May 3, 2025 • 45 mins
Welcome to The Inner Game of Change, the podcast where we explore the unseen forces that shape how we lead, adapt, and thrive in the face of change and transformation.
In this episode, I am joined by someone who’s been on the frontlines of organisational culture in some of the world’s most recognisable companies — Mehmet Baha, author of the newly released book Creating Psychological Safety at Work.
Baha is the founder of Solution Folder and has over 24 years of experience working with top organisations, including being one of the first Facebook employees in Europe. He is a global trainer and speaker on psychological safety, agile, and resilience, fluent in multiple languages, and has delivered learning sessions worldwide.
We unpack why psychological safety is not just a ‘nice-to-have’ — but a non-negotiable for high-performing teams. From personal stories of toxic cultures to practical tools you can apply today, Baha shares what it takes to build environments where people feel safe to speak up, make mistakes, and bring their whole selves to work.
If you are a leader, change practitioner, or simply someone trying to create better conversations at work, this one is for you.
I am grateful to have Baha chatting with me today.
About Baha
🎯 What Is Important To You?
You are ambitious, open to new ideas, would like to provide the best learning experience for your employees & teams, and you are committed to making a difference in your organization.
⭐️ Why?
Because you believe that learning sessions should be inspiring and aimed at enabling behavior change.
🚀 How Can I Serve You?
Learning sessions (live virtual training, keynote talks, custom-made online courses) I provide are on the topics of psychological safety, agile mindset, and resilience.
The learning sessions are based on 3H: Head, Heart, Hands. You learn cutting-edge concepts (Head), you are inspired (Heart) and you put in practice what you learn (Hands).
🌍 What Do Others Say?
🔥 “The online session provides a comprehensive yet practical overview of psychological safety with hands-on exercises that helps the attendees apply the more theoretical concepts to their daily work life."
VP of Agility, Global manufacturing company, USA
🔥 “Great learning experience and excellent presentation."
Former Vice President Project Management, Bank of America
🔥 “After this session, I will communicate more often with my peers and encourage their feedback."
Senior Manager, Global healthcare company, Germany
🔥 "It was a wonderful session with lots of interaction and learning."
Harvard Business School Online Istanbul Chapter Organizer
🧑🏽💻 How Can You Book A Learning Session/Talk?
Psychological safety ---> https://solutionfolder.com/team-ps
Agile mindset ---> https://solutionfolder.com/agile
Resilience ---> https://solutionfolder.com/training-resilient-antifragile
💡 How Can You Get Free Resources?
Visit https://solutionfolder.com/free-resources and ge
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Ali Juma
@The Inner Game of Change podcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Baha (00:00):
Leaders.
In many cases in bigorganizations, they are
data-driven.
They want to see howpsychological safety is
connected to the big picture,the big picture, the business
goals.
To be able to influence leaderson this, we need to be clear in
our communication, highlightnumbers and show the benefit.
(00:21):
Let me make this tangible whenwe communicate with leaders
about the importance ofpsychological safety, we can
mention this data in a clearmanner, highlighting the
benefits Based on a Gallupreport.
When employees feel that theiropinions count, when they feel
(00:45):
that their opinions count atwork, which implies a workplace
of psychological safety, youshare your opinions and you
notice that your opinions arevalued.
We can see 27% reduction inemployee turnover, percentage
(01:08):
reduction in employee turnover,40% reduction in safety
accidents and 12% increase inproductivity.
Ali (01:19):
Welcome to the Inner Game of Change, the podcast where we
explore the unseen forces thatshape how we lead, adapt and
thrive in the face of change andtransformation.
I am your host, ali Jemma.
In this episode, I am joined bysomeone who has been on the
front lines of organizationalculture in some of the world's
(01:41):
most recognizable companies,mehmet Baha, author of the newly
released book CreatingPsychological Safety at Work.
Baha is the founder of SolutionFolder and has over 24 years of
experience working with toporganizations, including being
one of the first Facebookemployees in Europe.
He's a global trainer, aspeaker on psychological safety,
(02:05):
agile and resilience, and hasdelivered learning sessions
worldwide.
We unpack why psychologicalsafety is not just a nice to
have but an unnegotiable forhigh performing teams.
From personal stories of toxiccultures to practical tools you
can apply today, baha shareswhat it takes to build
(02:26):
environments where people feelsafe to speak up, make mistakes
and bring their whole selves towork.
If you're a leader, chancepractitioner or simply someone
trying to create betterconversations at work, this one
is for you.
I am grateful to have Bahachatting with me today.
I am grateful to have Bahachatting with me today.
(02:47):
Well, baha, thank you so muchfor joining me in the In a Game
of Change podcast.
I am grateful for your timetoday my pleasure.
Thanks for the invitation, ali.
Thank you very much, baha.
Today we want to talk aboutpsychological safety.
You recently released a bookcalled Creating Psychological
Safety at Work the EssentialGuide to Boosting Team
(03:09):
Performance.
Let's start from the top.
Baha (03:18):
What's fascinating about this topic for you?
What is fascinating about thistopic?
It's a good question.
Psychological safety is a keyaspect of high-performing teams,
and my own experiences workingat Facebook and other companies
made me realize the importanceof this, because without
psychological safety, we cannotachieve high-performing teams.
Psychological safety means it'sa work environment where
(03:41):
employees feel safe to expresstheir questions, concerns, ideas
and mistakes.
Ali (03:49):
From your experience, Baha, what is an environment that
lacks psychological safety?
What does that look like?
Baha (03:57):
An environment which has psychological safety right,
which does not havepsychological safety, which does
not.
Okay, I can give you an examplebased on my experience.
I once worked for one company.
This was a tech company andthis tech company was one of the
(04:18):
most successful companies inthe world.
In its small area, its smallniche.
It was always number two in theworld, never number one.
And in this company we had onesenior manager, basically the
CEO of the company, and once Idared to ask a question to the
(04:38):
CEO in a meeting and hisresponse was that's a stupid
question.
At that, that moment, I didn'tknow how to react.
I felt powerless and actuallyafter that moment, I felt
fearful asking him any questions.
(05:00):
And it was the same with otheremployees as well.
He could easily say to othersthis is a stupid question.
What is even worse, otheremployees started to imitate
this.
So you are in a meeting withother colleagues and they can
say to you it's a stupidquestion.
It was a workplace.
(05:20):
It was a toxic workplace.
Employees didn't trust oneanother, they didn't share
information with one another andit was a typical case of a
workplace with a low level ofpsychological safety.
Again, as I mentioned, it wasalways number two in the world
(05:42):
in its small niche.
If it had psychological safety,I am sure it's likely that it
could improve its success.
Ali (05:53):
You're talking about the leader of a company.
Does that mean that the leadersof a company, they are the key
responsible people aboutcreating the psychological
safety?
Baha (06:06):
Exactly.
Leadership leaders play acrucial role in creating
psychological safety.
The way they give space toothers to ask questions, the way
senior leaders communicate withothers, openness, transparency
and the way they deal withmistakes are critical.
At the same time, it's theresponsibility to all employees
(06:30):
to foster psychological safetyat work.
Ali (06:33):
Yes, I thought so.
I think it's almost like a teamsport Everybody's responsible
about the environment they workin.
I'm really keen to exploresomething that you've mentioned
in your book and you justmentioned in your answer Voicing
concerns.
That's not the end of thepsychological safety.
(06:54):
It's how you respond to thoseconcerns and how you manage
expectations and creating aconsistency.
Have I got this right?
Baha (07:05):
Exactly so.
One of the aspects ofpsychological safety is to
create a speak-up culture.
Speak-up culture can be inthree ways so speaking up about
misconduct, speaking up tochallenge ways of working.
It can be speaking up to offernew ideas.
In addition to that, there areother topics as well, as you
(07:29):
mentioned sharing concerns and,as leaders, once we create an
environment of psychologicalsafety, encourage employees,
colleagues, to share concerns.
It's step one we get theconcerns.
And the next step?
It's step one, we get theconcerns.
And the next step, as youpointed out well, is we got
those concerns, we consider themand, ideally, we take action on
(07:53):
this.
I can give you a specificexample on that.
Sure, Because during COVID, onetelecom company in Spain if I
remember correctly, it wasTelefonica In the middle of
COVID, Telefonica, in its owninternal tool, they send a
message to all the employees.
