a pause, taking a
breath, grounding yourself andliterally just kind of going
(44:43):
and, and.
As busy as we are, and even inthe most extreme situations, we
always, always have time to justtake that one breath before we
respond to, to maybe just manageperhaps our tendency to perhaps
roll our eyes or, you know, alittle expression of like, oh
no, not really, but go for it.
And just to check our responsebecause, you know, we talk about
(45:05):
this a lot in human andorganizational performance as
well.
How we respond matters.
And that if we can respondbetter, if we can just give
ourselves a moment beforeresponding or being really
honest and saying right now, no.
Can we chat at the end of theday?
Can we talk at this point?
Because it might be that wegenuinely don't, that we are,
(45:26):
you know, we're on our way todeliver a present presentation
and, and our head needs to be inthat, and we just don't have a
moment.
Right?
Then we literally don't havethat minute, so, so maybe it is
that we need to just take abreath and say, Ooh.
Not right now, but definitelylater.
And then make sure we, we honorthat because there is nothing
worse than sort of a Oh yeah,sure.
(45:47):
When actually we know we'rereally, really not in the place
to receive that right now.
It's gonna make us feel awfulfor the rest of the day, and we
are probably not going to be inthe place to manage our response
in the way that we want to, tomake that person feel the next
time they need a minute from us,that they'll feel able to come
and ask for it.
Teri Schmidt (46:03):
Right.
Right.
And I, I like what you saidabout it.
It's not just saying, no, Idon't have the minute right now.
It's not right now, but thisspecific time, I will, let's
connect then.
Jade Garatt (46:14):
yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then is that okay or or isit something that's so urgent,
such an emergency situation thatyou do need to speak Right now
it's sort of checking in, like,is that all right?
Would, would that be okay?
So, because there will be timeswhen we don't have the minute,
but the person really does needto tell us something right away,
so yeah.
Teri Schmidt (46:32):
Yeah.
Well, I know we only wentthrough two practices today, but
you know, went pretty, pretty indepth into them.
It sounds like a lot of workpotentially for people, so if
they're thinking about this andthey're like, yeah, I, I like
the idea of psychologicalsafety.
It sounds great.
Everyone says it's great.
I read on LinkedIn, it's great.
(46:53):
But I'm, I'm not sure.
What kind of an impact it wouldhave on my team.
Why is it worth investing thistime?
I'm curious, because you'veworked with so many
organizations, you know, whatripple effects have you seen in
teams and organizations whenthey are able to invest this
effort and createpsychologically safe teams?
Jade Garatt (47:14):
Yeah, so, so, you know, I'm biased.
Obviously I work in this area.
I, I clearly think that this is,this is worth doing, but I, I
think the truth and the, thereal value of it does come out
when we actually start seeingpractices.
Being implemented inorganizations, and there's a
tricky balance to be struckbetween warning people, managing
(47:35):
people's expectations, that thiswill create, this will take
time, like it, it will require ainvestment of effort.
It might require rethinking someof your own behaviors, some of
your own ways of being with.
Teams and with people, and thatcan be really difficult.
And that can require exactlylike you've, you've, you know,
really nicely articulated today.
A lot of internal work, a lot ofwork on ourselves to make sure
(47:56):
that we're doing that.
But what we, and, and yes, that,that will take time.
But what's really wonderfulabout this work is often how
quick some of the results are.
And actually, yes, you're, youare not going to go from a team
that feels completely unp,psychologically safe to a team
that feels totallypsychologically safe all the
time, overnight, but very smallpractices, things like the way
(48:18):
that we introduce ourselves whenwe're in a team, the way that
we.
Say our names and and what we docan really quickly start to
shift the, the tone and thequality of the interactions that
we're having and, and thedialogue.
And what we can then do is, iscelebrate those wins.
So the first time that we hearsomething in a team meeting that
we thought, I don't think Iwould've heard that last week.
(48:39):
We really, really thank theperson for sharing that.
We make it super clear toourselves and to them and to
everyone who's.
In that room, in that space thatthis is what we want to be
doing.
This is what we want to behearing, this is what we are
here for.
And if, if we can do that, theneach one of those times we're
building this positive momentumwhere we're sometimes actually
undoing years of people'sconditioning around what they
(49:01):
think is safe or unsafe to, tospeak.
Every time we get one of theseopportunities, every time
someone says, have you got aminute?
