Socio-emotional, psychological safety and storytelling are the leadership skills for the future of work.
There is a lot of conversation around the link between psychological safety and high performance. There is a great deal of scientific evidence that its presence creates a safe space to learn from mistakes or bring up dissenting opinions without fear of being ostracized from the group (Bailey, 2014; Cozolino, 2014; Eisenberger & Cole, 2012; Eisenberger and Lieberman, 2003, 2005). Its absence creates stress because we feel threatened by exclusion. It takes a set of leadership skills to generate psychologically safety. When a leader succeeds the team members can do the same with each other. This article looks at two key aspects of socio-emotional development that makes this possible: how we contribute to misunderstandings and how we can improve through listening.
Ladder of Inference
One of the most frustrating aspects of maintaining psychological safety is how easy it is for our words to be misunderstood. It seems that the best of intentions can result in conflict, loss of credibility or lost relationship.
Chris Argyris illustrated how we get in this predicament with his model, the Ladder of Inference (1974). The model captures how we make assumptions about meaning and intention when we listen. Because most people assign intention to what someone else is doing or saying based on their own experience, the typical result is miscommunication. We aren’t aware that we are doing this unless we educate ourselves and practice self-awareness. Any professional who relies on effective communication should understand and avoid climbing the ladder.
Figure 1 illustrates the Ladder, which shows that we begin by observing data like a movie camera. But Argyris held that we don’t see everything going on. Instead, we select what is important based on our experience. That means that we can miss important data unless someone else brings our attention to it. This makes the case for the need to have diversity of experience on the team.
Figure 1. Ladder of Inference
Once the data is selected, we decide what it means. To do so the mind utilizes past patterns of understanding and misunderstanding learned early in life by imitation. From there we draw conclusions and form beliefs, which influence the decisions and actions we take. We are usually unaware of this process and it happens in an instant.
A simple example would be observing that a teammate is late to a meeting and my leaping to the conclusion that they aren’t very committed to this project. If they were, they would be on time. As a result of this assumption, I could make the inference that this person is unreliable and untrustworthy. No doubt I would begin to change the way I relate to this person. Perhaps not sharing information or chatting as we once did. The other person would notice and our relationship would break down unless one of us decided to have a conversation to find out if our assumptions are right. If you imagine this happening many times during the day you can see how trust and open communication declines unless we act to change the dynamic.
The Ladder illustrates how we unconsciously draw conclusions about people’s behavior or the root cause of an unwanted incident. False beliefs and assumptions lead to wrong decisions and actions. Thus, it is very important to recognize them and examine their validity.
Yet, it isn’t easy to spot an assumption. We have held them for so long that they feel like facts. For example an employee may declare that management doesn’t care about safety. If you ask them if that is an assumption, they often react by saying, “No. It is a fact.” If you take the time to have a conversation about their experience and the nature of assumptions, it is possible for the employee to understand the difference. This is most effective if the conversation takes place between the employee and manager. The employee can learn to ask about their assumptions, and the manager may affirm or confirm it. Of course, managers also make assumptions about employees that they need to question.
One of the most interesting things about assumptions is that even if they are unspoken, the other party knows that they exist. This has been verified in countless workshops. Managers already know what their employees say about them and vice versa. To the extent that they remain hidden they disrupt relationships, therefore communication. When done right having each group write a list of what the other group is saying about them makes people laugh and can break through mistrust because now people can talk about how to address key issues.
Adding the emotional component
For me the only thing missing from the Ladder is the emotional or feeling component. Neuroscience has ascertained that we would not be able to make decisions without the ability to feel emotions. Emotion is the root of consciousness (Damasio, 1999). Thus, the ladder of inference wouldn’t exist without that initial spark.
Figure 2. How We Create Miscommunication, is like the ladder but includes emotion. An observation of someone’s behavior or what they say triggers an emotion based on the memory of a similar experience. We adopt the assumptions from that experience and act on them. This is how mistrust begins and is maintained.
The alternative is to acquire the skills to slow down to recognize when we are making assumptions and question them so that we can choose our actions as opposed to reacting to our emotions. We can’t always stop that emotion, but we can stop and ask questions about the true intention and meaning of the other persons actions or words. Asking such questions prevents misunderstandings.