(08:13):
Now we are going through adifficult time lockdowns and
pandemic and the question fromthe senior leadership was what
can we do?
You know what are your concernsand what can we do?
You know, to keep working inthis environment.
Thousands of employees sharedtheir answers, concerns, ideas,
(08:34):
and then the senior leadershipdidn't disappear.
They analyzed these answers and, based on these answers, they
prioritized some of them andthey choose some of the concerns
and then they took action onthat and they communicated this
to employees.
And, as you mentioned,consistency we create space.
Employees share concerns.
We consider them, evaluate them, choose the right ones, take
(08:58):
action and communicate to theemployees.
Otherwise, if you get theconcerns of employees and
disappear, not take any action,next time it's likely that
employees will not share theirconcerns because they wouldn't
trust us.
So, as you mentioned, itcreates consistency get ideas,
evaluate them, take action andcommunicate with the employees.
(09:19):
This actually completes thecircle and also contributes to
psychological safety.
This actually completes thecircle and also contributes to
psychological safety, so thatnext time they keep sharing
because they see that, look,there is someone who listens to
us and takes action on this.
Ali (09:38):
To add to that, paha, I always think that if you take
the concerns and then you don'tact on them, the lack of
psychological safety will evenamplify, because how would I
trust you when I voice myconcern and then you have not
really acted on them?
And talking about trust, Ireally would like you to explore
that trust factor.
Is that an equivalent measureof the psychological safety?
Baha (10:04):
Trust is one aspect of psychological safety.
It's crucial.
It's crucial and it's notenough, because in psychological
safety, we deal with differentissues as well, like dealing
with mistakes, compassionateleadership, vulnerability.
This is beyond trust, and trustis one aspect of it.
(10:25):
It's a crucial element and I'msure you can remember from the
book.
The book includes 32 practicaltools and approaches to foster
psychological safety, and one ofthem is about trust.
Five ways to create trust.
Competency is one of them.
The more competent we are inour job, more likely that we can
contribute create trust.
Competency is one of them.
The more competent we are inour job, more likely that we can
(10:47):
contribute to trust.
Another element is consistencyTalking the world, what we say
and what we do.
They need to be consistent.
This also contributes to trust.
Another point is honesty.
We promise something and we tryto deliver it.
If we promise something and donot do it again, it can
(11:07):
negatively affect trust in theteam.
Another aspect is openness.
How open are we in regards togoals, clear goals, openness in
feedback.
Openness also creates acontribution to trust.
And the last point isintentions good intentions To
what extent do our employeesperceive us?
(11:28):
As you know, leaders with goodintentions, if they perceive us,
you know, as leaders, managerswith good intentions, it also
has a positive impact on thetrust.
So, good intentions, theperception of it, competency,
openness, honesty andconsistency these are the five
aspects that can help us improvetrust in a team and, as I said,
(11:50):
trust is just one part ofcreating psychological safety.
Ali (11:55):
And this is why you link always and this is the
overarching theme of your bookthat creating psychological
safety has got a direct link toa high-performance team, because
what you're doing you'reremoving all the barriers and
you're unleashing the potentialof these people.
Have I got this?
Baha (12:14):
Exactly, exactly.
There are many studies on thisand it started in 2013, if I
remember correctly, from Google,google's project Aristotle.
It's very famous.
Google gathered different teams, data scientists, hr.
The question was what makesteams successful?
(12:37):
The starting argument was let'stake a look at the individual
characteristics of team members,their talent, their gender,
their background, educationalbackground, experience.
Later they realized that thisstarting point was wrong.
You can have a really greatgroup of employees, but it's not
(12:57):
the main factor whichdetermines the success of a team
, and they realized thatpsychological safety is a key
aspect.
Or high-performing teams.
Just to give you a visibleexample on that, let's say there
are two teams.
One team you have superstars.
In the team, a lot ofhigh-performing employees or
(13:18):
stars.
You can think of it in work orsports Team one a lot of stars.
Team two you have less numberof stars.
And in team two, employees orteam members trust one another.
They share information openly.
They, team members, trust oneanother.
They share information openly,they collaborate well with one
another.
Versus team number one a lot ofstars, but they do not trust
each other, they do notcommunicate well and collaborate
(13:41):
well with each other.
Team two, with less number ofstars, is more likely to be more
successful than team one, andthe key aspect here is the
working environment based onpsychological safety that allows
team members to communicateopenly and collaborate well with
each other, make mistakes,report them, learn from them and
(14:04):
improve.
So psychological safety is akey aspect of high performing
teams.
Ali (14:11):
Talk to me about ways for leaders.
So if I'm a new leader comingto an organization, how would I
measure the psychological safetyin the workplace?
Baha (14:22):
Actually Amy Ellison.
She's a leading academic on thetopic of psychological safety
and she also shared hertestimonial about my book.
I met her in Vienna, a verynice person.
She's a person who reallyembodies this concept in her own
life as well.
She created seven questions.
(14:44):
You can find those questionsonline also in Amy's book, the
Fearless Organization, and theseseven questions.
I have them here.
Basically, you can, asorganizations, ask these
questions in a survey toemployees and then get replies
so that you can at least have anidea about the level of
(15:05):
psychological safety.
Level of psychological safety,there are basically seven
statements and employees canrate these statements either as
strongly agree, agree, neutraldisagree or strongly disagree.
I can read you a few of them.
The first one is if you make amistake on this team, it is not
held against you.
You rate this from stronglydisagree to agree.
(15:28):
Another point members of thesim are able to bring up
problems and tough issues.
Yeah, another one.
The third one it is notdifficult to ask other members
of this team for help.
So basically, using this surveyand making it anonymous, you
have an idea about the level ofpsychological safety in a team.
(15:49):
To give you an example recentlyI'm working with a global pharma
company and what we did wasbefore we started learning
sessions.
In the beginning we did asurvey, anonymous.
We get the data as expected.
The level of psychologicalsafety was low and we saw, based
on these seven statements, whatare the areas of improvement.
(16:12):
And then we designed a learningjourney touching different
levels of management andemployees about psychological
safety and the plan is, aftereight months after eight months
of learning journey, learningsessions and participants put in
practice what they learned Inthe end of eight months again,
we are going to do anothersurvey to see the improvement in
(16:35):
psychological safety.
So, in a nutshell, use thissurvey seven questions based on
Amy Atkinson's work, do thisanonymously and at least you
have a sort of pulse check tosee the level of psychological
safety.
Ali (16:50):
I like that.
I want to ask you a follow-upquestion.
Once we get the informationfrom the survey and then we got
the insight, what would be somepractical steps to put in place
to improve, let's just say, thepsychological safety?
Baha (17:09):
Okay, good question.
So it depends on the specificresults of the test.
Yeah, oh, sorry.
So let's assume that, based onthe survey, employees do not
feel safe to express their ideasat work, ideas and concerns.
(17:29):
What can we as leaders do?
One of the things that we cando is to encourage employees to
speak up.
I will share basically threeideas on this.
One is let's say, we have teammeetings, we are managers and we
ask the employees you know,employees, what are your ideas
(17:50):
on this?
And everyone is silent.
And one of the ways we can breakthis is an approach called
green card.
It's basically a green cardthat you bring to a meeting and
a person an employee, a teammember who has a green card in
that meeting can play thedevil's advocate.
(18:11):
That person can expressopposing views, can highlight
potential risks in that project,can share ideas, and once that
person does that, we as leadersand managers, we appreciate them
and we thank them for doingthis.
Next meeting, another personnew person has a green card and
we thank them for doing this.
Next meeting, another personnew person, has a green card
(18:32):
does it again opposing views,different ideas, pointing out
risks.
We applaud them, we encouragethem.
We need to do this consistentlyyes, some weeks, some months so
that employees see look, Ishare my idea and it doesn't
have any negative consequence.
So we can, you know, createthis environment where employees
(18:54):
see that they can share ideasand they're encouraged to do so.
Second point is, as leaders,sometimes we need to speak less
and listen more.
In such meetings.
We can allow others to leadmeetings.
Another point is we askemployees who thinks differently
(19:15):
on the topic.
It's an intentional question.
We don't say do you have aquestion, yes or no?
We say who thinks differently.
We give this space to others.
Once they share their answers,you know, we thank them, we
encourage them to do it, becausewithout tapping into the ideas
of employees, we can not, as anorganization, go to the next
stage.
