Episode 85: Finding Agility Through Psychological Safety with Tara Scott
Melissa Perri interviews Tara Scott at the Agile 2022 Conference on this week’s episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Tara is an experienced product coach and organizational behavior design coach who specializes in psychological safety, which is the ability to speak up in the workplace without fear of negative consequences. Tara tells Melissa how experiences in her own family led her to this important line of work, how she realized psychological safety could actually help increase organizational agility, what happens when a company isn’t psychologically safe, why having a “work” version of you is actually harmful, the inevitable uncomfortable moments that come with creating a safer work environment, particularly for leadership, and more.
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Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Tara talk about:
Tara talks about her own background and what led her to teach psychological safety. [1:47]
Tara assesses the psychological safety of an organization by conducting individual conversations with the team. [4:33]
If you feel like you have to micromanage your employees, it probably means that you don't feel safe giving them the freedom to do their jobs. This can be damaging to your team's morale and productivity. [6:52]
Tara advises that leaders should “lead with curiosity as opposed to leading with questions” as this would create positive interactions with employees and allow them to feel psychologically safe. [8:42]
Open communication, diversity and inclusion, willingness to help and willingness to ask for help, and attitudes towards risk and failure are the four metrics used to measure if a work environment is psychologically safe. [11:55]
Tara explains that when employees are more relaxed and laugh, it is a sign that the work environment is becoming more psychologically safe. Another indicator is when team leaders work actively to create a psychologically safe environment. [16:40]
Tara suggests that every morning, remote teams should sit around before work and just talk to each other – get to know each other and become comfortable hearing your own voice. This promotes psychological safety within the team. [29:13]
As an executive, if you're noticing your organization becoming psychologically unsafe you can introduce an optional virtual coffee, where your employees can join for 15 minutes to relax and have conversations with co-workers. [33:05]
Resources
Tara Scott on LinkedIn
Transcript:
Melissa:
Hello. And welcome to another episode of the product thinking podcast. Uh, I am at agile 2022, and today I'm joined by one of our speakers here, Tara Scott, uh, Tara is a product coach, uh, and she does organizational behavioral design coaching say
Tara:
Coaching, all the things.
Melissa:
Yeah. All the things, uh, for technology teams and for large organizations out there. And she specializes in psychological safety, which is what we're gonna be talking about today. So welcome Tara.
Tara: Thank you, Melissa. Appreciate it. Yeah.
Melissa:
So I'm really excited. How'd you get into teaching psychological safety?
Tara:
That's a good question. Um, and it's one that I realized goes back further than I had initially thought. So I actually worked in healthcare for 10 years before I got into tech, which absolutely happened by accident also. Um, but I worked in mental health for a few years. I managed a clinic, um, and my dad has struggled with mental illness for a long time and had a psychotic break about 15 years ago. And he told me that a and I knew this as a kid. Like I watched him struggle so much with stress with work and he buried everything. Especially back in the day, it was the stereotypical like traditional parent. The male goes to work, comes home, absorbs all the stress. Doesn't really talk about it. Um, and he's told me he didn't have a boss or colleagues to really talk about things with and just basically imploded because there was so much stress.
And as I worked in mental health, I started recognizing not just the patients, but my employees were really absorbing a lot of the stress in their own environment where people weren't communicating clearly expecta expectations weren't set. And I, I really wanted to do something with it. But the breaking point for me was probably about six, seven years ago when I was working as an engineering manager. And I, I really noticed there was such a, an obsession. And I mean, I think that we all can recognize this working in product and anything around agility. There's such a focus on delivery, but not necessarily a focus on what behavior will get you to deliver the best possible thing. And so I wanted to start building a program where folks could, um, express themselves freely and not just to be this like kumbaya fluffy thing. It was really to one, bring your best self to work and create the things that you wanna create.
And two, um, be as innovative as possible. And so I discovered through measuring teams over time, that when we actually checked in with how we were connecting as a team and how we were showing up, we produced not only better things, but we produced them faster. And so it really drove me to think, and also like just genuinely caring about human beings and going through like this whole COVID experience, it's just become more ingrained in me that it's absolutely vital and crucial for teams to show up for one another in the best way possible alongside their leaders.
Melissa:
Yeah, I think that's so important. One of the biggest issues I've seen in teams, you know, going in and trying to do product management or start new strategy, do experimentation learn new ways of working is the psychological safety gets in the way, right? Yeah. The leaders say leaders are like, I want everybody to change and then they don't actually set them up for success with that because they make it an environment where people don't feel safe to actually change. Right. So when you, uh, go into these organizations and you are trying to assess, is this a psychologically safe place? Mm-hmm <affirmative> what are you typically looking for? Like what would be the signs that an organization could, you know, observe and say, are we set up well or are we not in these areas?
Tara:
Sure. Um, I guess I take two different approaches to that. One is if an organization brings me in to do an assessment, um, I can do that by just having individual conversations with the team, or if an organization knows that there's an issue, um, I will go in and do a psychological safety survey. So I was certified through Amy Edmondson's program. She's the person who kind of pioneered the term, psychological safety, um, and stole it from like a textbook from the fifties and took it and ran with it. And it is what it is today. Um, so I will go into an organization, meet with the leader, meet with the teams and then have them answer seven questions takes about five minutes and then we have a two hour debrief. And the first time I did it, I thought, there's no way we're gonna take up two hours.
