(Psychological Safety cont. 9)

Desirable Behaviours (Challenger Safety)

4. Challenger Safety (How do you make others feel safe to challenge the status quo, innovate, and make things better?)

i) take your finger off the fear button (fear causes problems:
"...fear triggers a self-censoring instinct as it causes people to retreat in silence. When a leader uses fear, it's normally a punitive response borne out of frustration and security..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

ii) encourage others to think beyond their roles (carefully manage the process by
"...inviting people to venture out of their tactical and functional silos creates more opportunity for divergent thinking, allowing them to connect things that are not normally connected..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

iii) respond constructively to disruptive ideas and bad news (show a positive emotional response
"...to disruptive ideas and bad news as a clear signal that you have a high tolerance of candour and will protect your people and their right to dissent..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

iv) when you reject input or suggestion, explain why (give a considered response to explain why you have rejected somebody's input or suggestion)

v) speak last (when holding positional power, let others speak before you do, ie always speak last
"...Listen carefully, acknowledge the contribution of others, and then register your point of view..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

vi) display no pride of authorship (all ideas are to be treated on merit, ie no one's ideas are better than anyone else's:
"...sometimes team members are too deferential to the ideas of the leader because of their position..."
Timothy Clark, 2022.

Welcome constructive criticism of all ideas)

vii) model and reward vulnerability (remember
"...vulnerability is exposing yourself to the possibility of harm or loss. If you model and reinforced a pattern of vulnerability, others will do the same..."
Timothy Clark, 2022

Need to protect everyone at the highest point of personal and interpersonal vulnerability; it is about encouraging diverse perspectives, even disagreements, without emotional escalation and destructive social fiction).

viii) encourage challenging of the status quo (reward people with recognition and enthusiasm when they attempt to challenge the status quo irrespective of the merits of the ideas; more challenges to the status quo will increase the chance of adding value)

ix) mandate a no-interruption rule (only one person speaks at a time without interruption; others listen)

x) create diversity (encourage diversity of thinking:
"...assign diverse people with diverse perspectivesto work together on assigned projects. Diverse teams possess cognitive diversity and naturally produce divergent thinking..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xi) break before breakdowns (when interpersonal dynamics, like social and intellectual friction, turn negative, take a break; refresh the people before coming back together; tiredness can result in increased friction)

xii) identify and avoid defensive routines (people often get defensive when their ideas are challenged; deploy anti-defensive routines, ie
"...things we do and say to avoid potential threats and embarrassments..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

Encourage people to identify defensive routines as early as possible and deactivate them)

xiii) ask for the bad news (bad news helps identify areas for experimentation and innovation; allows us to challenge the status quo more easily when something is wrong)

xiv) questions for challenging the status quo (ask each person to ponder a question for the next meeting that challenges the status quo)

xv) praise quantity over quality in brainstorming (best approach to brainstorming is to initially focus on generating as many ideas as possible and then later focus on the quality of the ideas:
"...unconstrained thinking is the vehicle to the best solutions. When you tackle an issue for brainstorming, don't limit or constrain the process..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xvi) challenge your own decisions (be willing to revisit and challenge old decisions, courses of action, points of view, etc as they may no longer be relevant)

xvii) identify things that are redundant, obsolete or trivial (ROT) (continually look at the way you do things and realise that everything you do eventually becomes obsolete; dismantle any ROT activities or elements)

xviii) teach deliberate vs emergent strategy (a deliberate strategy is a formal, long-term strategy; emergent strategy is the process of modifying your strategy in real time in a dynamic environment that is changing; identify when your deliberate strategy is not working in the context of current reality and modify it appropriately)

xix) model the art of disagreement, ie meritocracy (allow for debating of issues on merit so that the best one is selected without creating fear or interpersonal conflict
"...Master the emotional and interpersonal art of disagreeing in a warm and friendly way that others don't take offence. Maintain a respectable body posture while avoiding curt, abrupt, and abrasive language and overly aggressive or sarcastic body language..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xx) share challenge experiences (share examples of successful status quo challenges, ie people took personal risks and successfully challenged the status quo)

xxi) identify tangible and intangible sources of value (examples of ideas that will create more value like tangible (visible) things which might include design, comfort, durability, ease-of-use, etc; intangible (invisible) elements include prestige, security, reputation, etc)
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xxii) recognise patterns (look for patterns of cause and effect that need improving; collect and analyse data to understand the underlying patterns; there can be many variables that need to be understood)

xxiii) put a hypothesis on the table (a hypothesis is a proposed explanation about why things are the way they are; as it could be wrong, it is a non-threatening, neutral way of putting an idea or challenge on the table for discussion)

xxiv) protect from groupthink (this occurs when people start to think alike, ie it is like being in an echo chamber; people
"...sometimes become more concerned about fitting in with conventional thinking of the group instead of performing the hard labour of critical thinking..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xxv) scan the environment for adaptive challenges (there are 3 kinds of adaptive challenges, ie    
    a) opportunities (offer potential benefit)
    b) threats (offer potential harm)
    c) crises (offer certain harm)
"...it should be the default setting...... scan the external competitive environment and internal performance environment for adaptive challenges on a regular basis. Once you identify your adaptive challenges, ask...... how we can challenge and disrupt ourselves to respond to each one..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xxvi) identifying inflection points (inflection is a point on a curve in which it changes direction, ie turning point; need to identify inflection points that will impact on what you are doing; 3 step responsibility around inflection points, ie
    a) identify
    b) interpret
    c) respond

To help, ask the following questions:
    a) What is beginning to change?
    b) What does it mean to us?
    c) What should we do about it

xxvii) engage in recombination (recombination is the process of connecting things that aren't normally connected; it's a trial and error process that requires a lot of iteration)

xxviii) hold a 'do nothing scenario' session (explore the consequences of preserving the status quo instead of changing it, ie
"...think through both planned unintended and unintended consequences in both the short term and long term. This often results in a realisation that keeping the status quo is a higher risk than changing it..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xxix) identify your status quo bias (status quo bias favours anything that protects the current situation, ie
"...we believe that we are doing things in the right way and best way..."
Timothy Clark, 2022

When this bias is strong, you stop looking for ways to improve things and focus on preserving instead of disturbing; with good enough becoming an acceptable option.

Need to ask these 2 questions -

What would we do if there was no status quo and we could start afresh?

How would we do it?)

xxx) come with incomplete questions and solutions (encourage ad hoc, haphazard, anecdotal, unrefined and impressionistic thinking rather than polished, tested, and ready-for-prime time questions and solutions; use co-workers to sharpen potential questions and solutions)

xxxi) respect local knowledge (local knowledge is based on actual experiences and relationships, eg frontline information; respect local knowledge by soliciting and circulating it; this will increase the chance of seeing an opportunity to challenge the status quo)

xxxii) bring in outsiders (use them to encourage alternative ideas and thinking to challenge your assumptions; use outsiders to provide diversity of thought, recharge your thinking, etc:
"...it can push out the limits of what you believe is possible..."
Timothy Clark, 2022)

xxxiii) follow the disruptive/innovation question sequence (ask the following questions
    a) why (Why do we do it this way?)
    b) what if (What if we tried something else?)
    c) how (How would we do that?)