Joy@Work Podcast

The Power of Deep Listening: Creating Psychological Safety for Team Effectiveness and Joy@Work

Google's "Project Aristotle" sought to determine the key factors of effective teams and found that Psychological Safety is the #1 factor for team effectiveness, followed by Dependability and Meaning/Impact. Listening deeply and asking questions is essential for creating a culture of safety, belonging and mattering in the workplace and preventing disasters resulting from a lack of open, candid communication. Doing this can help create trust, collaboration and joy at work.

Collaboration is when an effective team harnesses the best out of individuals working together and appears to be disarmingly simple:

“to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something”

But everyone in the team comes with their own personality, their culture and way of doing things and their own competitiveness, their fears, their concerns and their needs. For successful and fruitful collaboration, the leader needs to help the team be actively engaged in what they are doing, and that they trust one another by setting the groundwork to build a solid foundation and then maintaining it rigorously.

Many thousands of leaders have failed to create team unity, trust and engagement through team building courses and enforced jollity of casual Friday or a virtual happy hour. But the buzz from that ropes course wears thin after a few days when your brain recognises that what it wants and needs is still missing.

How do we fix that? Well, before we get to that let’s check in on what your brain really wants and needs:

What Your Brain Wants and Needs:

Fortunately, we know that every human being shares a fundamental need for three things in life:

The need to feel safe

The need to belong to a group or tribe, and

The need to believe that they and what they do, matters

Getting a team to be actively engaged, to trust each other and collaborate takes plenty of leadership time and effort - so why would you destroy it before it has a chance?

Purpose

In this guide we’ll understand how to build and maintain the critical foundation's of Safety, Belonging and Mattering by Listening Deeply so that the team can trust each other and, with clarity of their own purpose and direction, be actively engaged and collaborate to achieve the desired results.

Process

We'll look Pat Lencioni's famous work on the five dysfunctions of a team and see how further research shows that Safety, Belonging and Mattering are crucial to your brain and thus to your ability to trust and collaborate. We'll then look at how listening deeply is the ONE missing ingredient that all leaders can do and use to help build the foundations and hence, ultimately, get the results they desire.

Payoff

When you start to listen deeply you will begin to dismantle any climate of fear or the lack of safety felt in too many organisations. Team members will learn that they can speak up and help the leader build and maintain the edifying climate to guide themselves and other team members towards effective trust and collaboration.

Regardless of your choices in life, you will face adversity, trauma, threats, difficulties, trials and tribulations - such as family or relationship issues, health problems, financial concerns, or workplace stressors. Everybody does. Nobody likes it, nobody wants to, but everybody does.

How you respond to those challenges makes all the difference in the world!

Where is your Locus of Control - “At Cause” or “At Effect”?

When you choose to be “At Cause” for your life, your focus is on choosing your actions and this increase your Circles of Power and Influence expanding them into your Circle of Concern. You have an Internal Locus of Control - that is, you believe that you have control over external forces in your life.

When you are “At Effect” of others or circumstances, your focus is on factors outside your inner circles, your Concerns gain ground, shrinking your Circles of Power and Influence. You have an External Locus of Control - that is you believe that external forces beyond your control have control over your life.

When you are “At Effect” you are more likely to experience anxiety, which gives you the illusion of control over others or over external events.

This bears repeating: When you are anxious or you worry, this gives you the illusion of control over others or external events!

Congratulations, your anxiety and worry about something beyond your control just reinforced and perpetuated your need to be anxious and worry!

On the other hand, when you choose to be “At Cause” you are reinforcing your stress resilience.

Remember The “Shortcut” and The “High Road”?

You’ll notice that I say that you "are At Effect versus you “choose to be At Cause”. That’s because your default is to be At Effect. It’s not a conscious, thought through, choice. It’s unconscious and automatic. Choosing to be At Cause is a conscious, considered, deliberate choice you make.

As our brain senses information about the challenge ahead, you’ll recall what we learned in Fear, Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Your Brain that stimuli from the outside world first take “The Shortcut” either directly to the amygdala (smells and touch) or via the Thalamus to the amygdala (sights and sounds). That is: your brain is already reacting and responding to the threat of the challenge ahead!

Meantime, some information takes the “High Road” through the cortex and your thinking brain can choose to change or reinforce the threat response. Milliseconds after your brain and body have started to react and respond, this is your moment of choice! This is the moment you can choose to be “At Cause”.

How does this help me? How do I stop worrying, anxiety and distress? Let me be clear, there isn’t a magic pill that does this (no matter what Big Pharma tries to tell you) but we do have access to a simple solution. Before that though, let’s recognise two common enemies we all have in the (conscious) mind.

Two Enemies of Being “At Cause”

And allies of remaining “At Effect”

People, most often, spend much of their time and energy worrying or concerned about the challenges that they cannot control, which cause them to feel anxious or stressed.

The first enemy is “If only...”

If only I had the [skills, money, strength, power, connections, knowledge, fortitude, faith] I would have...