And I realized from the very first one I did, I thought this will never be enough time <laugh> because there are so many things to dig into. So what I really look for in those conversations is I will ask open-ended questions. And it's really about how folks, um, react both in terms of their body language, which is obviously more tough if I'm doing it remotely, but also like inflection. Um, I was an English major, but very interested in linguistics in college and still am. And you can tell a lot from the inflection of someone's voice about whether they they're hesitant, if they're nervous about saying something, if they feel defensive. So I'm really looking for some of those threads to pull at so that I can get the best amount of information possible. Cuz even though we're looking at that data, once they answer those seven questions and all the data's anonymous, it's really not about the number it's about the conversation. So we're really not solutioning in that conversation. It's really about unearthing things and getting people to show up in the most honest way possible, uh, and prefacing that with a social contract slash working agreement, like, can we all show up in the same way? Do we all agree to the same things? And that really helps set them up for success.
Melissa:
So if you're like a leader in an organization and you're trying to figure out like, am I psychologically safe? Um, or maybe this is one of my issues, like what are the problems you would be observing? Like, what's it look like when an organization isn't psychologically safe?
Tara:
Yeah. It looks like a few different things. I don't think that there's one typical thing that I look for most of the time it's about command and control. So a lot of times what I see with leaders and I think having been a leader myself in, um, technology, there is so much pressure and it's like a pressure cooker from the top down. So what I see is a lot of command and control. So, um, like I think that Alyssa Atkins mentioned mentions it in her book. Um, the agile coaching one where she talks about the swoop and poop where it's like, oh yeah, you've just come into a conversation and say, oh my gosh, have you guys done these things? And then you fly away and then do it again. And again, um, that is something that I look for. So when I ask individuals about what their interactions are like with their, with their leaders, I'll get a lot of, oh, well, you know, we have our one on ones, but really it's just to check in on like the work I'm doing or they'll check in with me not to make sure things are going well, but when they're concerned about something.
So to me, that's usually a signal of like, there might be some command and control going on. And so that prompts a conversation for me to have with the leader around how they show up for an employee. But the conversations are really interesting because I think a lot of leaders are a bit on the defense when I start the conversation and I just kinda let them know from the get go, like, first of all, you get out of this, what you put into it. And if you want your teams to show up, honestly, then, then you have to do the same. And I think a lot of times, um, I'll actually view like a physical response from them of kind of a relaxing of the shoulders of like, okay. And, and that it isn't abnormal for them to feel like that, like they don't know me.
They're not gonna just like divulge their deepest, darkest secrets to some rando stranger who's yes. Trying to help them with their problems. But it's like when you go to a therapist for the first time, you're gonna be a little guarded. And so just getting them, um, talking and getting them also recognizing I can pull at threads around like a leader, usually has a leader unless they're a CEO. So what does your pressure look like? And you getting them to recognize how it's just distilled downward and it's a pressure cooker. And eventually like imagine the lowest person, um, in that pressure cooker, how much they're feeling. Uh, so it helps them really be able to reflect on how it impacts their team.
Melissa:
So how does a leader lead from a place of psychological safety? Like what are the types of things you would encourage them to practice and really like, think about yeah. In their everyday interactions and you know, how they go about their work.
Tara:
I always say that the most important thing is leading with curiosity, as opposed to, uh, leading with questions that are, is this done yet? Um, where are you at with this? Um, or even just like small talk when, you know, they wanna just lead into <laugh> questions that are probing about whether or not that thing is done there. The reality is a leader is always going to need to know where things are at in terms of delivery. However, it's all about the way you approach it. So I often will tell leaders if they, if their employees are feeling like, you know, they're only being approached either when something is wrong or when something is, needs to be done. Just kind of talking to them when they don't need to like making time to not just show up when they need something. But actually like genuinely get to know your employees that is harder for some people than others.
I often find that P leaders that are on in leadership positions, who kind of don't wanna be like, somehow they've managed to go into a people manager role and maybe they wanted to be a principal architect or something. And that wasn't an option in their organization, finding ways that they can work with the role that they're given to strengthen those things. Um, if they're interested in some aspects of the work and what I've found is that if we go back and do a survey, so sometimes I'll go back and do a survey three to six months later to see where things are. So it's not just like a one and done measurement. Um, part of the work that I do is coming back to see what's changed, have things gotten better? Have they gotten worse? Um, oftentimes I'll see leaders say, you know what, it's actually gotten much less uncomfortable with these people because, um, we can actually just have a normal conversation now.
And, and it's not just about when something is due, but now it's about how do we not only collaborate in the space as coworkers, but humans because there's not a work self and a home self, like we're just one person. Like I'm not, I don't have two different sides to me, but I think that it has been so traditionally ingrained in us that that's what we do. That's a lot of what my dad struggled with is that he went to work and put on this brave face, like I'm in sales, I gotta get this stuff done and then come home. And it's like the collapse of exhaustion or stress. Um, so I think helping them kind of recognize that it's really about human connection and that's not something fluffy or something that we can dismiss because that's kind of where it all starts.
