If I should sum up the three biggest challenges for Psychological Safety it would be LCD – Leadership, Culture and DNA – all previously covered in the book, here emphasised. But these three are not the root cause for Psychological UNsafety. There is someone accountable for Psychological Safety, can you spot who it is? I will tell you at the end of the book.
1. Leadership
Sweden in general has great leadership ready to enable Psychological Safety, but few of them know anything about it. If the leaders have heard about it, they apply a cargo cult Psychological Safety with slides and metaphors. You have seen the writings on the walls with bold values like trust, safety etc, but leaderships are measured by business metrics, not people’s, so they don’t really care. Without our great leaders in front of Psychological Safety, it will just remain great words and no one walking the talk.
2. Culture
And here I mean country culture, not company culture. Culture eats everything for breakfast including Psychological Safety. It is impossible to implement Psychological Safety in a geographically distributed team with many cultures. Period.
3. DNA
With DNA I mean the characteristics of individuals we have inherited from our parents and ancestors. Some people are extroverts, and some are quiet. Some people don’t have any sense of agility, others do. This is hard to rewire and train for – but not as impossible as changing a culture. I changed from a quiet yes man to an overconfident 08, for good and bad.