WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:04.080 Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership. I'm Chris and Lorenzo, and welcome to this 2 00:00:04.120 --> 00:00:07.799 week's Thoughtful Thursday. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube at Hacking Your Leadership 3 00:00:07.799 --> 00:00:11.160 and leave us a review on iTunes. On this Thoughtful Thursday, I want 4 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:15.000 to talk about kind of a follow up to our Monday episode. On we 5 00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:18.320 talked about the four stages of psychological safety, and we got some really good 6 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:22.039 feedback and comments from our listeners on how much they liked that episode. It 7 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:25.000 was a little longer than normal, but there was just so much good content 8 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:27.399 in there. So if you haven't listened to that yet, go back and 9 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:30.239 listen to it and you'll have a little bit more context for this episode. 10 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:36.719 I want to talk about how not everybody in the room can be expected to 11 00:00:36.759 --> 00:00:40.759 play every single role. If if you're having a psychologically safe group, like 12 00:00:40.799 --> 00:00:44.560 I'll give you an example. I know that if I'm putting a room and 13 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:48.679 someone says, solve this problem, I'll look at it like I don't know 14 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:52.000 where to begin. But if I come into a room that is where people 15 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:56.359 have been contributing ideas for a period of an hour or two, and they 16 00:00:56.359 --> 00:00:58.799 have certain things up there, on the whiteboard and they're looking through certain things, 17 00:00:59.159 --> 00:01:00.679 I can I can committo that room and look at it and kind of 18 00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:04.400 pick things apart and and kind of optimize them and figure out what what part 19 00:01:04.719 --> 00:01:07.280 parts of it will work, what part of it parts of it won't work, 20 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:12.200 almost like a like a from a user experienced perspective as opposed to you 21 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:17.480 know, starting from scratch, and and everybody is different with regard to what 22 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:21.040 there's where their strengths lie. And I think when it comes to the topic 23 00:01:21.079 --> 00:01:25.040 of psychological safety, assuming that everybody in the room, if you have a 24 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:27.200 psychologically safe team, is all going to raise their hand and say we got 25 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:30.280 to change the way things are doing that, you know that that isn't necessarily 26 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:34.239 the case. Some people just aren't comfortable doing that, not because it's not 27 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:38.560 psychologically safe, but because it's not who they are. They're not They're not 28 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:44.560 the one who has the ability to innately see something that is being done wrong 29 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:49.359 or or where an optimization can be made. They're they're better at kind of 30 00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:52.359 coming up with the idea to begin with. This is this is a lot 31 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:55.519 of nuance here, and it can lead teams to think that there is a 32 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:57.799 problem with psychological safety when there might not necessarily be one. Yeah, I 33 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:01.840 think it's it's when you think about that first foundational step around just the ability 34 00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:07.199 to feel included and feel valued for unique perspective, you've got to find ways 35 00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:10.520 to share that. You have to find ways of saying, like, what 36 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:15.280 what are the unique perspectives, what are the unique skills and strengths that we 37 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:17.560 have collectively as a team. What are the things that we bring to the 38 00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:23.240 table, and how do we show appreciation for those different talents and strengths, 39 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:24.879 but also how do we put those to use? And like what are those 40 00:02:25.080 --> 00:02:29.280 what are those scenarios, what are those things that we do? How do 41 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:31.400 we find that value? Because to your point, like you know, I've 42 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:36.199 had people on those teams that you know, eight or ten people in the 43 00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:38.599 meeting, we're talking, we're talking, we're talking. They're really quiet for 44 00:02:38.639 --> 00:02:43.520 like fifteen twenty minutes. It's not that they're ignoring everybody. They're listening. 45 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:46.560 They're not in their head, they're thinking about stuff, they're writing things down 46 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:52.000 like they're in the moment, but they're not actively participating at the level of 47 00:02:52.039 --> 00:02:54.360 maybe others are participating. And then they'll get to the point where they'll raise 48 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:58.360 their hand and they'll say, hey, okay, I heard this, I 49 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:01.520 heard that, you said this. I think if we took that and that 50 00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:07.280 and we put that together with this, this would help us get here and 51 00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:12.000 this would be a good place for us to start. Like that skill is 52 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.039 such an important skill. But if you looked at it and said, no, 53 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:17.599 everybody, I want everybody in here. So you have to share right 54 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:21.400 now, you have to give an idea like there might be a time for 55 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:27.000 that. And and maybe there's those moments when you don't have any element of 56 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:30.840 inclusive nature where you have to force the ability for everybody to have a voice 57 00:03:30.840 --> 00:03:36.000 in the room. But that's definitely not the most productive way, and it 58 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:39.759 doesn't allow there to be that element of individuality when it comes to like how 59 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:44.280 people process, how they think and where they add the value. And so 60 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:49.960 I always think about that being a thing you have to consider when you're when 61 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:53.639 you're really building that foundation element is what are the small practices or things that 62 