Catherine Mattice's Blog, page 16

How to Identify a Low Performer on your Team

Do you have someone on your team who is:

Very hardworking and responsible
Brings in the most revenue
Super high IQ
Works hard and puts in long hours
Clients and customer love them…

On paper they appear as high performers but there is one thing about them…conflict on the team and fielding internal complaints about this employee.

Historically, anyone who was meeting their sales goal or was surpassing quotas would be considered a high performer, right? And consequently, someone who was not delivering value or revenue would be considered a low performer?  Well, that is so last year!

In modern organizations and high-performing cultures, it’s no longer the only measurement of high performance. If you’re a Manager or Team Lead, here are some other indicators of low performance you might want to consider..

 

Indicators of Low Performers

If that person has low emotional intelligence, a complete lack of self-awareness or awareness of their impact, then they are causing a LOT of emotional turmoil on your team.

Gossips
Creates a lack of trust by constantly breaking internal agreements
Throws the team under the bus by promising clients unreasonable requests without consulting other team members
Is rude to the team
Ignorant and lacks empathy
Blames and finger points

Or is it someone who has completely detached from the team and is working in silos- thinking if they deliver results, they won’t be let go. They’re wrong.

Civility Partners works with many HR Directors and Managers and yes, while it’s hard to let go of people who are killing it (in terms of revenue) you know what’s harder? Managing someone who isn’t a team player and is causing toxicity and mistrust. Trust takes an enormous amount of time to build, and it’s just not worth having one “jackass” on a team who is bringing everyone down.

Here’s what you can do:

If you’re an employee who thinks that as long as you bring revenue to the company they won’t fire you, think again. Perhaps,  start building relationships with your team and consider the impact your actions, or lack thereof, have on the people around you. Maybe it’s time to invest in EQ?

If you’re a manager who is trying to learn how to identify low performers on your team then the red flags are:  Someone you spend a lot of time managing and keeping accountable with deadlines, and conflicts/complaints on and from the team. NO revenue is worth the constant conflict and lack of sleep. Let them go before you lose the respect of good people on your team and valuable team members.

Remember: One bad apple spoils the barrel!

Share your experience with us. What other signs are indicators of low performance in your company?

The post How to Identify a Low Performer on your Team appeared first on Civility Partners.

Importance of Unconscious Bias Training

Everyone has unconscious biases, whether we acknowledge them or not. Bias, if recognized, might restrict your ability to connect with people or destroy existing ties. Personal preferences can impair work performance in all professionals, but notably in leaders and hiring managers.

Acknowledging unconscious bias as a factor that can lead to discrimination claims or societal inequalities, organizations have begun to provide unconscious bias training in an effort to assist employees, particularly managers and senior leaders, in recognizing their own unconscious biases and taking steps to mitigate or overcome them.

 

How biases damage our business and relationships!

Unconscious or implicit, bias in the workplace has been identified as a persistent force inside many companies that results in judgments that favor one group of people over another—not with intent, but quite innocently. 

Consider that the yearly cost of workplace prejudice is estimated to be $64 billion. This is calculated based on the cost of losing and replacing more than 2 million American workers as a result of injustice and discrimination. This figure excludes legal expenses, which occur when firms defend themselves or face fines when an employee’s biases lead to illegal activity.

The way we judge talent, performance, assignments, and promotions is influenced by unconscious bias. Here are a couple of such examples:

48% of African American women and 47% of Latina women said they had been mistaken for administrative or custodial personnel.Less than 15% of males in the United States are taller than 6 feet. Despite this, 60% of business CEOs are at least this tall.A taller guy is more likely to earn more than a shorter man. On resumes, African American, Asian, and Hispanic names are less likely to be called back for interviews. 

 

How does it affect teamwork?

Bias in the recruiting process and afterward inside office premises has long taken a toll on employees, particularly among workers who do not feel adequately connected – as if they had to work twice as hard to get half as far.

Employees that are subjected to bias actively disengage and minimize their contributions. 3,570 individuals, including men, women, African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, and Hispanics, were conducted. [6] They ranged in age from 21 to 65. They were also all full-time employees in white-collar jobs with at least a bachelor’s degree.

The following are the findings of individuals who reported workplace bias:33% are dissatisfied with their current situation.34% withhold thoughts and solutions.80% would not recommend their employer to others.

 

How does it affect bottom-line results?

While implicit bias has a considerable influence from the bottom up, it also impacts the top down. Many studies show that unconscious discrimination contributes to a lack of diversity in boardrooms and executive suites, which hampers performance and allows more diverse businesses to gain an advantage. According to McKinsey & Company’s 2018 Delivering Through Diversity study, organizations in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are 21% more likely to achieve above-average profitability than those in the bottom quartile. For businesses in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on their executive teams, the probability of outperformance rose to 33%.

These findings imply that unconscious bias is already present in your organization. Aside from the danger of litigation, noncompliance, and reputational harm, all of which may be disastrous on their own, unconscious bias has a direct financial impact on performance. It is costly and pernicious, influencing almost every aspect of shareholder value, from innovation and revenue growth to staff retention and engagement.

 

What is the value of training people leaders in unconscious bias?