Every time someone says, oh, I'mnot so sure about that, we can
say thank you.
Like, thank you.
Oh, you know, tell me more.
Let's talk about this together.
And demonstrate again and againthat this is, this is safe to do
(49:22):
that.
And, and that's not just greatbecause we're having richer
conversations, we're havingricher dialogue.
It's also great because it meansthat we're able to do the work
that we're here to do muchbetter.
If we are not able to have theseconversations, we're not able to
respond to the changingsituations, the circumstances.
Internal and external for theteams and organizations that
we're working with.
(49:42):
We have to be having betterdialogue around what's going on.
We have to be able to learnbetter together.
And it's a better way to beworking.
Like it's much, much moreenjoyable as well to be working
in teams and spaces where peopleare working well together, where
they're sharing their ideas.
Where when you say, you know,does anyone have any worries
about this?
It's not just a kind of deathlysilence and you're thinking
(50:03):
someone please.
It is much better.
So, oh, actually I was worriedabout that.
I, I have been thinking aboutthat.
And we can have these rich andproductive conversations.
So so, you know, it's a greatthing to do on a number of
levels and these small littleincremental shifts that we start
to see these small interpersonalrisks that people take, which
might seem small, but may havebeen huge for them.
(50:24):
We can celebrate each and everyone and, and acknowledge each,
everyone, and, and then we'rebuilding forward in a positive
way.
Teri Schmidt (50:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it, you know, having those,those richer conversations where
we are learning from and witheach other really seems to be
the point of bringing peopletogether anyway.
You know, if, if we're gonnacome together in a meeting, as
opposed to just having a tasklist that people can check in on
and, and, you know, do theirpart to contribute to the whole.
(50:53):
Instead, we're really bringingpeople together and really
acting as a team, and we wantthose diverse viewpoints.
If we don't have thispsychological safety to be able
to learn together, to be able toshare new ideas, to raise
concerns, why are we doing itanyway?
Why?
Why are we coming togetheranyway?
Jade Garatt (51:14):
Exactly, exactly that.
You know, if, if I just wantsomeone to echo back my thoughts
to me, I can have a littledialogue with chat GPT and that
will really nicely summarizeexactly what I've already said
and, and, you know, shareexactly what I expected to, to
share back the, the reason thatwe are getting humans together
in a room with other humans,with different backgrounds,
different experiences, differentperspectives, who see the world
(51:35):
in different ways, is because wehave something then to offer
each other and we are.
We are better.
We are more powerful with all ofthose perspectives than we are
if we just take ours and hopethat everyone's gonna agree with
it.
Teri Schmidt (51:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
100%.
Well, I think that's a, a greatpoint to end on, but I've
already mentioned the, thenewsletter, obviously.
But if a listener loves whatyou're talking about and wants
to learn more.
About your work, what's the bestplace for them to go?
Jade Garatt (52:02):
Fab.
Yeah.
So so our website is psychsafety.com.
And that's, you know, that's goteverything on there.
It's got articles, it's got allthe past newsletter articles and
resources.
You'll find information aboutTom and I on there and as well
as the work that we do inorganizations and the online
training that you can join withus as an individual exactly like
(52:22):
you've done, Terry.
Teri Schmidt (52:23):
Yes.
And I highly recommend it.
Yeah, one of the, one of thebest that I've taken, and I'm
looking forward to the secondhalf of it coming up in November
as well.
Jade Garatt (52:31):
Fantastic.
Wonderful.
Thank you for that.
Teri Schmidt (52:33):
Yes.
And, and thank you so much foryour time today.
This like I mentioned, couldhave gone much longer, but I
really appreciate you takingtime out of your day to speak
with me about this and kind ofget beneath that buzzword of
psychological safety.
Jade Garatt (52:49):
Oh, it's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much, Terry.
I hope you found today'sconversation with Jade as
thought provoking and practicalas I did.
And if you're ready to take thenext step in building a safer,
high performing workplace.
I really do encourage you to tocheck out Psych Safety's
(53:11):
Flagship program, thePsychological Safety Course,
train the Trainer.
I've participated in half of it,so three of the six workshops,
and am looking forward toparticipating in the remaining
three in November.
As I said before, it really isone of the best training
programs that I have taken.
(53:32):
And of course you can learn moreat the link in the show notes.
Thanks again for joining metoday.
And until next time, keepleading with compassion and
courage.
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