TWO MAJOR ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURES

What do Dieselgate and the explosion of the Death Star in Star Wars have in common?

As it turns out, quite a lot.

Both VW and the Empire are large organisations with a large and highly skilled workforce, engaged in very complex products and services: building cars and oppressing the galaxy.

Both had very ambitious goals: become the largest automotive manufacturer and maintain coercive rule over the known galaxy.

And still, both had spectacular failures. VW hadn’t planned on paying billions in penalties¹ and the Empire certainly hadn’t planned on having to finance a second Death Star.

UNAVOIDABLE MISTAKES?

Were these failures unavoidable? Could no one have known in advance?

Well, let’s look at two quotes:

 

“The CARB [California Air Resources Board] is not realistic. We can do quite a bit, and we will do quite a bit. But impossible we cannot do”²

Wolfgang Hatz, 2007

 

“We have analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger”

Moradmin Bast, 5 minutes before the Death Star explodes

 

Clearly, the relevant information was known at least in parts of the organizations. But these were either ignored or not sufficiently shared. If you are the Emperor or the CEO of VW, you will have a very pointed question after this comes to light: “Why was this information not shared or acted upon?”

After all, you want to make sure that you don’t have to finance a third Death Star or start saving up money for the next round of penalties in the future.

How can we explain this collective failure, so the organizations don’t repeat these kinds of mistakes?

The answer is: low Psychological Safety.

THE DANGERS OF LOW PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

But what is Psychological Safety? The term was popularized by Amy Edmondson and can be defined as: “the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes”.

And why would I want to have Psychological Safety in my organization?

Because it makes it easier for individuals and organizations to learn and adapt.

If no one challenges the status quo or a leader’s decision because they are afraid to be seen as annoying, things calcify. Or Death Stars blow up.

If mistakes only come to light on day 100 instead of day 2 because people are afraid of punishment, the damage will almost certainly be higher. Like having to pay billions in penalties for bad diesel engines.

If no one feels safe enough to admit gaps in their knowledge or ask for support because it might make them look incompetent, then they will likely not get the necessary support or training, etc. etc.

DON’T BE A WUSS, JUST SPEAK UP

An objection might be: “What’s the problem? We are all grown-ups and professionals, I can and should expect others to speak up, and if they have to face a little headwind or uncomfortable reactions while doing so, so be it. We’re not a charity, we’re running a business!”³

Well, if you are working for the empire, it is entirely rational to stay quiet and be very careful where you voice your dissent – after all, Darth Vader is known to literally choke his co-workers to death over some disagreements.

But in real life, what consequences do we realistically have to face up to? Will we be in physical danger? Would you have been fired immediately? Would your career have been over? Probably not. Few people have been fired for a silly question. And even if they did, there are other jobs out there, and at least in most of the developed world, people do not face starvation if they do not have jobs.

So why are we so careful in group interactions? Why are we so intent on creating a positive impression of ourselves?

EVOLUTIONARY ROOTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Evolutionary speaking, carefully monitoring how we are perceived by others is eminently sensible. Humans can only survive in groups, to this very day. Even the most competent stone-age person needs someone to watch the fire when they sleep, find food if they are injured, etc. Today, even if you live a solitary life, someone needs to stack the supermarket shelves 😊

So, maintaining our image and place in the group was literally a matter of life and (eventual) death. And thus we developed very sensitive antennae that help us not endangering our group membership, by e.g. saying something unpopular, challenging someone powerful, questioning prevailing wisdom etc.

No one wants to come across as ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, complaining etc.

And how can we prevent to come across like that?

Easy!

Don’t want to come across as ignorant or incompetent? Hide your mistakes and gaps in knowledge.

Don’t want to come across as rocking the boat? Don’t challenge the status quo too much, voice uncomfortable truths or challenge powerful people.

Since undoing these socially risky behaviours is impossible, the vast majority of us prefer to be safe rather than sorry.

SITUATIONAL SOCIAL RISK ANALYSIS

What does this behaviour of protecting our image look like in practice?

Whenever we are in a situation in which we have the option to be vulnerable, we ask ourselves – consciously or unconsciously – “is showing this vulnerability work the risk?”.

If I do X, will this result in me being criticised, losing prestige or status in the eyes of those around me, result in punishment or humiliation? Or will I be praised, thanked or respected?

So while it is understandable to say “What’s the problem? Just speak up!”, this mind-set is about as useful as expecting people not to twitch when touching an electric fence. We cannot avoid our self-preservation instincts.

THE UPSIDE OF HIGH PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Now before you walk away from this with the impression that Psychological Safety is only useful for avoiding failures, rest assured, it is so much more!

High levels of psychological safety are the highest predictor for high performance teams⁴ because they help create a workplace in which employees feel they can:

• Freely share innovative ideas and spark creativity.
• Ask questions and express half-finished thoughts without fear.
• Admit and learn from mistakes in a non-punitive environment.
• Engage in critical thought and challenge the status quo.
• Contribute to continuous learning and healthy innovation through open dialogue.

All of these points are vital to succeed in a complex and interdependent world, and they frankly make for a much nicer workplace as well.

HOW TO HARM PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Before we get into how we can foster high levels of psychological safety, it is worth spending just a bit of time on what not to do. Because psychological safety is a bit like trust: it is much faster to destroy it than to build it.

So watch out for things like:

• Punishing failure harshly or publicly – because it does not reduce the rate of mistakes that much; what it does do is reduce the detection rate of mistakes because people will hide them from you.
• Dismissing ideas out of hand – because team members may feel their input is undervalued, leading them to withhold potentially groundbreaking ideas in the future.
• Encouraging competition over collaboration – because now people want to withhold information or support from each other and have to guard against their colleagues
• Failing to acknowledge your own mistakes, weaknesses or areas for development – because it undermines trust and respect in a leader, setting a tone that admitting faults is undesirable, which can result in a culture where mistakes are hidden rather than addressed and learned from.
• Avoiding feedback and concerns – because people will learn that bringing up these things with you does not lead to improvement, so you will stop hearing about them
• Etc.

