#03 - How to Set the Tone

Welcome to the 3rd edition of?The?MAD?Performance Newsletter,?in which I'll share thoughts and resources that can help you towards a more?Mindful and Deliberate?way of approaching life, leadership, learning and high performance.

It's quite common to have leaders ask me something along the lines of, "But Dan, why didn't they say anything in the meeting?"

This could be in the early or latter stages of a project where it becomes apparent, that not everyone is clear on what's happening, or perhaps (seemingly simple) mistakes are being made in the execution of a task, or maybe the leader catches wind of dissenting viewpoints or divergent ideas after an apparent decision has been made.

"But why Dan?" the leader will ask me, "Did they not speak up or say something when they had the chance?"

If you've spent any time on LinkedIn, undoubtedly you'll have read post after post about the importance of Psychological Safety, and particularly how the work of Amy Edmondson has led the way in this field.

Rather than give a synopsis of Amy's work - as reading her book, The Fearless Organisation will give you a far better grounding than I could - I'd like to share a couple of practical ways in which leaders can encourage people to speak up, whilst at the same time as building psychological safety in their team.

Broadly speaking, Psychological Safety is: "The belief no-one will be punished or humiliated for speaking up with questions, ideas, concerns or mistakes."

On our podcast together (Ep.20 of The Habits of Leadership) Amy also phrased it as an environment where there is, "Permission for Candour" - or candor depending on your geography.

The following idea can help leaders who would like their team to be more open about their challenges and their ideas.

Of course, I'm assuming - always dangerous I know - that the leader in question understands the importance of, and wants to lean into, creating a more psychologically safe team environment.

"People respond to the strongest signal in the room."

I'm not sure where this theory originated, but I first learned about it from ??Michael Bungay Stanier , and it has stood me in good stead since. I paraphrase it with leaders by exploring how they "set the tone" in the room.

As a general rule of thumb, if you want your team to be vulnerable, share their setbacks and challenges, or bring up any questions they might have - then as the leader - speak first.

If you want your team to come up with ideas, share divergent viewpoints, or raise concerns - speak last.

Looking for Vulnerability?

Because people tend to respond to the strongest signal in the room, by sharing a little vulnerability first, the leader signals that vulnerability is ok here. They're saying, "We're all human and it's to be expected that we've made some mistakes, or we have some questions, struggles or misgivings. So I'll go first, and then I'm keen to hear what's on your mind."

Looking for Ideas?

Many leaders and coaches I work with get frustrated when they don't get 'pushback' on their ideas. These leaders would like their teams to offer their own original thoughts, but instead only seem to offer mildly different variations on the boss' original thoughts.

In these instances I encourage the leader to speak last. The reason being, teams will tend to think that the leader's idea is the idea, and in order to curry favour, or be collegial, it makes sense to go along with what they're thinking.

Instead, the leader would be better served by posing the problem or challenge to the team with as much data, information, insight and lead-time as they can, before then tasking each team member to pitch back an idea to address the issue.

Doing this will show where alignment already exists, as well as surface novel ideas that might ordinarily never see the light of day.

What techniques have you used to help people to contribute more fully to your meetings?