(19:35):
In a nutshell, green card.
Encourage them to speak up,speak less and listen more than
you speak.
And third, be intentional inasking questions.
Who thinks differently?
It's about the mental shifthere, the shift in mentality.
And once we see that seniormanagers do this in town halls,
(19:57):
company meetings, and then itcan also cascade downwards to
mid-level and junior levelmanagers as well.
You know, through learningsessions, application, getting
feedback from others, doingsurveys, you know measuring this
as well.
So it's a process and it can beachieved.
There are examples.
Ali (20:16):
I like that question.
But who thinks differently?
This sounds like you're askingthe audience.
I've shared my thoughts and Iwould like to hear different
thoughts from people.
So basically you are actuallyinviting people to share their
different views and hopefullysome of them will start speaking
(20:38):
.
My observation is thatpsychological safety is a major
part of a culture in theworkplace, but there are always
big changes and big events thathappen in the workplace that
usually undermine that, let'sjust say, psychological safety.
For example, if there is arestructure in a business unit,
(20:59):
we would safely assume thatpsychological safety will be
threatened during thatparticular time.
My take on psychological safety, always as a person in the
business of managing change andhelping organizations adopt a
new change, is to anticipatewhere psychological safety will
(21:22):
be threatened and then hopefullyput some strategies in place,
starting with the communication.
Some strategies in place,starting with communication
basically bringing the threatlevel down and bringing down the
temperature.
In your view, from yourobservation, what happens when
things like mergers andacquisitions?
They usually threatenpsychological safety.
Baha (21:45):
Yeah, mergers, acquisitions, restructuring I
can even make it more difficultLayoffs.
This can have negative impact,might have negative impact on
psychological safety.
Let me share with you twoexamples.
Let's take the example oflaying off employees.
On one side, twitter now calledX.
On the other side, stripe X.
(22:07):
A few years ago they laid offthousands of employees.
How was it done?
Automatic, you know, you getemails.
Suddenly you're cut off fromthe system.
You don't have any personaltouch with your manager.
From one day to another you areout of the company.
Fast, efficient, based on theCEO Fast, efficient and it's
(22:31):
quick.
It damages psychological safetyof employees who left the
company as well as the remainingones.
It's inhuman.
Let's take another exampleStripe.
It was after COVID.
Stripe is a software companywith two headquarters, in
Ireland and in the US.
Stripe had to lay off a certainnumber of employees.
(22:53):
The founders of Stripe did thisin a humane way while trying to
maintain psychological safetyfor both departing and also
remaining employees.
First, they wrote an email toall employees transparency
what's going on?
Secondly, in that email you canfind it online.
(23:14):
When you search Stripe CEOlayoffs, you can find it on
Google.
They said they acceptedresponsibility.
We apologize, we are sorry.
We are responsible for thisdecision.
It was about the strategy wecreated Transparency, accepting
responsibility, saying sorry.
Third, they did this in ahumane way.
(23:35):
Departing employees hadone-on-ones with their managers,
face-to-face if possible, ifnot online, talking with a real
person.
Departing employees, if Iremember correctly, they were
given their laptops.
You can keep your laptopsbecause you need to find a job.
Although their stocks were notmaturing, the company allowed
(23:57):
them.
You know you can get thesestocks as well.
The company gave the departingemployees a special address
alumni stripe alumni emailaddress so that they can be in
touch with the company Even inthe difficult situation.
It can make you feel valued.
You know I get alumni to thisorganization.
Another point they get monthslong help from the company to
(24:22):
find, from Stripe to find a newjob and for the international
employees who needed visa, thecompany provided extra service
to them to help them in thistransition.
So two examples X doing itautomatically, cutting off
employees from system, no humaninteraction.
(24:42):
And now you see many employeesare suing Twitter for doing this
in such a way.
Some of them were suing it forlack of inclusion.
I think there were employeeswith disabilities and suddenly
they got laid off.
And look at Stripe, the way ithas done it.
(25:02):
Stripe's approach more human,based on compassionate
leadership, much less damage onpsychological safety.
It's human.
You talk with someoneThroughout the process, you get
help, you are provided supporton this.
So even in these situations ofmergers restructuring I
understand it can negativelyaffect psychological safety.
(25:23):
The key point is how we dealwith these changes humanely or
inhumanely?
Let's go with the first one.
Do this in a compassionate way.
Ali (25:35):
I like how you differentiate or actually
separate the departing and theremaining staff.
I always think that if a staffmember leaves a team, the
equilibrium of the team will beimpacted.
The equilibrium of the teamwill be impacted If a new leader
joins a team, an existing team.
This change will impact thebalance in the team, because a
(25:58):
leader comes with a new leaderis actually the biggest change
that can happen to a team and Ican safely assume that
psychological safety will beimpacted if you've got a new
leader, because it's going totake time to really understand
with a new leader.
Similarly, we're talking aboutX, so shift gear and ask you a
(26:19):
question around change.
I work in the business ofchange myself and therefore I'm
always interested in how thosefactors impact adoption of
change in the workplace.
How do you see thepsychological safety impacting
that?
Baha (26:37):
Yes.
So change and adoption ofpsychological safety in a change
.
It's a journey to create apsychologically safe workplace
and it's actually a changeinitiative.
We can see it that way place,and it's actually a change
initiative.
We can see it that way.
And in many cases, teams,organizations, when they go
through change, it's normal thatthey get resistance and
(26:58):
sometimes we focus on thisresistance and then it's not the
, it's not the most effectiveway.
So to do this change.
I can share with you twopractical ideas that we
implement with customers.
The one is when I am with anorganization or a team who would
like to change.
(27:19):
Normally, traditionally,consultants do it this way where
do we start now and what arethe issues we have and where do
we want to go and how can we gothere?
So they start with the presentsituation.
So let's say where are we now?
You know the situation is Idon't feel safe, my manager
(27:39):
doesn't listen to me, peoplestart complaining, which is fine
, and you start with a negativemomentum.
In our case, we start with whatdoes an ideal team
collaboration look like in ourorganization?
So we start with the future andthe next point is okay, how
does an ideal collaboration looklike?
(28:00):
People trust each other, peopleshare ideas, people listen to
one another, people go to lunchtogether.
How does the ideal situationlook like?
The second question is so,what's the current situation?
What are some pain points wehave?
Now employees start complaining.
It's okay, we have thischallenge.
(28:21):
I'm overwhelmed at work, youknow, we don't get learning
opportunities, we don't have thetools, we don't have the right
processes.
And then the next question isokay, what can we do to create
this ideal team collaboration?
Now the third question is tomake again ignite the positive
parts of the brain.
(28:41):
So, to start this change, it'scrucial for us to create a
positive momentum and to do that, start with the ideal picture,
go to pain points and thencreate action items.
Point number one.
Point two, about resistors, weuse a concept created by Jason
Little from Canada.
This concept is based on movers, movables and immovables.
(29:06):
Movers are employees in anorganization who are willing to
start this change.
They say great, now we canfocus on improving psychological
safety.
It's an important area for us.
I believe in the topic and I amcommitted to making this happen
.
Movers Moveables are employeeswho are neutral.
(29:29):
They say, again, we have a newleader, ali Juma.
Let's see what he's going to donow.
He came up with this idea ofpsychological safety.
I'm not sure if it will work,but let's wait and see.
So they're neutral, they sit onthe fence and they wait.
The third group of employeesare immovables.
(29:50):
They basically resist to thischange and they say it was
better.
You know in the past or youknow the status quo is better,
no need for change.
They're not interested in this,they don't show any commitment
at all.
(30:10):
To drive the change successfully, we need to start with movers
Employees willing, interested inthe topic, committed to this
one.
We start with them, we involvethem in the trainings.
They learn these approaches,how to create psychological
safety, and then the next stepis to create small wins with
these employees.
Small wins improvements in theteam environment, improvements
in number of ideas generated,improvements in new products
(30:32):
created.
We get these small improvements.
We present these smallimprovements to movables,
neutrals, and the idea is togain movables, neutrals to the
movement and throughout time.
Ideally we can also gain someimmovables and some immovables
(30:54):
can stay there as well.
The main focus is on movers.
We work with them, createpositive momentum, we create
small wins, present to them,gain movables as well and expand
this movement.