Melissa:
I think that's so important. I hear, I think with like COVID and, you know, we heard all about the great resignation and now we've got all these other things going on, massive burnout with people. Right. I think organizations are like, how do I keep people healthy? And how do I make sure they stay with me and don't burn? Um, and it's interesting because I don't see anybody talk about psychological safety. Right. It's all like, oh, well, you know, do a balance of work from home. Yeah. Or we'll do you know, we'll, we'll give somebody Fridays off in the summer, right? Yeah. But it's not about like what, what you're talking about, which is what I see most people leave from, which is, uh, I can't stand my manager because they're just on top of me all the time pressure cook, cooking me, the people I work with.
Um, don't let me show up as my full self to work. Right. Um, all of these like human factors and I think, uh, it's really powerful for leaders to recognize, like this is something that they gotta take accountability for and actually do. Um, so one of the things that you talk about too is like, you measure this with metrics. Like, this is not just like, you know, like you said, like a fluffy little thing, right. It's um, you're taking like a concrete approach for it. What types of metrics are you measuring to say this is psychologically safe or not sure.
Tara:
So the, like I mentioned, there's seven questions, which seems so small. Um, and Amy Edmondson references a version of those questions in the fearless organization, which is a, a phenomenal book. Uh, but the questions are around things like open communication, diversity and inclusion. And that includes diversity of thought diversity of teams, um, willingness to help like a willingness to ask for help, um, and then attitudes towards risk and failure. Those are the four measurements. And what I've found is super interesting is that we in the product world, I think that folks, we say that we're okay with, with failure and that we need to do it, but never on a big scale. And, and it's only certain things that are okay to fail. It's. And so what I've really found with these metrics and with teams is that everyone has a different idea about what failure is and what is okay.
Quote unquote. Okay. And what is not. And what I found is that getting people on the same page and getting them in these conversations to talk about, well, like I never thought I, there was a specific conversation with a large organization where I was doing a, a survey with them and we were deep into this two hour conversation. And there was a conversation about failure and the leader had said something like, you know, I really encourage people to try things. I want people to experiment. And one of their employees said, I don't feel that way at all. I feel like if we have talked about something and like in a retro, and we've recognized that something didn't work and we try something else, if it doesn't work again, it feels like it's not okay. So it's like a one and done. And I think the leader was shocked to hear that and said, you know, well, no, we're gonna constantly to evolve.
We have to experiment. And it was this really awesome moment of everyone kind of being able to be enlightened by just understanding one another, a little bit more. And it's like, oh, okay. So when we come out of that conversation, out of that two hour debrief, let's talk as a team about what failure means to us. Because I remember specifically when I take these measurements, I measure in the four areas, but then there's one, uh, collaborative number that is all four together. But in the fear, one in the fear category, they were super low. And that was because they thought, um, it seemed not okay. And a lot of the reason for that, and this is a lot of the work that I do. Um, in fact, the talk that I did here at agile 2022, um, I talk a lot about how folks are able to, um, process trauma, because we all come with past trauma, into whatever organization we have. A lot of these were based off of old circumstances with other bosses. So they'd had another boss who was not okay with failure. They had gotten in trouble for things. And it was baggage that they had really brought with them. And this leader was saying, Nope, I'm, I am not that way. This is okay. So these conversations, these metrics are really unearthing the capabilities of others to be much more innovative because it's, it's blowing all of those misconceptions and, and biases outta the water and really allowing folks, folks to just show up as themselves.
Melissa:
I love that. I've seen that situation so many times where the leaders are like, I want people to be innovative. I want 'em to go experiment. I want 'em to run MVPs and stuff like that. And then everybody's like,
Tara:
No, no, you don't <laugh> you wanna get stuff done. Yeah,
Melissa:
Exactly. Yeah. And I, I think that has such an impact on product teams. Like we talk about, you know, these product teams being able to go try new things, build that in fail, fast break stuff, all that things. And then without that psychological safety, it's not an option for so many people it's not, not built in. And that's why we're lacking it.
Tara:
No. And, and in other situations, I will see, um, employees in those conversations or even leaders, there's actually one scenario where I was measuring a leadership team. Uh, it was med level management, but there was an executive in there because they were the one who everyone reported to where they were just, no one wanted to talk. So even though we set up a social contract, like we all agreed to speak up, speak our minds. It was so clear that no one felt safe because no one wanted to say a word. They mostly just agreed with everything. And there at one point in the conversation, I had to say, okay, you know, like, I, I, I'm picking up on a lot of silence here and I guess I'm going to call out the elephant in the room. Is there something that we can approach in terms of, especially since one of the categories is open communication.
I said, can we talk about this open communication and how things look okay on paper? Like the numbers showed up okay. But why are we not talking now? And I will force, I am that person who will force the uncomfortable silence to be broken, because that's my job. And because I want these people to be able to, to improve. And the executive said, am I the reason no one's talking. And, and no one said anything. And I was like, well, there's your answer? And that's a really tough pill to swallow, but I'm super proud of folks who can show up in that way. This is not about punishing. Oh yeah. You know, anyone, this is about allowing people to recognize, like, we are all clumsy humans who show up in the best way that we know how, but just like anything else we can continuously improve. And there's no way to do that until you kind of face those elephants in the room.