If only ... my parents had... I could have...

If only I ... were a different race, gender, nationality, person ... I should have...

If only I ... had studied harder, taken that job, not taken that job, gotten married, not gotten married, had kids, not had kids...

“If only” pines over the past.

The second enemy is “What if...”

What if... I fail, succeed, look stupid ...

“What if...” frets about the future.

The problem of these two enemies is that they give you the illusion of control over others or external events!

That is, you think that worrying about something makes a difference!

"Your mind would rather fret about the future or pine over the past so that it can cling onto its own illusion of control." But the current moment cannot be controlled. So our mind discounts it and we forget to savour and enjoy every now moment.”

Adapted from Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

The Great Benefits of facing Challenges

No battles. No spoils.

Without challenges in life, life becomes tremendously boring and mundane. We wouldn’t learn and grow. Anythin...

Encourage Are you tired of wasting time dealing with workplace drama and politiks? Perhaps you are crippled by toxic leaders and uninspired cultures and you know that there is a better way. In this episode we're going to introduce you to the triggers of exemplary workplace behaviour at the neurological level. And we'll tap into four of these triggers that will #UnLock performance and #UnLeash Team Power. By implementing these four you'll see higher productivity, well-being, retention and accountability. You'll see reduced absenteeism, less drama, the end of corrosive gossip and fewer accidents. Develop In Leading Difficult People, I shared with you about our deep seated human need for safety, belonging and mattering. The first two of those, safety and belonging are so primal to our personal engagement at work (or in life) that this time, I'm digging in a little more to the neuroscience that will allow us to create the ideal conditions for our teams to thrive. Human beings are social animals, we need some degree of social acceptance in our lives, and without it, we shrivel and die. Our limbic system is the mid part of our brain and is responsible for overseeing our emotional lives and is important in what we learn and commit to memory. You'll know about the amygdala, for example, the primary control centre for our freeze, fight , flight mode. That's housed in the Limbic system. Dr Jim Coan of the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory suggests that the limbic brain spends the entire day asking two questions: What's next? and How am I doing? And whilst these are broad generalisations, it's an incredibly helpful way for leaders who seek actionable models to improve engagement at work. How safe do you feel when you do not know what's coming next compared to how you feel when you do know what's coming next? Like most people, you'd probably feel less safe. When leaders become more predictable, consistent and transparent they become clear on what will happen next. When a leader seeks closer alignment around shared values, purpose and command intent - they are creating a consistent and predictable and participatory culture with immediate benefits to the limbic system. Our biological need to belong to a group or tribe drives the question: "How am I doing?" Our survival depends on the social resources of the group and so our limbic system is constantly assessing our membership status. "Am I in?" it asks. "Am I worthy? Do they see the value I add?" The limbic system doesn't ask this question once in a while; it asks every minute of every day! When a leader validates and recognises a team member, when they are acknowledged or appreciated, that isn't just some silly social gesture. It's a deeply important message direct to the recipients limbic system: "You have been noticed. You are seen and valued. You are safe. You are in." "And here's some useful feedback to help you stay safe and remain in the tribe." Don Rheem, author of Thrive by Design, says that answering these questions are behaving in a consistent and predictable manner and offering validation, recognition, and feedback. This makes team members (and others) feel safe and that they belong. He goes on to share four ways that leaders should focus their efforts to help their team members feel wanted, trusted and supported which in turn will improve retention, engagement and profits. Guide Neuroscience points us towards creating the ideal conditions that allow the brain to thrive and perform much closer to their potential. These conditions will help team members be more engaged, productive, healthier and happier in their work and workplace. Encourage trusted relationships and collaboration We thrive in a culture of trust, caring and collaboration. When our work tribe trusts each other and shares resources to support each other and the overall command intent, team members feel safer, feel that they belong and that what they do matters to the rest of their work tribe and the organ

From what we’ve learned so far, we know that to raise performance anywhere, we need to be able to choose to be At Cause.

We’ve also learned about the affects of five important neurotransmitters: Dopamine (pleasure), Serotonin (happiness), Cortisol (stress), Adrenaline (fear), Anandamide (Peace and Joy).

We need to know about four additional Neurotransmitters in your brain’s “cocktail bar”: Oxytocin (love, trust), Vasopressin (attachment), Endorphins (resilience) and Acetylcholine (focus).

Stay with me, because I am coming back to the impact on your leadership and performance improvement @work. Meantime, let’s talk about love:

Love, often confused with joy or happiness (and sometimes pleasure) is a combination of two things: Attachment and Attraction:

Attachment

Attachment is tied to the neurotransmitters Oxytocin and Vasopressin. Oxytocin is known as the “love and trust” chemical. It’s responsible for increasing the bonding between a mother and her new born, and for that trusting relationship bond with a colleague or team member.

Vasopressin’s effects are less well understood but it appears to be gender specific. For men, Vasopressin is believed to make men more suspicious, even aggressive, towards novel males. Thus a new male joining the team may be viewed with more suspicion by the other males in the team.

