Psychological Safety in the Workplace: Session 274 with John Austin

The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

Dr. John Austin returns to the show to discuss a topic that we touched on briefly back in Session 230: Psychological Safety.

While the idea of Psychological Safety might seem overly conceptual in nature, John breaks down what he thinks about it in very easily understood and measurable terms. More importantly, he talks about why Psychological Safety matters in the workplace.

Here are some of the aspects of this topic that we got into:

• The example of Google's Project Aristotle, where this term became popularized.
• Ways to measure Psychological Safety.
• Setting the occasion for employees saying what's on their minds.
• Creating conditions where feedback is accepted, and even desired.
• How employees might find meaning in their work.
• The concept of Behavioral Integrity.
• Leaders being surprised when employees quit unexpectedly.
• Other factors relating to employee retention.
• How to foster connections with coworkers and employees.
• What John will be talking about at the upcoming Stone Soup Conference (note: use promo code PODCAST24 to save $$$ at checkout!).
• Pivotal leadership behaviors, and lots more!

If you like John's content, you're in luck, because he's agreed to come back and do an episode on having difficult conversations, which as you'll hear, is a topic that many leaders struggle with.

Here are the resources we discussed in this episode:

• Free access to the audio version of John's book, Results: The Science-Based Approach

to Better Productivity, Profitability, and Safety.

• Sleiman, et al. (2020). A Quantitative Review of Performance Feedback in

Organizational Settings (1998-2018).

• John's website, drjohnaustin.com.
• Edmondson (2018). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (note: Amazon Associates Link).
• Google Project Aristotle - 5 Keys to Team Success.
• Other podcasts mentioned: Session 262 (Pat Friman) and Session 266 (Chris McGinnis).

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