Melissa:
Yeah. What's been like, once you go through this journey with people and I wanna dive into like what this psychological safety journey looks like, if you find out you don't have it. Sure. But once you go through it, reach the end of it. You know, what do you observe? Um, gets better. Like, what's, what's good signs of like, Hey, this is working. And how, how does that come back I guess, to our product work too, that we're doing, like, how's it helping us contribute more to outcomes and pushing this forward?
Tara:
Yeah. Great question. Um, the number one thing I see is laughter, I hear more, laughter. People just feel more relaxed. And I think that it becomes the behavior is now not a distraction. So, you know, there really isn't an end ever, just like anything else, there's no end to the journey. It's just, we're gonna continuously improve. I have gone into organizations who say, yep, yep. We're psychologically safe. Like it's a static thing. And the thing is, it's not, it's just like agility. We're not gonna say like, I mean, you hear people say all the time. Yep. I'm it's like, yep. I'm, I'm psychologically safe. That's not really a thing that you are. It's a thing that you are practicing to be like, you're practicing to be a better human. I'm always working on being a better writer, whatever that might be. So one of the things I look for, I right here is the laughter piece.
Um, but the second is them wanting to improve things more. So when I meet with them again, let's say that I measure something three to six months later, or I'm just continuously coaching with an organization. Um, they'll say, well, what about this? Like maybe this is something that we can try. I hear an eagerness to want to improve things. Uh, we will look at things at metrics like retainment numbers. How, what does turnover look like on those teams? Because obviously, like you mentioned, the great resignation, people are quitting all over the place and there are openings everywhere. So it's, it's really important if a company wants to be profitable, to not start bleeding out money by losing individuals. So what I see is a success story is one where they actually care about keeping good people. Um, additionally looking at not thing necessarily things like velocity or what have you, but it's which we can do.
But to me, a bigger, a bigger signal of success or a sign of success is actually looking at their bottom line and like looking at their numbers, like, are you actually seeing an increase in users? Are you actually seeing an increase in profits? Like, are we actually looking at those things? And oftentimes, which scares me actually reminds me of your keynote yesterday. Sometimes they don't look at that at all. And they're like, well, we're just, they're still reactive. It's like, well, we're just trying to build all the things. And we have all these requests coming down. It kind of looking at your behavior, forces people to slow down. Like the work will always be there, but are we working towards the right thing? Once you get the BS of like, not being able to communicate out of the way, you have so much more freedom to talk about the things you really wanna do and actually be able to fail and actually be able to experiment.
And when you start caring more about your own behavior, I talk about this a lot in workshops and the talks that I do when you start with self and you really get to know yourself, your triggers, things that stress you out, how you wanna show up and you start working on that collaboratively with other people who are doing that? huge difference. And I just see a ton of success in that area. And it just makes me super stoked because I just want people to do the things that they love. I don't want anyone to suffer needlessly at their job. I want them to be able to do what they love.
Melissa:
It sounds like you've gotta have some really good self awareness to be able to do this work too. Yeah. Right. And I, I see that as a lot of people are asking me like, Hey, why can't I make it from like VP to CPO? Or why can't I get into the executive suite? And I find that executives who are not self-aware are the hardest ones to work for. Yeah. Right. It's, it's, it's really like where I see all the people struggling and be like, I don't like this person, or they're not getting along with their, their peers or people like that. Um, how do you like help people? I guess what's, what's a journey to take, to like become more self aware or to like actually want to do this work.
Tara:
That's such a good question. And I'm actually grappling with this right now with an executive who I'm, who I'm working with, who really is just, uh, wants to go faster, harder all the time and says things to me like, you know, I know people don't have as thick of skin as I do, and I recognize that, but they need to like get better at not letting work, stress them out. And when I see this person, I just see it, like all of this insecurity, that's coming out as ego. When really, if they allowed themselves to kind of break that down a little bit, it would enable them to move forward so much faster and be able to allow their employees to actually want to stay where they are. So a lot of times what that journey of self exploration looks like is me having to really kind of be a chameleon myself and, and recog.
I don't love the term, meet people where they are, because sometimes someone's not in a very good place, but it's more like lead by example. So if I see someone who's really got their guard up and, and I talk to them about, self-awareness like, I'll, I'll approach it from an angle of like, do you feel like you're a self-aware person? What are things that you would like to improve in yourself? When I start to distill those questions down, um, it starts a lot with like very much ego facing, but once they start getting a little more comfortable in the conversation, if I say, what are three things you'd love to improve about the way that you show up at work, I'll get real answers as opposed to them. Just, if I say like, what, what would you like to improve? It's too vast. It's too big. And they just, all they see is like dollar signs and deliverables. And I wanna get away from that. I'm trying to get them to understand that if they focus on themselves, those things will show up organically because you're showing up as a better version of yourself.