So we'll start with the bigidea, positive desired idea
understand pain points, createaction items, implement approach
(31:16):
one approach, two movers,immovables, movers, immovables
and immovables.
Ali (31:22):
And Jason Little has been my guest a couple of times in my
podcast and actually justrecently I've got a guest called
Dr David Weiss.
He calls the neutralsbystanders and bystanders
basically, they're just waitingand seeing, and so the focus,
(31:44):
similar to what you're sayingyou focus on the early adopters
or the excited people plus thebystanders.
But I think you mentionedsomething really important.
We often focus in the businessof change management around
managing resistance and I thinkyou just made me think about it
might be far more valuable forus to focus on creating the
(32:08):
psychological safety in thefirst place and create the
environment and continuecreating the environment and
obviously do all the rightthings to get you know the
people supported through thelearning and the training and
the support after that and thecommunication.
And this is not a play, smartplay on the words.
(32:28):
This is what you're teaching mehere is that it's a far-lasting
impact if you focus on thepsychological safety during the
implementation of change.
Have I got this close to right?
Baha (32:42):
Yeah, that's true, and you raise an important point about
the resistance and itsconnection to psychological
safety.
Going back to movers, movablesand immovables.
In the case of immovablesshowing resistance, we need to
listen to them and understandthem.
Yeah, we need to give themspace to express their concerns
(33:03):
as well, keeping in mind thatthe focus is on movers creating
momentum, getting small wins,expanding this and gaining
movables and then hopefullylater immovables.
Ali (33:14):
I want to ask you a question.
Around we often make theassumption that the leaders
doing all deep understanding howimportant this piece is.
Baha (33:45):
Leaders.
In many cases in bigorganizations, they're
data-driven.
They want to see howpsychological safety is
connected to the big picture,the big picture, the business
goals.
To be able to influence leaderson this, we need to be clear in
our communication, highlightnumbers and show the benefit.
(34:07):
Let me make this tangible whenwe communicate with leaders
about the importance ofpsychological safety, we can
mention this data in a clearmanner, highlighting the
benefits Based on a Gallupreport.
When employees feel that theiropinions count, when they feel
(34:30):
that their opinions count atwork which implies a workplace
of psychological safety youshare your opinions and you
notice that your opinions arevalued.
We can see 27% reduction inemployee turnover, 27% reduction
, 40% reduction in safetyaccidents and 12% increase in
(34:57):
productivity.
Let's convert that into numbers, depending on how many
employees you have.
At least you can get an ideaabout the millions of dollars or
savings you can get once youcreate a workplace or
psychological safety.
Ali (35:15):
Excellent.
What else is sort of a questionthat has always been in my mind
From your observation, do younotice.
Are there certain industriesout there that have sort of
sustainable psychological safetyand some industries do not?
So, for example, is there adifference when it comes to
(35:37):
psychological safety between aconstruction company with global
reach to a university setting?
It's an interesting question.
Baha (35:47):
I don't have any data on this to tell you.
Look, there was a study doneand it shows that certain
industries are more likely tocreate psychological safety.
I don't have data on this.
What I can tell you is thatit's based on my experience and
based on what I'm researching onthe topic.
It doesn't have, as far as Isee it doesn't have any
(36:10):
industry-specific distinction.
Here you can find organizations, whether small or big.
Here you can find organizations, whether small or big, or a
government or a private, whichcan have relatively high levels
(36:31):
of psychological safety.
I can give you one example fromGermany.
There is one engineeringcompany, engineering and
architecture, and thisengineering and architecture
company.
They created one concept calledmistake breakfast.
I met with the head of HR someyears ago and it was in a
conference, and she told us thatone day she had an idea.
(36:53):
She talked with the seniormanagement and then the idea was
to organize a mistake breakfastbreakfast.
Once a quarter, an employeewith the biggest mistake and the
biggest learning makes apresentation while other
employees have breakfast.
All the employees attend thissession and when she presented
(37:14):
this idea to the seniormanagement first they were a bit
concerned.
They say what if employeesperceive this differently.
And what do they think?
You know, we encourage them tomake mistakes.
What if this goes out ofcontrol?
They were a bit fearful of this.
They went and think through itand eventually they said, okay,
(37:35):
let's give this a try and thenyou know if it works, it's good,
if it doesn't work, we can stopit anyways.
So they tried this mistakepurpose.
Once a quarter, an employeewith the biggest mistake and the
biggest learning goes there,makes a presentation.
To their surprise, this eventresonated very well with the
employees.
(37:55):
They kept doing this and afterdoing it some time, the
organization noticed that thetrust among team members
improved.
In the end, the total number ofmistakes done in this
engineering and architecturecompany the total number of
mistakes fell down as well.
And in Germany they got thebest practice award from the
German HR Association.
(38:16):
So you can find reallydifferent examples from
universities to HR Association.
So you can find reallydifferent examples from
universities to you knowdifferent sectors.
I can give you one more examplefrom Canada McGill University.
In this university in 2009, ifI remember correctly, they
published a report calledfailure report.
In this failure report, theybasically talk about their
(38:38):
failures and their learnings outof it In the beginning of 2000,
.
The university had a visionabout sustainability and to
implement this vision onsustainability around 15, 20
years ago they engaged withexternal consultants how to do
the communication of this withstudents, with staff, with
(38:59):
academics, with the partners,with the society.
And as they collaborated withexternal consultants later they
realized that the universitymade some mistakes.
One of the mistakes was notsetting the expectations clearly
in the beginning with theexternal consultants.
So this was one of thelearnings and in the failure
(39:19):
report you can see one section,one page, about this learning.
Mcgill University takes this toanother level because in
psychological safety we talkabout making mistakes, reporting
them, learning from them andnot repeating the same mistakes.
In the case of McGillUniversity, they not only share
the mistakes and learningsinternally, but they also do it
(39:43):
externally.
They do this externally so thatother universities, competitors
, stakeholders, partners,society can learn from this and
not make the same mistakes.
So, irrespective of theindustry, we can find really
good examples of organizationswhich place big value learning
(40:03):
from mistakes, sharing that withothers and creating a space for
employees to share their ideas.
Ali (40:08):
I really like that.
In my head.
I'm thinking, if I share themistakes, imagine I'm running a
presentation on mistakes, thisis me as a leader, modeling
vulnerability in the workplaceand I'm hoping that, by modeling
this behavior, that the staffwill be able to adopt a similar
(40:29):
attitude, provided that thewhole objective is so we can
learn from the mistakes.
So that can be another,obviously another strategy to
encourage openness in themistakes.
So that can be another.
And obviously there's anotherstrategy to encourage openness
in the workplace, becausemistakes happen every single day
and whilst we are notinterested in the mistakes,
we're interested in the progressand the learning going forward.
(40:53):
I am aware of time and I'mthoroughly enjoying this
conversation, but you've givenme a lot of things to think
about, a question that I usuallyask my guests.
I am in the business of changeand communication.
What would be your piece ofadvice to people like myself and
my network when we manage andfacilitate change and help our
(41:16):
stakeholders adopt change?
What would be your counsel andpiece of advice for us to
consider when it comes topsychological safety?
Baha (41:27):
Let me think through this.
My advice on change onpsychological safety Start with
senior leaders.
Psychological safety Start withsenior leaders.
Touch different levels ofmanagement and focus on creating
a positive momentum with movers.
Ali (41:46):
Excellent, that is a great advice.
The movers are the catalyst forthe flywheel to start moving
and then hopefully, the movementwill be a positive momentum.
Baha, it's been a pleasurehaving you in my podcast, the
Inner Game of Change.
How would people connect withyou?
Baha (42:08):
First of all, it was my pleasure to be here.
Thanks for the invitation.
I really enjoyed your questionsand I'm glad you know I feel
grateful that you took the timeto read my book.
It means a lot to me For theglad you know I feel grateful
that you took the time to readmy book.
It means a lot to me, for thelisteners.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn.
When you write Mehmet Baha, youcan see me there and yeah, and
(42:31):
if you have any specificquestions, you can also send me
an email, baha B-A-H-A atsolutionfolder
solutionfoldertogethercom.
Ali (42:41):
And we're going to put all your information in the podcast
details.
Baha, your book is availablenow on Amazon.
Baha (42:51):
Correct.
It's available on Amazonworldwide.