Two rules of thumb can help us avoid these kinds of behaviours:

1. If your behaviour leads to people thinking “yeah I’m not doing that again” after they showed vulnerability, you shouldn’t do that.
2. Would you want to see this behaviour in your team members or your own leader? If not, don’t do it yourself.

HOW TO FOSTER PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

We have looked at what not to do, but how can we foster psychological safety?

Amy Edmondson provides a three step guideline, which we will explore together:

1. Set the stage
2. Invite participation
3. Respond productively

SET THE STAGE:

Two major things we can do to set the stage are:

1. Clear expectation management
2. Re-framing mistakes

Clear expectation management can involve any number of things. For example:

• Make it clear you know that mistakes are unavoidable when doing complex or interdependent tasks and you do not expect them to work 100% mistake free. In fact, you expect them to make mistakes and to share them
• Make it clear you will not punish mistakes. In fact you should make it very clear how you will react to mistakes, otherwise your colleagues/team members will make their own assumptions. I.e. something along the lines of “if you come to me with a mistake, I will never rub your nose in it. I will help you with insights, support, coaching or whatever it is that is needed.”
• Have a team meeting in which you discuss what kind of mistakes are likely to crop up, where are complexity and interdependence especially high? This way, you and your team’s expectations are aligned
• Share openly that you as the boss do not have all the answers. You need input, ideas, challenges from your team members so that good decisions are made

Re-Framing mistakes means changing the way you and your team think and talk about mistakes. Steps can include:

• Make it clear that just because something didn’t work out doesn’t mean it was a mistake to try it. We often only know once we try
• Explaining that mistakes are learning opportunities, no matter how stupid the mistake. In the “Responding productively” section we will look into how we can translate this promise into action
• Pointing out that the best mistakes to learn from are the mistakes of other people. But that only works if we share them openly

INVITE PARTICIPATION:

This means leading by example.

The more powerful you are in a group interaction, the more people look to you for cues of what constitutes acceptable or desirable behaviour. So if you do not show vulnerability first, others won’t risk it.

So try to do some of the following:

• Share your very own mistakes regularly and openly and ask your colleagues or team members what can be learned from them and how you can adapt your behaviour
• Remember: if you only share small problems, others will take that as a cue that only small mistakes are acceptable
• Admit openly when you do not know or understand something
• Listen attentively and signal that you do so

It also means asking good questions. Good questions in this context means asking questions that have some of the following characteristics:

• You do not know the answer
• They are open
• Invite others to share their thinking in a focused way
• They generate energy and forward movement

Example questions could be:

• “What might we be missing?”,
• “What other ideas could we generate?”
• “Who has a different perspective?
• “What did the dissenter say?”
• “What mistake can we learn from today?”
• “What is your biggest obstacle this week?”
• “What did you learn from this?”

Finally, Inviting Participation means creating structures that invite input. For example, have a monthly meeting in which relevant mistakes are shared openly and you can derive learnings together.

RESPOND PRODUCTIVELY:

So you have created clear expectations and invited participation. Now, the moment of truth: someone actually shows vulnerability by sharing a big mistake in your next team meeting. Now everyone (including the person sharing the mistake) will carefully observe how you and/or the group reacts.

Does the leader/group react well? Then others might emulate vulnerability in the future.

Does the leader/group react poorly? Then others will learn very quickly not to emulate that vulnerability.

So what constitutes a productive response to moments of vulnerability? It means doing things like:

• Appreciating and praising people for showing vulnerability and taking a risk. “Thank you for bringing this up”, “I appreciate you sharing that mistake, I know that’s not easy”, etc.
• Providing support and deriving learnings together
• Explaining why a particular idea would or would not work in a particular circumstance. “I appreciate the idea, but due to budget constraints we have to stay below 30’000 €. Can we modify that idea to stay below the budget?”
• Showing discretion or protecting someone, especially if you are the leader

Two rules of thumb are:

1. If I were to show vulnerability by sharing a mistake, admitting I need support, etc., what kind of reaction do I hope for? Just do that 😊
2. When someone shows vulnerability, how can I react so the person is better off afterwards than before? Hint: telling someone off for a mistake does not mean they are better off 😉

BUT WHAT ABOUT UNETHICAL OR INTENTIONALLY HARMFUL BEHAVIOUR?

This category is the exception. If you or others notice behaviour that is unethical or intentionally harmful, people expect sanctions. And this usually doesn’t negatively impact psychological safety.

On the contrary, it shows that psychological safety is not an invitation for freeloading, unethical behaviour or the like.

Just be clear about what you are sanctioning it, how and why you are doing it. For example, “because value X was violated by doing Y, I am doing Z to show that we are serious about this value”.

SUMMING UP:

A complex world makes mistakes unavoidable and innovation necessary. But sharing these things makes us vulnerable, and human beings are very reluctant to do so because it endangers their place in the group.

Psychological safety means creating an environment in which people feel safe to take interpersonal risks and be vulnerable.

If we had to reduce it to one single guideline:

• If I were to show vulnerability by sharing a mistake, admitting I need support, etc., what kind of reaction would I hope for? Just do that 😊

 

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¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

² https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/business/international/vw-executive-had-a-pivotal-role-as-car-maker-struggled-with-emissions.html

³  Edmondson, Amy C.; Mortensen, Mark (2021-04-19). “What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace”. Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012. Retrieved 2022-12-20.

⁴ https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-emea/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/five-dynamics-effective-team/