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:58.560 you can do to bring this to life for a team and celebrate the fact 63 00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:03.680 that everybody brings something different and then appreciate each other for those contributions that they're 64 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:08.719 making to help the idea or the strategy become better. Right, if you 65 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:13.439 are expecting a contribution from every person, almost like you're trying to validate that 66 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:16.480 there is psychological safety, or you're trying to validate that everybody has that opportunity 67 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:19.879 to have a voice. By forcing that that voice to happen, you'll end 68 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.920 up with two things. One, you'll have people who don't feel a psychologically 69 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:27.120 safe because they're being put on the spot to contribute something. Maybe when they 70 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:30.120 don't have the knowledge, skills, or ability to contribute something to this, 71 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:34.360 maybe they still are taking things in. Or they don't feel like they have 72 00:04:34.439 --> 00:04:39.199 the right to speak up, not because it's not a psychologically safe environment, 73 00:04:39.319 --> 00:04:42.879 but because they haven't earned the right to speak up on this particular topic, 74 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:46.199 for whatever the subject matter is. Or you'll end up with people who are 75 00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:51.199 constantly speaking up because they know that's the expectation, and they're they're gonna throw 76 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:55.959 out ideas and make contributions that don't move anything forward. They're going to be 77 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:00.519 they're gonna be meaningless or irrelevant or hurtful because the expectation is such that everybody 78 00:05:00.519 --> 00:05:04.279 contributes, and I have nothing meaningful to contribute, But I got to come 79 00:05:04.360 --> 00:05:09.199 up with something, So let's pickhole. Let's let's throw something out there and 80 00:05:09.240 --> 00:05:14.360 see what happens. That that's not a good thing. That that's just trying 81 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:16.439 to validate your own leadership in making sure that you know that, Hey, 82 00:05:16.480 --> 00:05:19.040 every everybody in the room was able to speak up because I forced them to 83 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:21.639 speak up. That's not That's not a good thing. Um. What I 84 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:26.199 want to ask you, Lorenzo, is when when is a time when you 85 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.920 have felt this in a room, when you have you know, kind of 86 00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:34.639 seen that this is a need to happen. And it may have gone maybe 87 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:40.399 against what your thoughts were of how psychologically safe the room was, um, 88 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:42.639 and you had to kind of really dig in to figure out, well, 89 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:46.519 is there a lack of psychological safety here or are people just playing their roles? 90 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:47.079 So I want to ask you that first. I want to give it 91 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:50.040 up towards one of our sponsors. All Right, Lorenzo, when have you 92 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.959 been in this kind of situation where you were you know, kind of different 93 00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:58.600 people have been in the room and it isn't necessarily an indicator that there's a 94 00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:02.480 lack of psychological safety. Is an activity that I did with a team, 95 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:06.959 and I think that the team I felt at the time very highly motivated, 96 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:13.000 a lot of dialogue, a lot of strategy building. But again that's from 97 00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:16.480 my biased perspective of being the person who has a lot of high energy and 98 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:19.600 likes to move things forwards. So like I felt at the time, I 99 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:25.720 was a part of a team that was doing really good work. What I 100 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:29.759 learned after this activity was, as a matter of fact, we're not all 101 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:32.879 and we weren't really clear on who we were and how we added value. 102 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:39.319 We weren't creating space where the ideas of the strategies could be the best that 103 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:46.680 they could be because certain kind of certain leaders of the team had an energy 104 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:55.040 and a push to to just drive things through versus really being tactical and having 105 00:06:56.040 --> 00:07:00.480 a clear expectation for everybody in the room. And so the activity was talking 106 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:04.680 about innovation and the roles that people play in the innovation process, and there 107 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:10.120 were really four roles to that. The first one was we learned about was 108 00:07:10.199 --> 00:07:15.160 generators, and generators find new problems and ideate based on their own direct experience. 109 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:18.439 So I see a problem, I have an opinion. I'm gonna share 110 00:07:18.439 --> 00:07:23.800 what I think based upon my experience and I'm going to kind of share that 111 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:28.519 and push that and just continue to dump ideas as to what could possibly work. 112 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:32.120 Then there's the conceptualizers, and they define the problem and prefer to understand 113 00:07:32.120 --> 00:07:36.639 it through abstract analysis rather than direct experience. So they like to really take 114 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:42.560 it in. They like to idate, but they are taking in a much 115 00:07:42.839 --> 00:07:46.199 larger piece of the puzzle of thinking about a lot of different things. They're 116 00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:49.399 looking at data, they're looking at the opinions of others, they're looking at 117 00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:55.199 history and experience. They're bringing that all together to kind of help consider what 118 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:59.639 the strategy could be. Then there's optimizers, and they evaluate ideas and suggest 119 00:07:59.720 --> 00:08:03.800 solution a little bit of what you talked about earlier. They prefer to systematically 120 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:07.279 examine all possible alternatives in order to implement the best solution among the known options. 