It was published last week, soSeptember 10th, and the book is
based on 16, 32 and 64, 16inspiring examples from all
around the world yes, 32practical tools and approaches
to foster psychological safetyand 64 thought provoking
(43:16):
questions to help you createyour psychological safety action
plans.
Ali (43:20):
And I love those questions and actually I've already used a
couple of them yesterday andthey all motivate you to think
differently now around the ideaof change anyway, especially in
my place.
I am grateful to have chattedwith you today, but I hope I can
get you back at some stage nextyear and we tackle another
(43:41):
aspect of psychological safety.
But until then, stay well andstay safe.
Baha (43:49):
Likewise, ali Take care, thank you.
Ali (44:01):
Thank you for listening.
If you found this episodevaluable, remember to subscribe
to stay updated on upcomingepisodes.
Your support is trulyappreciated and, by sharing this
podcast with your colleagues,friends and fellow change
practitioners, it can help mereach even more individuals and
professionals who can benefitfrom these discussions.
(44:21):
Remember, and in my opinion,change is an enduring force and
you will only have a measure ofcertainty and control when you
embrace it.
Until next time, thank you forbeing part of the Inner Game of
Change community.
I am Ali Jammah and this is theInner Game of Change community.
I am Ali Jammah and this is theInner Game of Change podcast.
Leaders.
In many cases in bigorganizations, they are
data-driven.
They want to see howpsychological safety is
connected to the big picture,the big picture, the business
goals.
To be able to influence leaderson this, we need to be clear in
our communication, highlightnumbers and show the benefit.
(00:21):
Let me make this tangible whenwe communicate with leaders
about the importance ofpsychological safety, we can
mention this data in a clearmanner, highlighting the
benefits Based on a Gallupreport.
When employees feel that theiropinions count, when they feel
(00:45):
that their opinions count atwork, which implies a workplace
of psychological safety, youshare your opinions and you
notice that your opinions arevalued.
We can see 27% reduction inemployee turnover, percentage
(01:08):
reduction in employee turnover,40% reduction in safety
accidents and 12% increase inproductivity.
Ali (01:19):
Welcome to the Inner Game of Change, the podcast where we
explore the unseen forces thatshape how we lead, adapt and
thrive in the face of change andtransformation.
I am your host, ali Jemma.
In this episode, I am joined bysomeone who has been on the
front lines of organizationalculture in some of the world's
(01:41):
most recognizable companies,mehmet Baha, author of the newly
released book CreatingPsychological Safety at Work.
Baha is the founder of SolutionFolder and has over 24 years of
experience working with toporganizations, including being
one of the first Facebookemployees in Europe.
He's a global trainer, aspeaker on psychological safety,
(02:05):
agile and resilience, and hasdelivered learning sessions
worldwide.
We unpack why psychologicalsafety is not just a nice to
have but an unnegotiable forhigh performing teams.
From personal stories of toxiccultures to practical tools you
can apply today, baha shareswhat it takes to build
(02:26):
environments where people feelsafe to speak up, make mistakes
and bring their whole selves towork.
If you're a leader, chancepractitioner or simply someone
trying to create betterconversations at work, this one
is for you.
I am grateful to have Bahachatting with me today.
I am grateful to have Bahachatting with me today.
(02:47):
Well, baha, thank you so muchfor joining me in the In a Game
of Change podcast.
I am grateful for your timetoday my pleasure.
Thanks for the invitation, ali.
Thank you very much, baha.
Today we want to talk aboutpsychological safety.
You recently released a bookcalled Creating Psychological
Safety at Work the EssentialGuide to Boosting Team
(03:09):
Performance.
Let's start from the top.
Baha (03:18):
What's fascinating about this topic for you?
What is fascinating about thistopic?
It's a good question.
Psychological safety is a keyaspect of high-performing teams,
and my own experiences workingat Facebook and other companies
made me realize the importanceof this, because without
psychological safety, we cannotachieve high-performing teams.
Psychological safety means it'sa work environment where
(03:41):
employees feel safe to expresstheir questions, concerns, ideas
and mistakes.
Ali (03:49):
From your experience, Baha, what is an environment that
lacks psychological safety?
What does that look like?
Baha (03:57):
An environment which has psychological safety right,
which does not havepsychological safety, which does
not.
Okay, I can give you an examplebased on my experience.
I once worked for one company.
This was a tech company andthis tech company was one of the
(04:18):
most successful companies inthe world.
In its small area, its smallniche.
It was always number two in theworld, never number one.
And in this company we had onesenior manager, basically the
CEO of the company, and once Idared to ask a question to the
(04:38):
CEO in a meeting and hisresponse was that's a stupid
question.
At that, that moment, I didn'tknow how to react.
I felt powerless and actuallyafter that moment, I felt
fearful asking him any questions.
(05:00):
And it was the same with otheremployees as well.
He could easily say to othersthis is a stupid question.
What is even worse, otheremployees started to imitate
this.
So you are in a meeting withother colleagues and they can
say to you it's a stupidquestion.
It was a workplace.
(05:20):
It was a toxic workplace.
Employees didn't trust oneanother, they didn't share
information with one another andit was a typical case of a
workplace with a low level ofpsychological safety.
Again, as I mentioned, it wasalways number two in the world
(05:42):
in its small niche.
If it had psychological safety,I am sure it's likely that it
could improve its success.
Ali (05:53):
You're talking about the leader of a company.
Does that mean that the leadersof a company, they are the key
responsible people aboutcreating the psychological
safety?
Baha (06:06):
Exactly.
Leadership leaders play acrucial role in creating
psychological safety.
The way they give space toothers to ask questions, the way
senior leaders communicate withothers, openness, transparency
and the way they deal withmistakes are critical.
At the same time, it's theresponsibility to all employees
(06:30):
to foster psychological safetyat work.
Ali (06:33):
Yes, I thought so.
I think it's almost like a teamsport Everybody's responsible
about the environment they workin.
I'm really keen to exploresomething that you've mentioned
in your book and you justmentioned in your answer Voicing
concerns.
That's not the end of thepsychological safety.
(06:54):
It's how you respond to thoseconcerns and how you manage
expectations and creating aconsistency.
Have I got this right?
Baha (07:05):
Exactly so.
One of the aspects ofpsychological safety is to
create a speak-up culture.
Speak-up culture can be inthree ways so speaking up about
misconduct, speaking up tochallenge ways of working.
It can be speaking up to offernew ideas.
In addition to that, there areother topics as well, as you
(07:29):
mentioned sharing concerns and,as leaders, once we create an
environment of psychologicalsafety, encourage employees,
colleagues, to share concerns.
It's step one we get theconcerns.
And the next step?
It's step one, we get theconcerns.
And the next step, as youpointed out well, is we got
those concerns, we consider themand, ideally, we take action on
(07:53):
this.
I can give you a specificexample on that.
Sure, Because during COVID, onetelecom company in Spain if I
remember correctly, it wasTelefonica In the middle of
COVID, Telefonica, in its owninternal tool, they send a
message to all the employees.
(08:13):
Now we are going through adifficult time lockdowns and
pandemic and the question fromthe senior leadership was what
can we do?
You know what are your concernsand what can we do?
You know, to keep working inthis environment.
Thousands of employees sharedtheir answers, concerns, ideas,
(08:34):
and then the senior leadershipdidn't disappear.
They analyzed these answers and, based on these answers, they
prioritized some of them andthey choose some of the concerns
and then they took action onthat and they communicated this
to employees.
And, as you mentioned,consistency we create space.
Employees share concerns.
We consider them, evaluate them, choose the right ones, take
(08:58):
action and communicate to theemployees.
Otherwise, if you get theconcerns of employees and
disappear, not take any action,next time it's likely that
employees will not share theirconcerns because they wouldn't
trust us.
So, as you mentioned, itcreates consistency get ideas,
evaluate them, take action andcommunicate with the employees.
(09:19):
This actually completes thecircle and also contributes to
psychological safety.
This actually completes thecircle and also contributes to
psychological safety, so thatnext time they keep sharing
because they see that, look,there is someone who listens to
us and takes action on this.
Ali (09:38):
To add to that, paha, I always think that if you take
the concerns and then you don'tact on them, the lack of
psychological safety will evenamplify, because how would I
trust you when I voice myconcern and then you have not
really acted on them?
