At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams. If you care about it- talk to us about a demo at contact@peoplenottech.com
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“I resign from…” vs. “I resign to…”
It seems everyone has had at least the fleeting thought of what to do to next professionally in light of the pandemic. Most of us have done more than a mere thought and actively evaluated and executed the change.
The ever-growing body of research that points to the endemic lack of engagement for those that stay put, lends a sinister double meaning to the term “#GreatResignation. It seems the question really is “Should I resign and leave or resign to the status quo and stay?”
Psychological Safety dramatically reduces the likelihood that people leave their jobs when it’s present in their teams so it should be our quickest retention strategy. The 30% reduction in staff turnover attributed to an increase in Psychological Safety in this report and others is an amazing number (and one that should have built many a business cases) but it is an old one – that percentage is likely to be double now in the midst the #GreatResignation after the moment the pandemic represented to all of us. Think about it – it stands to such logical reason it’s almost hard to believe the answer to many of our present and upcoming people issues is quite that glaringly simple: People don’t leave teams they love working with.
The power of a tight-knit happy crew as a retention mechanism can not be overstated. Being part of your own “squad” or “posse”, “gang”, “band”, whatever we call a team we love, and doing great work together – that’s living one’s professional dream. The well-being people derive from being in teams where they can truly be themselves fearlessly, should never be underestimated.
Well-versed headhunters will often ask leading and pointed questions about the team their prospective candidate is currently in, so they assess the likelihood of plucking them out. Because they know, the happier someone is with their team the harder it is to lure them out of it with bigger numbers or more perks.
How much?
Not enough exists in terms of numbers to point to so far, but a sense of creative freedom, of allowed authenticity, of common shared purpose and of belonging while seeing results is addictive and indubitably hard to exchange for a bigger paycheck or a promise of ping-pong and half time remote.
Considering how big of a deal it is, one would have thought there would be tens of studies out there to show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that being part of a happy and healthy team dynamic is X% more important than more money every year or Y% more useful than free gym memberships but there aren’t and their absence enhances the HumanDebt™ that companies keep adding to by not understanding that to retain humans they need to be in a happy team.
In a sense, the lack of clear numbers allows companies to keep ignoring it and be lazy about the human work. Then again numbers on engagement are crystal clear as are the numbers on D&I and yet that clarity hasn’t moved the needle, not really, so perhaps it isn’t the number that’s the problem but the recognition that denial about the importance of a happy team allows the inaction some organisations crave.
Who’s afraid of the People Work?
Truth is? Everyone.
There is team level fear and individual level dread and everyone is at least apprehensive if not appalled – doing emotional and relationship work is hard for every human being and ostensibly not part of the job description for the vast majority of us so we tend to resist it as hard as we can but we all still know it’s the most valuable of all works and more space and permission should exist for it.
Where is the permission from the organisation? What’s the hold-up? Why isn’t it so clearly desirable that people do this work that their efforts are measured alongside all other work they do?
Why don’t employees get rewarded for intentionally bettering their group dynamic? For the learning about emotions? For the openness? For being vulnerable at times, for daring to stay connected and emotionally involved? Why don’t organisations get so clear on the importance of having Psychological Safety get worked on that the behaviour and dynamics of teams become a chief preoccupation that they are rethinking compensation and performance measurements around? Why is there so little done to tool and empower teams?
In this McKinsey study they postulated the imperative to have Psychological Safety to keep your talent and then went on to show what types of leadership breed it and stated that -unsurprisingly- the authoritarian challengers get less done in this respect than the supportive and consultative leaders which only means that servant leadership has a greater chance to foster Psychological Safety than command and control which is something we were all painfully aware of.
Where it becomes interesting is where the idea of “fostering it” immediate seems to remain blurry and superfluous in lieu of grounded in data and clear actions and it seems to suggest it’s only a to-do for the respective leader. That a team leader just encouraging people to participate and occasionally modelling vulnerability will be enough when really, in addition to that, the fostering needs to start at the enterprise level with what we call “true organisation permission”.
The Elusive Permission Slip
It’s only with enough organisational permission that it will then all translate into an appetite and habit for doing the people-work, which translates into less HumanDebt and more happy teams – the only way to keep anyone and make sure that anyone else has their heart into it.
Truth is, if we’re honest, despite the increased rhetoric around the people topics – if you ignore the tech/knowledge days, the webinars, and the Twitter and LinkedIn posturing in posts and comments, and focus instead on the clear people-priorities we see most non-built-around-people organisations have for next year, the picture is grim.
The list of topics they are “prioritising” seems tremendously tone-deaf and not very different than their list in 2010 or 2018. It seems to ignore the realities of hybrid and remote, there is no change in what is measured and certainly no open discussion in what is rewarded in terms of doing the people work.
I do worry that our pessimistic predictions are coming true in that the pull to the set-point where the HumanDebt makes these organisations obstinately continue to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to the people work is stupendous and we were in fact correct to believe the window is closing for making the human work priority zero.
Make no mistake about it, this has the makings of an HR crisis of greater proportions than we imagine over the next few years – unless companies have a true “Come to Jesus” moment where they wake up and say “Right, we need to get serious – we need big permission slips to say “Here are tools and here is time – PLEASE, we want you to do the human work – the self-care and the team-care alike, in fact, we think it’s so important we’ll reward you for it, these are updated job descriptions – we do expect you to be happy, we do expect you to stay – tell us what you need” and we need to say it over and over again till they believe us”.
Do us a favour over the next week and examine your priorities for your people for 2022 – are they the best you can do? Have you used at least that 30% number and is Psychological Safety and organisational permission at the top of the list? Will you be stopping those that resign because of the HumanDebt or will they go, and the ones that stay will have to join you in resigning TO the HumanDebt and how unhappy and unproductive it makes us all?
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This Thursday on the Fundamentals of Psychological Safety Series: What Psychological Safety is NOT so subscribe there so you have it in your inbox.
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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are: Understand, Measure and Improve
Read more about our Team Dashboard that measures and improves Psychological Safety at www.peoplenottech.com or reach out at contact@peoplenottech.com and let’s help your teams become Psychologically Safe, healthy, happy and highly performant.
To order the “People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age” book go to this Amazon link