In contrast, for women, it appears that Vasopressin makes them friendlier towards novel women.

Attraction

When you enjoy doing something, you are attracted to it, which makes you feel “happy” with a cascade of Dopamine, Norepinephrine and Serotonin.

You can see why feeling attracted to someone or something can easily get confused with fear mixed with pleasure mixed with happiness! Explains a lot that I wish I’d known when puberty struck!

It’s also why attraction can also cause a lack of appetite (your digestive tract got shut down in the fear response!) and a loss of sleep (which is affected by Serotonin).

Performance Enhancement

As you do things well and get into your “zone” or in your “flow”, your performance improves thanks to the additional cascade of Anandamides and Endorphins.

Endorphins are your brain’s natural pain killers. They are released to help cope when your body feels pain or stress. You can get a boost of these through exercise or any demanding activity.

Performance improvement @work

Ok, we’ve got the necessary foundational understanding.

When you do something that matters to you, you are attachedto it (Oxytocin and Vasopressin).

When you do something that you enjoy, you are attracted to it and just a little fearful (Dopamine, Norepinephrine and Serotonin).

Then you get into your zone or flow or your high performancestate (Anandamides and Endorphins).

You stay focused on task because the dopamine high mixed with a little fear to make it an exciting challenge triggers Acetylcholine - and signals your Reticular Activating System (RAS) to focus attention on the task at hand.

These eight neurochemicals significantly enhance performance and is addictive (scientists prefer to use the word “autotelic”). Hence we experience “flow” in our performance and we will go out of our way to re-experience it. Basically, we increase our own intrinsic motivation and inspiration to continually enhance our own performance!

AND there’s more! These chemicals also augment the creative process and pattern recognition. Oxytocin and Vasopressin disregulate your Neo-cortex, widening your self perspective, liberating your mind to new thoughts and feelings. Making us more creative and faster in how we do things!

Command and Control leaders should be aware that, in contrast, fear narrows perspective and inhibits performance and increases distress further degrading performance!

Which would you choose?

The Purpose To show you a way and give you the urge to inspire your kids, family and your work colleagues with a real and tangible hope that will lift their spirits and yours, and fill everyone with the urge to emerge stronger and ready to lead the world in the recovery so that you will see good days. The Process I'm going to share a powerful tool and neuroscience hack that you will easily use to bring absolute clarity to the future expectation of good you want to create and use to inspire others. The Payoff Your kids will want to do something creative, your family will look at you with newfound respect and admiration and your work colleagues will be eager and ready to listen, collaborate and be more productive. In times of difficulty or crisis, the trap for leaders is trying to control everything. And this applies as much to leading in your home as it does in the office. When your locus of control is hindered or even removed, when you feel even slightly that your own life is out of your control, your threat response fires up. Our favourite almond-shaped friends inside our brain, the amygdalae, take up the reins of your response with plenty of stress hormone production of cortisol and adrenaline. It's a never ending barrage of negative news and many people scoff at the notion of remaining optimistic in light of these "facts". The human brain is programmed to narrow your focus in the face of a threat. It's an in-built mechanism designed perfectly for self-protection. It means that your field of vision is restricted to what is immediately in front of you. Perfect for hunters in the Serrengeti and your cave dwelling ancestors. Pretty useful in the 21st century office and home, but unseeable threats lurking in the very air before you... not quite so useful. Leaders, whether at work or at home, need to intentionally pull back and take a broader view. Leaders need to look up and see a new future. A new future that is good and positive and filled with promise. We call it hope. And we could all use some hope right now. What we want is some real hope. Real hope is the positive expectation of good. It's not just wishful or fanciful thinking. It is something you believe will come to pass. Like everyone else, you want to have this positive expectation of good and I know it is difficult. And we all would like someone to stimulate this hope within us. We want someone, anyone to fill us with the urge or ability to feel something hopeful, something positive to rescue us from this pit of negativity and confinement and restriction. You can probably think of a small handful of leaders who truly inspire you with hope of a brighter future. Martin Luther King was pretty inspiring with his "I have a dream" speech. Winston Churchill inspired a generation to give their lives for freedom promising to "fight them on the beaches". And just recently, Queen Elizabeth 2nd ralleyed hope for an end to Covid 19 with "We will meet again." But it seems, inspirational leaders are few and far between. Yet, there's one in your household. There's an inspirational leader in your workplace. There's one who can inspire hope and rally people in your community. And that person is you. Yes, you. You have all that you need to inspire hope in others and hence for yourself. You might not believe it just yet, but give me half an hour of your time and you will. Working from home ain't what it's all cracked up to be Well, I actually think that it is, but then I've been doing this for many years. But I do recall how tough it was at the beginning. And now it's much more difficult. Now, your partner is at home also (or perhaps worse, if they are in essential services and escape every day) kids are at home too, either from school or university and even they are finding their phone and netflix is getting less exciting. We're confined in space, and there's a limited number of spaces to work, and bandwidth is a premium. Young kids especially, expect yo