Figure 2: How we create miscommunication
For example, my boss walks by me and doesn’t say hello. Typically, she does so I feel a reaction and I interpret her behavior as ignoring me or she’s angry with me. I might be right or wrong about my interpretations. I wouldn’t know unless I asked her if something was wrong. Managers need to be aware that their simplest behavior can have an impact whether it be positive or negative. In speaking to managers about this scenario they usually say, “I had no idea that people can take it the wrong way when I walk down the hall and I don’t say good morning. I am usually thinking about my next meeting, not about who I am passing in the hall.”
So, developing our emotional intelligence is about learning to manage our emotional reactions. We have no control over them until we become aware of them and their origin. As we begin to ask questions to check on our assumptions the emotional response diminishes. We have proven to ourselves that the beliefs we have gathered over time aren’t always correct. Then becomes our normal behavior to listen and ask questions before speaking.
Story telling
“We are all navigating an external world — but only through the prism of our own minds, our own subjective experience… The majesty of the universe is only ever conjured up in the mind.” Jenna Levin, astrophysicist and poet.
It is normal to navigate the uncertainty of the external world through the filter of our experience. We encourage diversity on teams so that we have different filters interpreting the information. But there are times when we need to turn it off to hear and understand what someone is trying to communicate. This is true when someone is expressing an opinion that we do not agree with or when working with someone who is reluctant to speak their mind. Only very skilled listeners can do this.
Lowering your filter and getting past someone else’s is key to being an effective communicator. For this task Storytelling is an effective tool. Try it in cases where you must communicate complex ideas or information that may be viewed as criticism. Leaders have used this technique to change minds for thousands of years.
You don’t have to be a believer to learn from the Bible. In Luke 8:10, we read that when the disciples asked Jesus why he only spoke in parables, he said “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God have been given to you, but to others I speak in parables as in hearing they do not hear and in seeing they do not see.”
A compelling story has the power to help the blind see and the deaf hear. It is something that one remembers and carries a message that we can hear and leads to introspection. In the story of the Good Samaritan for example, Jesus was speaking to an anti-Samaritan audience. He wanted them to believe that all humans were created equal.
A story is more effective than a lecture on the value of emotional intelligence. A group of supervisors may not believe that developing relationships with employees leads to accident prevention. But they will get a story about someone like them who attributes their success to getting to know their crew and how they did it.
Unexpected lesson from emotional intelligence research
Hidden in the academic concepts of emotional intelligence is an ancient truth. Emotional maturity grows with the insight that the heart plays a much larger role in communication than the mind. The question then becomes how to grow our hearts?
Dare we use the word love instead of emotional intelligence? Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh teaches the idea that “understanding is love’s other name.” That to love another means to fully understand and empathize with their suffering. “Suffering” refers to any source of profound dissatisfaction—physical, psycho-emotional or spiritual. In How to Love he writes,
“When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. That’s why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness. Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.” Thich Nhat Hanh
So what place does an expanded heart have in a workplace that rarely acknowledges feelings—fear, grief, need to belong? The heart is a metaphor for our individual capacity for compassion and empathy. The larger the heart, the less other people’s behavior impacts us. This frees us to take constructive action rather than harming our relationships. This makes us better leaders, friends and colleagues.
Again, let us use one of Nhat Hanh’s quotes.
“If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.”
Growing our hearts begins with self-compassion—a topic that isn’t on any curriculum. When we are hard on others it is because we consciously or unconsciously fear we will be held responsible for their error. Expanding our hearts through self-compassion enables us to let go of the fear and extend compassion to another. If you feel this is all too fluffy for the workplace, ponder how you feel when you are completely accepted and belong. This feeling isn’t often available. For those who work in such conditions it is safe to learn from mistakes and allows individuals to contribute their full talents.
References
Argyris, C.; Schon, D. (1974). Theory in Practice. Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bailey, Martha (2014). The Neurobiology of Adult Attachment. Master of Science thesis downloaded May 29, 2016
Cozolino, Louis (2014). The Neuroscience of Human Relationships. W. W. Norton & Co. NY:NY.
Damasio, A. (1999). The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. NY and London: Harcourt.
Eisenberger N.I. & Cole, S.W. (2012). Social neuroscience and health: Neuropsychological mechanisms linking social ties with physical health. Nature Neuroscience, 15, 669-674.
Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman M. D., & Williams, K.D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302, 290-292.
Eisenberger, N.I. and M. Lieberman (2005). “Why it hurts to be left out: The neurocognitive overlap between physical and social pain” K.D. Williams, J.P. Forgas, & W. von Hippel (eds.) The Social Outcast: Ostracism, Social Exclusion, Rejection, and bullying. NY: Cambridge University Press. 109-27.