Melissa:
Yeah. That's really, I like that, that way of framing that, um, so I worked with this one executive team. Mm-hmm <affirmative> I would say like throughout the whole C-suite that was wildly, psychologically safe. Mm-hmm <affirmative> unsafe, psychologically unsafe. Mm-hmm <affirmative> <laugh> it's like, how do
Tara:
You say that? Unsafe. Yeah. Say that all the time. Okay.
Melissa:
Uhhuh. Uh, they, yeah, we had a CEO who like pit all the executives against each other. They didn't collaborate. Um, and being in the room with them, I would just be like, oh my God, I can't believe what I'm witnessing. And you could see, took a toll like on everybody. And everybody just showed up to like scream at each other. Oh. Um, have you ever worked, like, what about, you know, we, we're talking a lot about like psychological safety as it relates from leaders down to, you know, the people that work for them. What about like within teams and peers? Like what types of, um, things have you observed there and how do you see, you know, how do you call that out? Maybe when it's like your peers and not, not just the people below you.
Tara:
Yeah. And I think that that's where a lot of times executives might mistake needing psychological safety just on teams below them. Yeah. When that is absolutely not the case. We need to have that foundation, that solid foundation at that executive level. So I have worked, uh, with a specific team of executives that, um, did not have a lot of safety, kind of what you're talking about, where there was a lot of yelling I am in the Midwest. So there's a lot of passive aggressiveness that happens. And I would, I, I witnessed it all all the time, even on slack, I would see these conversations happen and I just thought, wow, y'all are really not talking about what you really wanna talk about. And this feels like a competition against each other, which we're. And I, I had to come to a conversation and say like, can we like time out?
Are we all working in the same organization? And someone said, yeah, we are, but we all have different goals. And so then the conversation became, okay, well, can we align on having similar? Like if we're all under like the same organization, do we have a shared vision or not? And someone said, no immediately said no. And I thought, well, then let's define what that vision should be. Uh, and I feel lucky that I've had the opportunity to be in technology for a decade before I started really diving into this work, because it's all connected. Like it's just all connected, working on products, having, having this immense pressure to show up like being agile and adaptable and also the behavior piece there, they all work together, um, in a synchronistic way. But, um, the behavior piece kind of has to be embedded with all of that stuff.
And Amy Edmondson has said herself, you know, psychological safety doesn't sell because leaders don't think that they need it. Yeah. So for me, oftentimes it's a conversation about leadership training or what it, it can be called, you know, rainbows and unicorns. I don't really care. What I know is if you want to be a successful organization, we have to approach these subjects. And are we all on the same page? Do we have the same goals? And I think a lot of times at that leadership level, that's where I see the missteps and the miscommunication is that they're just not aligned. It, it feels like a competition.
Melissa:
That is the biggest issue. I see. Um, in companies standing in the way of them being able to set a strategy, it's like, everybody's got their own little strategy. Everybody's got their own goals. Yep. Nobody's like, Hey, what do we all wanna achieve together? Right. And they don't see like the leadership team or it's funny, cuz I, I see everybody say like it's the executive leadership team, it's the senior leadership team. And I'm like, you don't operate like a team. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's, it's all like everybody for themselves with their own little silos. Yep. Um, but that is the number one thing I see standing in the way of a company making a compelling vision and strategy and deploying it down in a way where people can actually prioritize and like get their work done and make smart trade offs and stuff like that.
Tara:
Exactly. Because they're not getting to, to the real core issue and the core, like all they're seeing are symptoms. So they see, you know, the teams are struggling and this is a problem and we're not aligned. Well, those are all symptoms of you all not being able to show up together. And I think that, you know, I've with this group that I'm talking about specifically these executives, someone had said something to me like, you know, this Brene brown touchy feely. And I just thought, oh, we're gonna have fun together because, um, Brene brown is extremely successful for a reason. And you are going to eventually see what that is, but I'm gonna show it to you in a way where you don't think it's fluff just because it's told differently. So I, I think that that's usually one of the biggest challenges for me is just getting them to understand that if you really wanna invest in your success, it has to be a team success because psychological safety is all about your interactions as a team. It's not just the individuals. It has to be the group.
Melissa:
Yeah. I think that's really important for all these organizations. So if you are an executive team, right, and you say, or an executive and you're like, you call you, can you come help us with psychological safety? What's that journey look like to go from, you know, where they are in a psychologically unsafe place to get to a point where they're recognizing it and seeing like success in it. Like what types of things do you deploy? What types of stuff do you do to make people get a little further along?
Tara:
Sure. First, I really like to get a clear picture of what success looks like for them. So where are they really seeing their pain points? And there will usually be some things I think with any sort of like business assessment where they there's a bunch of stuff they don't see, but they will, they will already know like what are those inherently really tough things that they need to tackle? Um, so usually that starts with just an initial conversation. It, it usually gets worse before it gets better. And I'm super clear about that. I say, you know, like trust takes time. I actually had someone after my talk, uh, on Monday, come up to me and ask me, I only have such a small amount of time with people. How do I get them to trust me faster? And I said, you don't, you have to be patient.
