267: Creating a Positive Workplace

Transcript

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:02]:

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you may already know that I am in the process of writing a book and this has been an ongoing process for me. It’s something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I thought it would be a novel, but as I got older, as I started working, I knew that it was going to be very much a business focused book. This is the Career and Culture podcast for forward thinking leaders and I’m your host, Aoife o’. Brien. I’m the career and Culture strategist for commercial leaders and teams. In today’s episode, I’m going to share all about what it takes as a leader to create a positive working environment.

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:49]:

And this is the subject of my book. Essentially, the working title is Thriving Talent. I’m not sure if that will end up being the title in the end, but I really want to help people with this because I’ve experienced both. I’ve experienced those really, really positive workplace cultures and I’ve also experienced really negative workplace cultures, toxic workplace environments. Also, before I get into it, I’d love to know if there’s any contributions that you would like to make to the book, if you have a particular story to share, whether it’s a really positive or really negative related to any of the topics that I talk about today. Obviously, today being a short solo podcast episode, I’m not going to be able to share absolutely every part of the book. I’ll save that for the audiobook. But what I’m going to share today is what I’ve learned from research and from working with organizations about what it takes to create that happier working environment.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:50]:

So I’m going to start with the very foundation of what it takes, and that is having psychological safety. This is something that comes up again and again and again on the podcast. I will link below to some previous podcast episodes that deal exclusively on psychological safety and how we create it. But I did want to share one tip from an upcoming episode. A really fantastic conversation with Robert Glaser and he shared, how can you tell if you have psychological safety? And he said, well, you ask people to do something that you absolutely know they cannot do, whether it’s a really tight deadline, something, you know, stretching way over the budget, whatever it might be, you know, it’s something that is impossible for them to do. And see if anyone speaks up, see if anyone pushes back, because if they’re not speaking up to you. You can be sure that as soon as you’re out of that room, they’re talking with each other about how much of a tyrant you are.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:55]:

So I thought that’s a really great example of how to figure out whether you’ve created psychological safety or not. Because it’s not something that is one and done. It’s not something that you can just create overnight. It’s not something that you can do super quickly. It’s an investment of time, you know, it’s an investment of energy. It’s an investment of vulnerability and showing up authentically and staking your claim, stating, you know, I want to make a change, I want to do something. I want to create more psychological safety. Actually putting a stake in the ground and saying, this is what I’m trying to do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:32]:

And once you do that, people will understand a little bit more. Because if you start making changes without actually acknowledging that you’re making changes, people will maybe lead to a bit of mistrust about what’s going on. You know, starting to question, well, what’s actually happening here? What’s going on here? So the foundation of my happier at work framework is all about psychological safety. And so, you know, psychological safety is so important. It’s very important for trust, it’s important for innovation. And there are ways as leaders that we can create that psychological safety. And it’s about being open to feedback. It’s about seeking that feedback out actively.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:16]:

It’s about creating environments where it’s okay to ask, quote, unquote, silly questions. You know, it’s about creating an environment where people don’t get laughed at for speaking up, that it’s okay that they know who to contact. So that’s all about psychological safety. It’s so, so important. It’s the foundation of what it is, you know, what the. What the entire model is. Because if we don’t have psychological safety, the rest is going to absolutely collapse. The second aspect, and I kind of change my language on this from time to time, but it’s about workplace culture.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:51]:

That’s the first main pillar. So if you think of psychological safety as the foundation, the first main pillar is about workplace culture and what our workplace culture. And when I first started talking about this, I was very into this idea of values and values alignment. I still am, but I’ve broadened that scope because it’s not just about values. It’s about our behaviors and how we show up. So if you think about how we have defined how people should behave at work, and that is very closely aligned with the values of the organization. So this is what we’re saying our values are. And do people actually behave in line with what we say the values are? So it’s important to understand that distinction.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:33]:

So on the one hand, we say this is what our values are, but do people behave in line with that? Or is there a difference between what we say and how people actually show up, how people behave? And I think if there is a difference there, if we say we value things like inclusion, and yet not everyone has the opportunity to speak at a meeting, or not everyone feels included, then there’s something going on there underneath. And again, this can erode trust. It can erode the positivity that we want to create at work. And then the second aspect to that values piece is, do I as an individual show up in that way, or do I see people behaving in a way that clashes in some way with my own personal values? Do I feel like I belong in that organization? So there’s a couple of different ways to think about that. And trying to understand the organizational values and the expectations around behavior and also your own values. It’s a job in itself, trying to understand what your own values are. For me, it’s an ongoing process. When I first did this, I had about the 35 different values.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:48]:

I’ve narrowed them down thankfully to about five. But it was a journey that I took trying to understand, well, what’s really important to me and how can I group some things together. And like, while there are some values like fairness and integrity that I would love to be in my top five, they’re not in my top five necessarily. They’re more aspirational values for me. So it’s not necessarily how I show up on a day to day basis. And that’s the same with a lot of us that we have aspirational values. Like, I would love to value, value this thing, but actually in my behavior that’s not necessarily reflected on a day to day basis. And then the middle or the second, and there are three pillars.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:31]:

The second pillar is all about our drivers at work. And that’s the kinds of things that motivate us. The big thing here for me is needs, satisfaction and understanding what our own needs are, what the needs are of the individuals within your team and being able to satisfy any unmet needs that they have. But there are other things that drive us. There could be inherent drivers that we have from when we were children, things like, I have to be perfect, I need to be right all the time like things like this that drive us and understanding those and being able to relate to people on that level and to understand what those needs are is so, so important. When I focus on the idea of needs and the research that I carried out, it was all about this theory of self determination theory. And I talk about the three needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence. Autonomy being a sense of choice and control over what you do and how you do it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:36]:

Relatedness being how we relate to other people on our team, do we get along well with them? But also this idea of how do I rel what I do on a day to day basis to the bigger picture. And this is so, so important. When you’re leading a team, how can you make that relation between what people, what individuals on the team are doing on a day to day basis and the impact of what it is that they’re doing. So making that really clear link for them. So what impact is their work having? Why is it important? Why is what they’re doing? You know, how are they contributing? How can you make them feel seen, heard and understood? By sharing what’s going on? The third need within self determination theory is the need for competence. And that’s feeling capable of doing your job. So not being so overloaded that you feel like you’re in over your head. Not feeling like you’re a total imposter, that you don’t belong here, but equally not feeling so bored that you’re like, oh, I could do this with my eyes closed.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:44]:

You need to have that sense of challenge as well. You need to have feel like you’re being challenged and supported at the same time. So those are the three needs. We also have additional needs that are not covered by, they’re not covered by the self determination theory. The self determination theory focuses on universal needs. These are needs that every single person has. And the unique needs that we have can be different for every single person. You might have a unique need to have a higher purpose behind what it is that you’re doing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:10:18]:

You might have a unique need for variety or stability. There are lots of different things. And a way to talk about what people’s unique needs are or what their needs in general are is really the important thing here is to understand what their unmet needs are because they’re the things that, that are going to be really frustrating. You know, if you think about, if you’ve ever been micromanaged, you feel really frustrated. Your need for autonomy has been really compromised here because there’s someone there telling you what to do. How to do it, watching your every move. So understanding what people’s unmet needs are, you don’t have to talk about needs because it might be a bit awkward to talk about that, but you can talk about, well, what are your frustrations at work? What’s blocking you from getting your job done? So really understanding that and having the power to meet those unmet needs is really important for creating that positive working environment. So that’s pillar number two, needs at work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:19]:

The third pillar then is all about our strengths. And if I think about values, you know, values is something that we talked about in the context of organizational and corporate values. If I think about needs, that’s definitely not something we ever spoke about at work. We never once talked about our needs. This is casting my mind back to when I worked in corporate. And then if I think about strengths, it’s probably something a bit closer to what we talked about. You might have taken a quiz, you might, you know, get together and talk about personalities, but it’s not something that we ever talk about on a regular basis. In a corporate environment.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:00]:

We may have a vague idea that that person is good at Excel. That’s the other person to go to if I want to know about policy, whatever it might be. But we don’t openly talk about, this is my strength, and this is where I excel, and this is where I want to focus more of my time on. Because when we focus more of our time on what we do well and what comes easily and naturally to us, we feel more positive about work. And as a leader, your role is to identify what those strengths are to feed back to someone. Because oftentimes we don’t know what our strengths are. We’re blind to our own strengths because we just do something easily and naturally. And it comes so easily and naturally to us that we think everyone, we assume everyone can do what we can do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:51]:

So really highlighting people’s strengths to them, getting it out in the open and talking openly about what people’s different strengths are, putting people working together who have complementary strengths. So there may be some frustrations there. If someone is quite a big picture thinker and another person is very detail oriented, it may cause a little bit of frustration because one person might think, oh, but you’re not thinking big enough. And the other person might think, but you’re not being realistic because you don’t know how we’re going to get there. But combining them with that understanding that they’re coming at it from two different perspectives is greater than the sum of the parts. So Getting those people to work together and really talking openly about what our strengths are is a great way to foster a positive working environment. I’ll add to that that there are loads of free and paid online tools that you can take to understand what your strengths are, and some of them highlight strengths that you didn’t know that you had. Or maybe there’s strengths that you have but you don’t get to use on a regular basis.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:54]:

So I think it’s important to talk about those kinds of things as well, because maybe in the role that you’re doing now, you don’t have the opportunity to bring your full strengths to work. So those are the three pillars. The culture or the values that need satisfaction, or the drivers, and then the strengths and empowerment at work. And then this is all capped by leadership. Because if we don’t have the right leaders in place to execute across these three pillars to create an environment of psychological safety, and again, the entire model is going to collapse. So from a leadership perspective, you need to think about, do I want to be a leader? Do I want to develop people? And how can I best develop people? And how can I be the best leader that I can be? Not by emulating someone else, but by bringing more of my strengths to the role, my abilities, my values, my authenticity. How do I show up fully as myself, as the leader that I know that I can be? Now, in the book, I go into, obviously a lot more detail than what I’ve been able to cover in this short solo podcast episode. But I’d love to know, is there something that resonated particularly with you? Is there some part that you thought there was a big aha moment that you didn’t really think about or know about before? I would absolutely love to know.

Aoife O’Brien [00:15:17]:

Do get involved in the conversation. I’m very active on LinkedIn and would love to hear from you there. Or feel free to leave a comment below. Whether you’re watching the video, whether you’re listening on YouTube or leave a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform, I’d absolutely love to hear from you.