And talking about trust, Ireally would like you to explore
that trust factor.
Is that an equivalent measureof the psychological safety?
Baha (10:04):
Trust is one aspect of psychological safety.
It's crucial.
It's crucial and it's notenough, because in psychological
safety, we deal with differentissues as well, like dealing
with mistakes, compassionateleadership, vulnerability.
This is beyond trust, and trustis one aspect of it.
(10:25):
It's a crucial element and I'msure you can remember from the
book.
The book includes 32 practicaltools and approaches to foster
psychological safety, and one ofthem is about trust.
Five ways to create trust.
Competency is one of them.
The more competent we are inour job, more likely that we can
contribute create trust.
Competency is one of them.
The more competent we are inour job, more likely that we can
(10:47):
contribute to trust.
Another element is consistencyTalking the world, what we say
and what we do.
They need to be consistent.
This also contributes to trust.
Another point is honesty.
We promise something and we tryto deliver it.
If we promise something and donot do it again, it can
(11:07):
negatively affect trust in theteam.
Another aspect is openness.
How open are we in regards togoals, clear goals, openness in
feedback.
Openness also creates acontribution to trust.
And the last point isintentions good intentions To
what extent do our employeesperceive us?
(11:28):
As you know, leaders with goodintentions, if they perceive us,
you know, as leaders, managerswith good intentions, it also
has a positive impact on thetrust.
So, good intentions, theperception of it, competency,
openness, honesty andconsistency these are the five
aspects that can help us improvetrust in a team and, as I said,
(11:50):
trust is just one part ofcreating psychological safety.
Ali (11:55):
And this is why you link always and this is the
overarching theme of your bookthat creating psychological
safety has got a direct link toa high-performance team, because
what you're doing you'reremoving all the barriers and
you're unleashing the potentialof these people.
Have I got this?
Baha (12:14):
Exactly, exactly.
There are many studies on thisand it started in 2013, if I
remember correctly, from Google,google's project Aristotle.
It's very famous.
Google gathered different teams, data scientists, hr.
The question was what makesteams successful?
(12:37):
The starting argument was let'stake a look at the individual
characteristics of team members,their talent, their gender,
their background, educationalbackground, experience.
Later they realized that thisstarting point was wrong.
You can have a really greatgroup of employees, but it's not
(12:57):
the main factor whichdetermines the success of a team
, and they realized thatpsychological safety is a key
aspect.
Or high-performing teams.
Just to give you a visibleexample on that, let's say there
are two teams.
One team you have superstars.
In the team, a lot ofhigh-performing employees or
(13:18):
stars.
You can think of it in work orsports Team one a lot of stars.
Team two you have less numberof stars.
And in team two, employees orteam members trust one another.
They share information openly.
They, team members, trust oneanother.
They share information openly,they collaborate well with one
another.
Versus team number one a lot ofstars, but they do not trust
each other, they do notcommunicate well and collaborate
(13:41):
well with each other.
Team two, with less number ofstars, is more likely to be more
successful than team one, andthe key aspect here is the
working environment based onpsychological safety that allows
team members to communicateopenly and collaborate well with
each other, make mistakes,report them, learn from them and
(14:04):
improve.
So psychological safety is akey aspect of high performing
teams.
Ali (14:11):
Talk to me about ways for leaders.
So if I'm a new leader comingto an organization, how would I
measure the psychological safetyin the workplace?
Baha (14:22):
Actually Amy Ellison.
She's a leading academic on thetopic of psychological safety
and she also shared hertestimonial about my book.
I met her in Vienna, a verynice person.
She's a person who reallyembodies this concept in her own
life as well.
She created seven questions.
(14:44):
You can find those questionsonline also in Amy's book, the
Fearless Organization, and theseseven questions.
I have them here.
Basically, you can, asorganizations, ask these
questions in a survey toemployees and then get replies
so that you can at least have anidea about the level of
(15:05):
psychological safety.
Level of psychological safety,there are basically seven
statements and employees canrate these statements either as
strongly agree, agree, neutraldisagree or strongly disagree.
I can read you a few of them.
The first one is if you make amistake on this team, it is not
held against you.
You rate this from stronglydisagree to agree.
(15:28):
Another point members of thesim are able to bring up
problems and tough issues.
Yeah, another one.
The third one it is notdifficult to ask other members
of this team for help.
So basically, using this surveyand making it anonymous, you
have an idea about the level ofpsychological safety in a team.
(15:49):
To give you an example recentlyI'm working with a global pharma
company and what we did wasbefore we started learning
sessions.
In the beginning we did asurvey, anonymous.
We get the data as expected.
The level of psychologicalsafety was low and we saw, based
on these seven statements, whatare the areas of improvement.
(16:12):
And then we designed a learningjourney touching different
levels of management andemployees about psychological
safety and the plan is, aftereight months after eight months
of learning journey, learningsessions and participants put in
practice what they learned Inthe end of eight months again,
we are going to do anothersurvey to see the improvement in
(16:35):
psychological safety.
So, in a nutshell, use thissurvey seven questions based on
Amy Atkinson's work, do thisanonymously and at least you
have a sort of pulse check tosee the level of psychological
safety.
Ali (16:50):
I like that.
I want to ask you a follow-upquestion.
Once we get the informationfrom the survey and then we got
the insight, what would be somepractical steps to put in place
to improve, let's just say, thepsychological safety?
Baha (17:09):
Okay, good question.
So it depends on the specificresults of the test.
Yeah, oh, sorry.
So let's assume that, based onthe survey, employees do not
feel safe to express their ideasat work, ideas and concerns.
(17:29):
What can we as leaders do?
One of the things that we cando is to encourage employees to
speak up.
I will share basically threeideas on this.
One is let's say, we have teammeetings, we are managers and we
ask the employees you know,employees, what are your ideas
(17:50):
on this?
And everyone is silent.
And one of the ways we can breakthis is an approach called
green card.
It's basically a green cardthat you bring to a meeting and
a person an employee, a teammember who has a green card in
that meeting can play thedevil's advocate.
(18:11):
That person can expressopposing views, can highlight
potential risks in that project,can share ideas, and once that
person does that, we as leadersand managers, we appreciate them
and we thank them for doingthis.
Next meeting, another personnew person has a green card and
we thank them for doing this.
Next meeting, another personnew person, has a green card
(18:32):
does it again opposing views,different ideas, pointing out
risks.
We applaud them, we encouragethem.
We need to do this consistentlyyes, some weeks, some months so
that employees see look, Ishare my idea and it doesn't
have any negative consequence.
So we can, you know, createthis environment where employees
(18:54):
see that they can share ideasand they're encouraged to do so.
Second point is, as leaders,sometimes we need to speak less
and listen more.
In such meetings.
We can allow others to leadmeetings.
Another point is we askemployees who thinks differently
(19:15):
on the topic.
It's an intentional question.
We don't say do you have aquestion, yes or no?
We say who thinks differently.
We give this space to others.
Once they share their answers,you know, we thank them, we
encourage them to do it, becausewithout tapping into the ideas
of employees, we can not, as anorganization, go to the next
stage.
(19:35):
In a nutshell, green card.
Encourage them to speak up,speak less and listen more than
you speak.
And third, be intentional inasking questions.
Who thinks differently?
It's about the mental shifthere, the shift in mentality.
And once we see that seniormanagers do this in town halls,
(19:57):
company meetings, and then itcan also cascade downwards to
mid-level and junior levelmanagers as well.
You know, through learningsessions, application, getting
feedback from others, doingsurveys, you know measuring this
as well.
So it's a process and it can beachieved.
There are examples.
Ali (20:16):
I like that question.
But who thinks differently?
This sounds like you're askingthe audience.
I've shared my thoughts and Iwould like to hear different
thoughts from people.
So basically you are actuallyinviting people to share their
different views and hopefullysome of them will start speaking
(20:38):
.
My observation is thatpsychological safety is a major
part of a culture in theworkplace, but there are always
big changes and big events thathappen in the workplace that
usually undermine that, let'sjust say, psychological safety.
For example, if there is arestructure in a business unit,
(20:59):
we would safely assume thatpsychological safety will be
threatened during thatparticular time.
My take on psychological safety, always as a person in the
business of managing change andhelping organizations adopt a
new change, is to anticipatewhere psychological safety will
(21:22):
be threatened and then hopefullyput some strategies in place,
starting with the communication.