And you have to be clear about that. So I'm really clear with, with these leaders or whatever teams I'm working with on this journey in the beginning that this is going to take some time. So I want you to be patient with yourself and I want you to be patient with me because this is just a journey of us getting to know each other so that I can help enable you to do the things that you really wanna do. And it really starts to look like, um, the awkward beginning of like any relationship where you're getting to know each other and, and just slowly getting comfortable with one another. Even if that's just me coming in, let's say they call me and they say, Hey, we want help with this thing. I have an initial conversation. And then we meet as a group to kind of go through the survey, how things went.
Then we have, after the, after we've had that two hours together, I say, now let's come up with a roadmap collaboratively. This is not me coming up with something prescriptive for you. You have to want it because if I just hand you something and it's an obligation, you're not gonna be as into it at all, actually, as you would be, if you believe that that's something you need to do. So we put together a collaborative roadmap and say, here are the things that we would like to achieve in the next quarter in terms of behavior. And this can be anything from retainment numbers to, um, you know, being able to have more clear conversations. And it can even be things like clearer user stories, because we're actually having better conversations with each other. If, if people are not communicating well with each other, and then when I come back or if I'm actively coaching with those people, I make sure that I'm super intentional with reflecting early and often about how it's going.
So I'm not waiting three months to say like, Hey, so are, do we feel like things are better that next week? I say, these are things that we identified. This is what our roadmap looks like. So it's fresh in their mind. And I say, where do we think we're at right now? Do we feel like these things are getting better? Where and how, and pulling any data that I need to cause I am a data nerd. And I think it's really important for folks to see that these are not arbitrary, anecdotal things. These are things that you actually can measure. So let's have those conversations. Once they start to see the proof is in the pudding, um, it, it makes the conversations a lot more crisp and a lot faster. Uh, and people just simply show up more because they realize like, okay, this is not just, you know, us having this idea that maybe we're not that safe. And we would like to feel better around each other. That is a natural byproduct of doing this work, but it's actually making us more successful.
Melissa:
So, uh, I'm like a big believer in, you know, you do behaviors or you do practices and you do it over and over mm-hmm <affirmative> and it helps you learn these things or ingrain it into you. What types of, you know, behaviors do you suggest, um, leaders and their team's practice to start to get a little bit more psychologically safe? Mm.
Tara:
Something that I often suggest, especially with remote teams is having the first five minutes, not be about work. Just have a conversation, take five minutes, cuz you know that people are gonna be like taking a little bit of time to get to the call. So you're probably just gonna be waiting for someone anyway, it's the awkward silence. Utilize those five minutes to use kind of like a talking stick and just go around a circle and pick a different topic. I have had people roll my eyes, roll their eyes at me before for that. But then afterwards recognize like, okay, you actually did have a purpose behind that. And the real purpose is to get people talking. So just starting to use your voice a little bit, even if you're just talking about what you did for the weekend, what movies you watched, what, what activities did you do?
I don't care what the topic is like worst movie you've ever seen. Doesn't really matter. It's not about it being an icebreaker. It's really about just getting used to hearing your own voice and being less afraid to use it. So that's a tool that I really like to use, especially for groups where maybe it's an obnoxiously big team <laugh> and there's kind of nothing at the moment they can do about that. It's a really great way just to get people recognizing the sound of their own voice and that it's not only okay, but they should be hearing it.
Melissa:
I like that a lot. Yeah. I do that with my team. Uh, we have like a Wednesday meeting for like the, we end up going like 15 minutes, 20 minutes just talking about like what we were doing, what was going on. And then we're like, oh wait, we have to talk about work now.
Tara:
Right. Right. Which is, I think is great. It's really great. Because then someone will go off on a tangent. Like I remember working with this team a few years ago where huge, huge team. Oh, it was an infrastructure team. They, um, they were really having like an identity crisis in many ways. And I was working with them in all sorts of different ways, but I had done this kind of practice of this, you know, virtual talking stick. And it was the first time I had ever actually seen them have conversations where they were actually interested in other people and not just the work. It was like, oh my gosh, you did that thing too. I actually live really close to you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just was like, yes, like this is what I wanna see. I wanna see people excited and you know, human connection cannot just be about work. Like it goes back to just like being plain old human beings. It doesn't mean that you have to be besties with all the people you work with, but it does mean that you treat other people with respect and with curiosity.
Melissa:
Yeah. And I think like the best environments, like particularly just kind of selfishly for myself that I've ever worked in. You like having off the book, conversations with the people around you, like, you feel like you could drop in and just be like, how's your cat? <laugh>,
Tara:
How's your cat.
Melissa:
Like let's uh, let's chat, let's do this. Let's go places. And right. Um, I see that for other people too. Like when product managers come and tell me they're leaving or wanna go to another, uh, company, it's because they have no rapport with their team whatsoever. Yeah. You know, it's like, they feel like they can't talk to anybody, to anybody in the organization. Um, and I think that counts so much for, you know, us showing up at work and being our full selves and being happy.