121 00:08:07.319 --> 00:08:11.279 So like cool, show me what you got, let me take a 122 00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:13.959 look at it, let me maybe reorganize it, and what are the best 123 00:08:13.959 --> 00:08:16.800 ways we can move this thing forward? And then the implementers. They are 124 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:22.959 the ones who put solutions to work. So they are typically enthusiastic, sometimes 125 00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:26.920 they're impatient. They take action. They like to experiment with some things they 126 00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:31.000 like to really like make adjustments based on the experience the experiments, but they 127 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:33.919 are like, ah, y'all have fun, decided what the idea is. 128 00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:37.039 Just tell me what we're going to go do, and now I'm going to 129 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:41.360 go make it happen. And we did this as a team, and what 130 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:46.120 it really showed was like, Wow, we have these different individuals that do 131 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:50.120 these things really really well, but we tend to maybe skip over some of 132 00:08:50.159 --> 00:08:54.840 these. We don't pause. I don't stop and say hey Chris, like 133 00:08:54.879 --> 00:08:58.639 okay, Chris, We've done our due diligence. We had some we generated 134 00:08:58.679 --> 00:09:01.720 some ideas, we we conceptualize them. We went to a lot of different 135 00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:05.440 back and forth. It took into a lot of context, and these are 136 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:09.440 the top three things that we think would make sense to go forward. Now 137 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:11.200 we need you to step up and look at this. What do you think? 138 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:13.799 What do you want to do with this? How do we move forward? 139 00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:18.200 And then thank you because basically what we're asking you to do is like 140 00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:22.279 poke holes and all these strategies, rearrange them, push back, and adjust. 141 00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:26.799 And I think that this is a really good example of an activity that 142 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:31.960 allowed us to see each other through the value, that we bring in the 143 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:35.200 diverse way in which we have skills, and that we look at how we 144 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:39.080 build strategies together. So these are the things that I think we have to 145 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:45.440 do more often if we want to build in that true element of people feeling 146 00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:50.440 included and feeling valued for the different ways that they were. This is such 147 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:54.840 an important perspective here because when this goes wrong, it's when people are expected 148 00:09:54.879 --> 00:10:01.360 to be one of these four things that they're not w you have. If 149 00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:05.200 a person leading a team is an implementer, they'll have less patience for the 150 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:11.440 optimizers and for the conceptualizers because they just want to get something going. They 151 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:13.960 need to understand that this is a process that has to go through. If 152 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:18.480 a person on who leads the team is they a conceptualizer, they want the 153 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:22.159 meeting to go eight hours where they think about more particular options. There's somebody 154 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:26.120 in the back of that room who's tapping their feet just anti they just want 155 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:28.559 to get going. Because because perfect is the enemy of done right, like 156 00:10:30.039 --> 00:10:33.840 all of these things matter, and all these step steps in stages matter, 157 00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:37.960 all these people matter, and if you want to do things the correct way, 158 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:43.000 you need to at least start by acknowledging where your team is, how 159 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:45.639 many how many of each of these types of people you have on your teams 160 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:48.519 and allow them to be who they are without expecting them to play in the 161 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:52.159 other spaces, and then there could be some overlap here. There are something 162 00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:54.559 like when I'm looking at these types of you know, the for innovation styles, 163 00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:00.639 I am a mostly an optimizer, but I have some conceptualization also in 164 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:03.720 it. I am It's harder for me to play in the generator space or 165 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:09.240 the implementer space unless unless I know it's already done. Like I'll implement something 166 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:13.279 if it's just presented to me as a fully big pie. But if I'm 167 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:16.559 in a room, I'm not the one tap of my feet going let's go, 168 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:18.960 let's go, let's go. I want to kind of optimize it more. 169 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:20.120 I want to, you know, bring some more kind of meat to 170 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:22.759 it first. But if you put me in the room at the beginning of 171 00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:26.120 the conversation again, like I said, at the beginning, a lot more 172 00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:28.799 difficult to just start from scratch. I want to kind of come into the 173 00:11:28.799 --> 00:11:33.440 conversation it's already there. And this is really eye opening from a perspective of 174 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:37.360 that. If you're a leader, You'll have each of these people on your 175 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:41.159 team know who they are and don't expect them to play in spaces that are 176 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:45.480 less comfortable to them, or you're you're going to get results that are less 177 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:50.759 than optimized results because you're expecting a conceptualizer to implement something that's not fully baked, 178 00:11:50.840 --> 00:11:54.120 or an implementer to sit there and have patients while a project starts from 179 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:56.799 the beginning, maybe not even needed for the first three meetings, right like, 180 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.080 these are all the different things you have taken to account as a leader. 181 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:01.799 Absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end of this episode. 182 00:12:01.879 --> 00:12:03.519 This is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and have 183 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:05.200 a great day.