Some strategies in place,starting with communication
basically bringing the threatlevel down and bringing down the
temperature.
In your view, from yourobservation, what happens when
things like mergers andacquisitions?
They usually threatenpsychological safety.
Baha (21:45):
Yeah, mergers, acquisitions, restructuring I
can even make it more difficultLayoffs.
This can have negative impact,might have negative impact on
psychological safety.
Let me share with you twoexamples.
Let's take the example oflaying off employees.
On one side, twitter now calledX.
On the other side, stripe X.
(22:07):
A few years ago they laid offthousands of employees.
How was it done?
Automatic, you know, you getemails.
Suddenly you're cut off fromthe system.
You don't have any personaltouch with your manager.
From one day to another you areout of the company.
Fast, efficient, based on theCEO Fast, efficient and it's
(22:31):
quick.
It damages psychological safetyof employees who left the
company as well as the remainingones.
It's inhuman.
Let's take another exampleStripe.
It was after COVID.
Stripe is a software companywith two headquarters, in
Ireland and in the US.
Stripe had to lay off a certainnumber of employees.
(22:53):
The founders of Stripe did thisin a humane way while trying to
maintain psychological safetyfor both departing and also
remaining employees.
First, they wrote an email toall employees transparency
what's going on?
Secondly, in that email you canfind it online.
(23:14):
When you search Stripe CEOlayoffs, you can find it on
Google.
They said they acceptedresponsibility.
We apologize, we are sorry.
We are responsible for thisdecision.
It was about the strategy wecreated Transparency, accepting
responsibility, saying sorry.
Third, they did this in ahumane way.
(23:35):
Departing employees hadone-on-ones with their managers,
face-to-face if possible, ifnot online, talking with a real
person.
Departing employees, if Iremember correctly, they were
given their laptops.
You can keep your laptopsbecause you need to find a job.
Although their stocks were notmaturing, the company allowed
(23:57):
them.
You know you can get thesestocks as well.
The company gave the departingemployees a special address
alumni stripe alumni emailaddress so that they can be in
touch with the company Even inthe difficult situation.
It can make you feel valued.
You know I get alumni to thisorganization.
Another point they get monthslong help from the company to
(24:22):
find, from Stripe to find a newjob and for the international
employees who needed visa, thecompany provided extra service
to them to help them in thistransition.
So two examples X doing itautomatically, cutting off
employees from system, no humaninteraction.
(24:42):
And now you see many employeesare suing Twitter for doing this
in such a way.
Some of them were suing it forlack of inclusion.
I think there were employeeswith disabilities and suddenly
they got laid off.
And look at Stripe, the way ithas done it.
(25:02):
Stripe's approach more human,based on compassionate
leadership, much less damage onpsychological safety.
It's human.
You talk with someoneThroughout the process, you get
help, you are provided supporton this.
So even in these situations ofmergers restructuring I
understand it can negativelyaffect psychological safety.
(25:23):
The key point is how we dealwith these changes humanely or
inhumanely?
Let's go with the first one.
Do this in a compassionate way.
Ali (25:35):
I like how you differentiate or actually
separate the departing and theremaining staff.
I always think that if a staffmember leaves a team, the
equilibrium of the team will beimpacted.
The equilibrium of the teamwill be impacted If a new leader
joins a team, an existing team.
This change will impact thebalance in the team, because a
(25:58):
leader comes with a new leaderis actually the biggest change
that can happen to a team and Ican safely assume that
psychological safety will beimpacted if you've got a new
leader, because it's going totake time to really understand
with a new leader.
Similarly, we're talking aboutX, so shift gear and ask you a
(26:19):
question around change.
I work in the business ofchange myself and therefore I'm
always interested in how thosefactors impact adoption of
change in the workplace.
How do you see thepsychological safety impacting
that?
Baha (26:37):
Yes.
So change and adoption ofpsychological safety in a change
.
It's a journey to create apsychologically safe workplace
and it's actually a changeinitiative.
We can see it that way place,and it's actually a change
initiative.
We can see it that way.
And in many cases, teams,organizations, when they go
through change, it's normal thatthey get resistance and
(26:58):
sometimes we focus on thisresistance and then it's not the
, it's not the most effectiveway.
So to do this change.
I can share with you twopractical ideas that we
implement with customers.
The one is when I am with anorganization or a team who would
like to change.
(27:19):
Normally, traditionally,consultants do it this way where
do we start now and what arethe issues we have and where do
we want to go and how can we gothere?
So they start with the presentsituation.
So let's say where are we now?
You know the situation is Idon't feel safe, my manager
(27:39):
doesn't listen to me, peoplestart complaining, which is fine
, and you start with a negativemomentum.
In our case, we start with whatdoes an ideal team
collaboration look like in ourorganization?
So we start with the future andthe next point is okay, how
does an ideal collaboration looklike?
(28:00):
People trust each other, peopleshare ideas, people listen to
one another, people go to lunchtogether.
How does the ideal situationlook like?
The second question is so,what's the current situation?
What are some pain points wehave?
Now employees start complaining.
It's okay, we have thischallenge.
(28:21):
I'm overwhelmed at work, youknow, we don't get learning
opportunities, we don't have thetools, we don't have the right
processes.
And then the next question isokay, what can we do to create
this ideal team collaboration?
Now the third question is tomake again ignite the positive
parts of the brain.
(28:41):
So, to start this change, it'scrucial for us to create a
positive momentum and to do that, start with the ideal picture,
go to pain points and thencreate action items.
Point number one.
Point two, about resistors, weuse a concept created by Jason
Little from Canada.
This concept is based on movers, movables and immovables.
(29:06):
Movers are employees in anorganization who are willing to
start this change.
They say great, now we canfocus on improving psychological
safety.
It's an important area for us.
I believe in the topic and I amcommitted to making this happen
.
Movers Moveables are employeeswho are neutral.
(29:29):
They say, again, we have a newleader, ali Juma.
Let's see what he's going to donow.
He came up with this idea ofpsychological safety.
I'm not sure if it will work,but let's wait and see.
So they're neutral, they sit onthe fence and they wait.
The third group of employeesare immovables.
(29:50):
They basically resist to thischange and they say it was
better.
You know in the past or youknow the status quo is better,
no need for change.
They're not interested in this,they don't show any commitment
at all.
(30:10):
To drive the change successfully, we need to start with movers
Employees willing, interested inthe topic, committed to this
one.
We start with them, we involvethem in the trainings.
They learn these approaches,how to create psychological
safety, and then the next stepis to create small wins with
these employees.
Small wins improvements in theteam environment, improvements
in number of ideas generated,improvements in new products
(30:32):
created.
We get these small improvements.
We present these smallimprovements to movables,
neutrals, and the idea is togain movables, neutrals to the
movement and throughout time.
Ideally we can also gain someimmovables and some immovables
(30:54):
can stay there as well.
The main focus is on movers.
We work with them, createpositive momentum, we create
small wins, present to them,gain movables as well and expand
this movement.
So we'll start with the bigidea, positive desired idea
understand pain points, createaction items, implement approach
(31:16):
one approach, two movers,immovables, movers, immovables
and immovables.
Ali (31:22):
And Jason Little has been my guest a couple of times in my
podcast and actually justrecently I've got a guest called
Dr David Weiss.
He calls the neutralsbystanders and bystanders
basically, they're just waitingand seeing, and so the focus,
(31:44):
similar to what you're sayingyou focus on the early adopters
or the excited people plus thebystanders.
But I think you mentionedsomething really important.
We often focus in the businessof change management around
managing resistance and I thinkyou just made me think about it
might be far more valuable forus to focus on creating the
(32:08):
psychological safety in thefirst place and create the
environment and continuecreating the environment and
obviously do all the rightthings to get you know the
people supported through thelearning and the training and
the support after that and thecommunication.
And this is not a play, smartplay on the words.
(32:28):
This is what you're teaching mehere is that it's a far-lasting
impact if you focus on thepsychological safety during the
implementation of change.
Have I got this close to right?
Baha (32:42):
Yeah, that's true, and you raise an important point about
the resistance and itsconnection to psychological
safety.
Going back to movers, movablesand immovables.
In the case of immovablesshowing resistance, we need to
listen to them and understandthem.
