National Inclusion Week – Build Trust, Navigate Change

How psychologically safe is your organisation? Starting with Trust…

Trust, a word of only 5 letters but immense in size and meaning – so hard to build, so quickly lost, but worth every effort to achieve and maintain.  Some are quick to trust, others are slow, if ever. This all has to be navigated, thought about, built into the fabric of the organisation through those who lead and set the example of what building trust looks like. This is a great responsibility, but it is fundamental, crucial.

What enables trust to live within an organisation?

Inclusion is one of the cornerstones for building and maintaining trust. And in any organisation, big or small, Psychological Safety is a key element that needs to be present for inclusion, real and integrated, and as a result trust, to thrive.

With this understanding, therefore, we have added a tool to our toolkit - Psychological Safety – A Cultural Necessity. The expertise we bring is not just around organisational culture, with a deep understanding of its role in the success of any organisation, especially through the people within it, where relationships are based on respect for and trust in each other. We also work every day with organisations who are striving to tackle inequalities and with a partner who keeps teaching us valuable lessons about inclusion because it is the world they are immersed in.

On that basis, the tool we have created acknowledges the weight of all of these: trust, respect, inclusion…they are all intertwined. It asks some key questions which are meant more as a test than a tell. It is designed to make leaders look around their organisation and reflect on what they do, feel, hear and see – from senior leaders to members of their team, but importantly from their own point of view too because, if they don’t trust that they are safe to share or voice their opinion then the likelihood is that there are many others in the organisation who feel the same.

That reflection calls for honesty and awareness – both of self and others as to what is happening around them. What is the culture in which they work? Does collaboration happen across teams because everyone’s role is understood and valued for the contribution it makes? Is creativity and innovation allowed to flourish – where different opinions are permitted and explored?  Does change happen with, not to, people in the organisation, as change can not be navigated when people do not trust those who are trying to lead them through it.

The model included in the tool to provide a starting place for what is meant by a psychologically safe organisation

The tool is meant to be a starting place to understand where the gaps exist, from which to start building a more psychologically safe, more inclusive culture. It is not the answer, it is the beginning of a journey – to building an organisation where trust is more easily given and carefully protected, where everyone feels welcomed and valued and, no matter who they are or the nature of their role in the organisation, feel safe and confident to be honest and open in their interactions and contributions without fear of being judged or prejudiced unfairly.

Here is just one of the questions the tool asks of a leader (it was hard to choose), because everything starts with those that lead – do you:

As a role model leader, show that you are also “a work in progress”, who is at times vulnerable, enabling others to feel empowered to keep striving, knowing that the concept of ‘perfect’ is not how they will be measured?

And as a leader of your ‘team’, in whatever form that is, do you:

Respect and celebrate the differences between team members, knowing that diversity within a team can bring richness of perspective and breadth of ideas and make sure that the same respect is shared between team members where everyone has a voice – unafraid to speak up, ask questions, contribute, participate fully without fear, hesitation or reserve?

On the basis that we are all “a work in progress”: Do you, as a leader do this, see this? How psychologically safe is your organisation?