Tara:
It really does. I think that when we, we do ourselves such a disservice, when we feel like we have to have this canned version of ourself. Um, but again, I think that comes from old trauma from like old school jobs. When I worked at that mental health clinic that I mentioned I was not safe at all. It was very much so like old school family run business where I didn't feel safe talking to anyone. And I was the last, I, I feel like I recognize that it was a problem with me last because I saw it with everyone else. But oftentimes I think people don't see it with themselves. They might see it in other people like I'll interview someone and they'll say, oh, you know, so and so on my team never really shows up. I think that they don't feel safe. They're really quiet.
And then I go into a conversation with them and, and maybe they're leader and I have to give them the feedback, like, Hey, just so you know, here's what I observed with you. And they might not even be aware of it. And they're like, oh really? Do I do that? And I'm like, yep. But sometimes you just need an extra set of eyes so that you can have like a neutral party come in and say, you know what? This is something that I think you struggle with too. The struggle might just look different. Some people shut down. Some people don't stop talking because they're nervous. Some people have nervous laughter like we all have our own things. But the more that you can just get familiar with yourself and have that self-awareness the better off you are.
Melissa:
So if you are like an individual contributor on a team, right. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you're not a leader. Um, you're not an executive. Yeah. But you're observing like your company is incredibly unsafe. Is there anything you can do to start, you know, poking at that or encouraging people to be a little bit more safe? Yeah,
Tara:
Absolutely. I think that there's a few things that can be done. I think that, um, especially for remote stuff, folks have burnt out hard and fast on remote or virtual happy hours. <laugh> oh yeah. But something that I have seen be successful is virtual coffees. So like during your Workday taking 15 minutes to have a break and just saying like, Hey, if you have a meeting right now, like this is not mandatory for anyone, but if you wanna drop into a conversation, can we just have like 15 minutes to talk? I've seen that be super successful. I've gone into those before where it was only like a few people from the team, but I've gone before where it's been everyone. And I think it's a really nice way to have an invitation to take a break if you want it. But if you don't want it, you don't have to participate.
So I think it's really important to have it be like an invitation, but I also really encourage people to, I know I talked about working agreements before and somebody did a talk today that I really wanted to catch, but it was in conflict with another one. Um, I really think it's so important to have a working agreement or a social contract that you actually keep up with that doesn't live on your hard drive. You never look at it, but actually have one that you abide by because I think it really helps you be responsible for yourself and be responsible for your team. So if you don't have one and you're on a team where you feel like man, we could really use a little more structure, suggest it, just say, Hey, do we think that we could do something like this and actu or if we have one and we don't use it, can we talk about how we can maintain it or make it better?
Cuz if there's something on that, you know, I always say don't have more than five items cause you'll never remember. But if, if there's something on there that you already do, you don't need to have it there. Like what do you really need to call out? There was one team I worked with years ago where they were just could not stop themselves from negative spinning. It was a team full of really great folks, but they'd super frustrated and it would just divulge into this hour long rant about how DevOps sucks and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, how about, so I just suggested like what if we had a safe word every time you started negatively spinning, like, and they said, yeah, let's use the word pineapple. They printed out the social contract, sat on their desk and they actually used it. And I saw them in conversation.
Someone would slam their hand on the desk and be like pineapple we're moving on. And then it makes everybody relax a little bit and, and move on. So I think that if you feel like there isn't enough structure and, and a social contractor working agreement, aren't rules. Yeah. What, what do they look like? I think it can look like, um, it's not so much, you know, uh, like schedules and things like everyday standup is at nine o'clock it's more so, uh, we all agree to not talk over each other as much as possible on zoom calls or we all agree that if we have a good idea to speak up about it, um, we all agree not to judge each other harshly. Then it's like say safety baked right into your working agreement. And we all agree. This is one that I love to see on there to actually use this, to hold each other responsible for what we do so that it's not gonna be this uncomfortable conversation.
It's Hey, we actually have this in our social contract. So let's make sure we abide by it because it really helps strengthen the team. Cuz then when you, you have someone new come into the team, it's not so much rules that you're showing them like, Hey, this is how our team operates. That's a great time to say, Hey, this is our social contract. What do you think of it? And what do you think is missing? So it's just kind of a way to continue having your team culture ebb and flow within just a tiny little piece of paper. And I love that. I like
Melissa:
That. Yeah. It's an easy step for people
Tara:
To do. It's super easy. Yep.
Melissa:
Yeah. Good little like baby step into everything.
Tara:
Exactly.
Melissa:
So can you give us, uh, a real life example too, of where you came into maybe like a really large organization looked at all of these, you know, factors and then help lead them on their journey?
Tara:
Absolutely. So, uh, I was within a large, a really large organization a couple of months ago where there was a real need for many teams to have, um, this survey done. Uh, but there was one team in particular where the leader said, I really wanna do this because I, I think that our team is great. Like they were super passionate and they said, I think our team is great, but I wanna make sure that we're showing up in the best way possible. I said, awesome. Let's do that. So the team shows up on the call and it was all virtual of course. Um, and there was one new employee on the call. And as soon as we got on the phone, this new employee said, and they had all taken the survey already. I'd met with them individually. Uh, this person had said to me also in our individual conversation, you know what, I'm new, so I'm not gonna have a lot to contribute, but I'm happy to be here.