Yeah, we need to give themspace to express their concerns
(33:03):
as well, keeping in mind thatthe focus is on movers creating
momentum, getting small wins,expanding this and gaining
movables and then hopefullylater immovables.
Ali (33:14):
I want to ask you a question.
Around we often make theassumption that the leaders
doing all deep understanding howimportant this piece is.
Baha (33:45):
Leaders.
In many cases in bigorganizations, they're
data-driven.
They want to see howpsychological safety is
connected to the big picture,the big picture, the business
goals.
To be able to influence leaderson this, we need to be clear in
our communication, highlightnumbers and show the benefit.
(34:07):
Let me make this tangible whenwe communicate with leaders
about the importance ofpsychological safety, we can
mention this data in a clearmanner, highlighting the
benefits Based on a Gallupreport.
When employees feel that theiropinions count, when they feel
(34:30):
that their opinions count atwork which implies a workplace
of psychological safety youshare your opinions and you
notice that your opinions arevalued.
We can see 27% reduction inemployee turnover, 27% reduction
, 40% reduction in safetyaccidents and 12% increase in
(34:57):
productivity.
Let's convert that into numbers, depending on how many
employees you have.
At least you can get an ideaabout the millions of dollars or
savings you can get once youcreate a workplace or
psychological safety.
Ali (35:15):
Excellent.
What else is sort of a questionthat has always been in my mind
From your observation, do younotice.
Are there certain industriesout there that have sort of
sustainable psychological safetyand some industries do not?
So, for example, is there adifference when it comes to
(35:37):
psychological safety between aconstruction company with global
reach to a university setting?
It's an interesting question.
Baha (35:47):
I don't have any data on this to tell you.
Look, there was a study doneand it shows that certain
industries are more likely tocreate psychological safety.
I don't have data on this.
What I can tell you is thatit's based on my experience and
based on what I'm researching onthe topic.
It doesn't have, as far as Isee it doesn't have any
(36:10):
industry-specific distinction.
Here you can find organizations, whether small or big.
Here you can find organizations, whether small or big, or a
government or a private, whichcan have relatively high levels
(36:31):
of psychological safety.
I can give you one example fromGermany.
There is one engineeringcompany, engineering and
architecture, and thisengineering and architecture
company.
They created one concept calledmistake breakfast.
I met with the head of HR someyears ago and it was in a
conference, and she told us thatone day she had an idea.
(36:53):
She talked with the seniormanagement and then the idea was
to organize a mistake breakfastbreakfast.
Once a quarter, an employeewith the biggest mistake and the
biggest learning makes apresentation while other
employees have breakfast.
All the employees attend thissession and when she presented
(37:14):
this idea to the seniormanagement first they were a bit
concerned.
They say what if employeesperceive this differently.
And what do they think?
You know, we encourage them tomake mistakes.
What if this goes out ofcontrol?
They were a bit fearful of this.
They went and think through itand eventually they said, okay,
(37:35):
let's give this a try and thenyou know if it works, it's good,
if it doesn't work, we can stopit anyways.
So they tried this mistakepurpose.
Once a quarter, an employeewith the biggest mistake and the
biggest learning goes there,makes a presentation.
To their surprise, this eventresonated very well with the
employees.
(37:55):
They kept doing this and afterdoing it some time, the
organization noticed that thetrust among team members
improved.
In the end, the total number ofmistakes done in this
engineering and architecturecompany the total number of
mistakes fell down as well.
And in Germany they got thebest practice award from the
German HR Association.
(38:16):
So you can find reallydifferent examples from
universities to HR Association.
So you can find reallydifferent examples from
universities to you knowdifferent sectors.
I can give you one more examplefrom Canada McGill University.
In this university in 2009, ifI remember correctly, they
published a report calledfailure report.
In this failure report, theybasically talk about their
(38:38):
failures and their learnings outof it In the beginning of 2000,
.
The university had a visionabout sustainability and to
implement this vision onsustainability around 15, 20
years ago they engaged withexternal consultants how to do
the communication of this withstudents, with staff, with
(38:59):
academics, with the partners,with the society.
And as they collaborated withexternal consultants later they
realized that the universitymade some mistakes.
One of the mistakes was notsetting the expectations clearly
in the beginning with theexternal consultants.
So this was one of thelearnings and in the failure
(39:19):
report you can see one section,one page, about this learning.
Mcgill University takes this toanother level because in
psychological safety we talkabout making mistakes, reporting
them, learning from them andnot repeating the same mistakes.
In the case of McGillUniversity, they not only share
the mistakes and learningsinternally, but they also do it
(39:43):
externally.
They do this externally so thatother universities, competitors
, stakeholders, partners,society can learn from this and
not make the same mistakes.
So, irrespective of theindustry, we can find really
good examples of organizationswhich place big value learning
(40:03):
from mistakes, sharing that withothers and creating a space for
employees to share their ideas.
Ali (40:08):
I really like that.
In my head.
I'm thinking, if I share themistakes, imagine I'm running a
presentation on mistakes, thisis me as a leader, modeling
vulnerability in the workplaceand I'm hoping that, by modeling
this behavior, that the staffwill be able to adopt a similar
(40:29):
attitude, provided that thewhole objective is so we can
learn from the mistakes.
So that can be another,obviously another strategy to
encourage openness in themistakes.
So that can be another.
And obviously there's anotherstrategy to encourage openness
in the workplace, becausemistakes happen every single day
and whilst we are notinterested in the mistakes,
we're interested in the progressand the learning going forward.
(40:53):
I am aware of time and I'mthoroughly enjoying this
conversation, but you've givenme a lot of things to think
about, a question that I usuallyask my guests.
I am in the business of changeand communication.
What would be your piece ofadvice to people like myself and
my network when we manage andfacilitate change and help our
(41:16):
stakeholders adopt change?
What would be your counsel andpiece of advice for us to
consider when it comes topsychological safety?
Baha (41:27):
Let me think through this.
My advice on change onpsychological safety Start with
senior leaders.
Psychological safety Start withsenior leaders.
Touch different levels ofmanagement and focus on creating
a positive momentum with movers.
Ali (41:46):
Excellent, that is a great advice.
The movers are the catalyst forthe flywheel to start moving
and then hopefully, the movementwill be a positive momentum.
Baha, it's been a pleasurehaving you in my podcast, the
Inner Game of Change.
How would people connect withyou?
Baha (42:08):
First of all, it was my pleasure to be here.
Thanks for the invitation.
I really enjoyed your questionsand I'm glad you know I feel
grateful that you took the timeto read my book.
It means a lot to me For theglad you know I feel grateful
that you took the time to readmy book.
It means a lot to me, for thelisteners.
You can connect with me onLinkedIn.
When you write Mehmet Baha, youcan see me there and yeah, and
(42:31):
if you have any specificquestions, you can also send me
an email, baha B-A-H-A atsolutionfolder
solutionfoldertogethercom.
Ali (42:41):
And we're going to put all your information in the podcast
details.
Baha, your book is availablenow on Amazon.
Baha (42:51):
Correct.
It's available on Amazonworldwide.
It was published last week, soSeptember 10th, and the book is
based on 16, 32 and 64, 16inspiring examples from all
around the world yes, 32practical tools and approaches
to foster psychological safetyand 64 thought provoking
(43:16):
questions to help you createyour psychological safety action
plans.
Ali (43:20):
And I love those questions and actually I've already used a
couple of them yesterday andthey all motivate you to think
differently now around the ideaof change anyway, especially in
my place.
I am grateful to have chattedwith you today, but I hope I can
get you back at some stage nextyear and we tackle another
(43:41):
aspect of psychological safety.
But until then, stay well andstay safe.
Baha (43:49):
Likewise, ali Take care, thank you.
Ali (44:01):
Thank you for listening.
If you found this episodevaluable, remember to subscribe
to stay updated on upcomingepisodes.
Your support is trulyappreciated and, by sharing this
podcast with your colleagues,friends and fellow change
practitioners, it can help mereach even more individuals and
professionals who can benefitfrom these discussions.
(44:21):
Remember, and in my opinion,change is an enduring force and
you will only have a measure ofcertainty and control when you
embrace it.
Until next time, thank you forbeing part of the Inner Game of
Change community.
I am Ali Jammah and this is theInner Game of Change community.
I am Ali Jammah and this is theInner Game of Change podcast.
Host
Ali Juma
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