I said, that's okay. Like I think actually being new is a benefit because you're gonna see things that other people don't yet. So don't be afraid to use your voice. Um, and I also recognize that when you're new, you just kind of feel a little awkward and you're trying to find your voice. So this new employee shows up on the call is super quiet for probably the first half an hour of this debrief. And then someone brings up, we're talking about open conversation, um, and willing it was actually, no, it was willingness to help. So I said, you know, in terms of willingness to help, do you feel like you all have access to what you need to actually be able to show up and, and do the things, things that you need to do? And the new employee said no. And the executive said, I could tell that they wanted to talk and I kind of messaged them on the side.
I said, just give them space. So sometimes I'll do that. I'll just go into chat privately and say, just give them a minute to talk because they might feel like they have to say things a certain way because you're the boss, even though you don't wanna be the, the boss in this situation, you can't take that hat off. It exists. And so I said, can you tell me a little bit more about that? And they said, well, you know, I'm, I'm really excited to be here. I I'm, I'm loving my job, but there have been so many times where I just feel like I'm kind of like up the river without like an oar, and I can't, I, I can't find my way back to land and I have questions and nobody is available and nobody, nobody. And then it just kind of spiraled into, and nobody checks in on me and I I've been here for a couple months and I don't know if this is a good fit.
Like it went from being this, you know, I don't wanna talk cuz I'm new to, I don't know if this is working out because I literally feel so alone. And my job is to really reinforce like all emotions are valid. So, and then of course they start apologizing. They're like, I'm new. I'm so sorry. Like it's basically watching someone go through this whole spectrum of emotions. Meanwhile, the new manager is like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that this was even a problem. And so, but the problem, it, it can't be about taking something personally. Like let's just change what doesn't work. So when the conversation was over, I said, okay, now we've gone into some of these issues. Let's talk about what's top priority and this new employee, because they had been using their voice said, can, can we talk about how to make onboarding a better process for new employees?
Because this was really hard for me. And the executive said, absolutely. And I'm so appreciative that you shared, and it was like this really awesome moment of this. Isn't just about, you know, it is absolutely about this individual's experience and it's about everybody who's coming in after this person, who's going to experience something probably very similar because they just don't have a great setup for it. And I was really proud of the executive for staying calm and not feeling like they had to fix everything in that moment, because it's not about fixing. I have to remind people many times like this two hours is about like, remember these things and we write them down, but this is not a solutioning session. This is about getting all of this stuff out into the open. And by the end it was like, okay. So in this roadmap we really wanna make sure that we have a better onboarding process.
Well, how do we know what success looks like there? So then we'll dive into like, what are some metrics or some things that we can measure around that. So for them, it was having, you know, daily check-ins with an employee the first two weeks, just to say like, Hey, how are things going? Are you getting the help that you need? Especially if someone's new to a collaborative team environment, they always feel hesitant to ask anyway, but we had all these touchpoints that we were able to go back to. And then the next time I had a conversation with that team, maybe it was the next week later just to check in on where things were going. Um, it's really ensuring that we stay on track. So that was like a really great, uh, conversation around what could we do within the organization, not just the team, but this team is probably not the only person who's experiencing this. And then when I went on to measure other teams at this huge organization, it was definitely a problem like across the board. So it's kind of like, my job is very much so like being a detective. So I'll pick up little pieces here and there and we'll try my absolute best not to make assumptions, but I'll pull out the thread just to see if that thread leads me to something bigger, which it usually does.
Melissa:
Yeah. That's really cool. That's a great story on that. Um, I think, you know, this is absolutely critical for all these organizations to start thinking about and if you wanna be a successful leader, you know, I, I get questions from people who are like, how do I be a great product leader? How do I be this? I think this is such a, so, so something they really need to pay attention to. Yeah. So if you wanna, if you are a leader out there and you wanna learn more about psychological safety, uh, where can they learn from you?
Tara:
Yeah. Um, well they can always find me on LinkedIn, uh, Tara Scott, um, also with industrial logic. Um, let's see what else. I'm also working on a book, but that is still in process. Um, but they can always reach out to me on LinkedIn. Um, I'm also happy to have, um, I do 30 minute conversations with organizations all the time. If they just wanna know more about the things that we offer. So I'm always happy to have a conversation around that as well. Great.
Melissa:
So if you are a product leader out there or any leader and you really wanna see if your team is psychologically safe or work through these issues, please reach out to Tara, um, through those avenues and for the rest of you, uh, I hope this really inspires you to maybe, you know, talk to people in your organization a little bit more build those bridges and those connections so that you can have a great working environment with them.
Tara (45:48):
Absolutely. One thing I do wanna mention, we also do offer a public class called the psychological safety workshop. Oh cool. And we make sure that it happens within a smaller working hours. So people don't have to take their whole days. We do have a few seats left. It starts September 19th. So if you're interested in doing that, you can also find that on the industrial logic website.
Melissa:
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being with us, Tara. It's been a pleasure and thank you all for listening to the product thinking podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Um, that really helps us and we'd love it. If you could leave us a review. Um, so please let us know, put that rating in there, um, and tell us what you wanna hear about next and otherwise we will see you next Wednesday for another Dear Melissa.