To begin, Carla Pollard-Stewart, senior HR director at healthcare technology firm bswift, stated that unconscious bias training begins with addressing individuals who are different than you with greater openness and empathy. “It allows us all to temper our biases so that we can all appreciate and learn from one other’s differences in positive ways,” she added.

Unconscious bias training is essential for leaders, especially given the vast range of viewpoints and ideas prevalent in a workforce. This training can assist us in bringing forward and identifying our preconceptions, allowing us to better prevent them from interfering with or playing a part in critical decisions we make on a daily basis in the workplace. The knowledge we get from working with people from various backgrounds is essential to our personal and professional development.

 

Training and education are the keys to overcoming bias. 

Fostering workplace diversity entails more than just having a diversified staff. It also necessitates efforts to create a more inclusive workplace where all individuals, particularly those from marginalized groups, feel at ease and appreciated. Leaders who get practical diversity training develop the habit of thinking about inclusion and how they can take measures to make the workplace more inclusive for all.

For Civility Partners, diversity and inclusion provide us ample opportunity to build a diverse workforce that brings the diversity of thought and perspective, resulting in more incredible innovation and high-quality client service. We offer three different pieces of training to equip you with diversity and inclusion concepts.

1. Virtual Diversity & Inclusion Literacy Training: 120 minutes (up to 100 participants)

This training will allow all employees to have shared language and definitions and create a culture where brave conversations are less risky.

2.  Virtual Diversity & Inclusion Action Training: 120 minutes (up to 20 participants only)

To equip the D&I Committee with practical tools to apply diversity and inclusion lenses in everyday work for hiring, promoting, selling, and marketing decisions.

3.  How to Recognize and Combat Unconscious Bias Training: 120 minutes (up to 20 participants only)

At Civility Partners, we believe that everyone is a leader. Our two-hour virtual training helps you design an environment of collective accountability and advocacy instead of waiting for the senior leadership team to create change and inclusion.

 

So, Is Unconscious Bias Training Effective? 

Yes, but only if it is part of a long-term, deliberate effort to foster a welcoming workplace culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our courses provide a simplified user experience, including unconscious bias training activities designed to engage all of your staff and assure student understanding by measuring progress at each stage.

Ultimately, it is critical for today’s businesses to use the proper tools and resources, such as unconscious bias training, to build a work environment founded on tolerance, creativity, and a commitment to organizational success.

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What Does Inclusive Culture Actually Mean?

There is so much talk about DEI these days. Diverse talent has become a hot commodity for any company and recruiters are fighting to get as many visibly diverse (aka BIPOC) candidates on their roaster as possible. Companies are demanding HR only hire diverse talent and managers are feeling the pressure. But what happens once the candidate joins?

Let’s explore how “diverse talent” feels once they join a Company.

Have you ever been the shortest in your class in elementary school?


Have you been the only child of divorced parents?


Have you experienced being the only family who went to a sunny destination for vacation?


Were you ever embarrassed of your clothes or your parents?


Have you ever been the only single person in the room or the only married person with children?


Were you ever the only one with an accent?


Were you the one moving to a new school every couple of years and never feeling like you belonged anywhere?


Were you the richest kid in the class? Or the poorest?

Being an adult in the modern world, you might not know what it’s like to be of a different race, but we all know what it’s like to feel different and not belong. How much did it mean to you when you were a kid, and someone said: “Hey, come sit at our table?”

It’s hard enough to feel like the token talent when joining a new company but what’s even harder is to not be invited to a Friday Zoom party or not being asked to speak.

 

What does it mean to be truly inclusive?

Our DEI Trainings offer this description of Diversity, Belonging and Inclusion:

Diversity is being invited to the party
Inclusion is being asked to dance ….
Belonging is knowing the playlist (but have YOU shared your playlist with THEM?)  It could be inside jokes, future plans or strategy, or maybe just something funny about your past

What can you do as an individual? Look around today and think of who is not included in that Friday zoom chat or might feel like the other on your team.

Unless you’re willing to be a leader who really thinks about the people around them and trains their managers to be more human (in a task-oriented work environment) – you will never create a culture of true inclusion.

Think of one person you can reach out to that is not included.

Ready to create more Inclusive Leaders and Culture? Check out our DEI Training HERE.

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Retention Challenges: Are Your Managers Leading Talent Out?

Are your managers leading talent through the door or out the door? If you are struggling with retention, it’s time to make sure that your managers are trained in the most critical 3-C skills!

For generations our work was process-driven. We created policies and procedures to guide us; if this happens then…that is how to handle it. The outcomes felt structured; inevitable even. The pandemic however, has shown us that there was a whole lot of gray that we didn’t create contingencies for.

In business just like in the rest of our life, we have had to grapple with an emergency situation these past 23 months and while some people have the capacity to take a breath and respond, most human beings are wired to go into their limbic brain that tells us to run, freeze or attack. NOW!

 

Toll of Pandemic Fatigue on HR and Employee Retention

The truth that we, as a collective (mostly) acknowledge is that we are struggling with the lack of processes that deal with pandemic fatigue or the great resignation.

People are screaming for HR attention. We are exhausted. We are trying to manage up and down while falling apart ourselves. We need help trying to keep our families and our sanity together. But the response has been consistently ‘just give us another two weeks’. HR is not our priority right now. We don’t have time or resources for it. And so retention kept decreasing.

In this race of survival, we forgot about the human beings that are running our businesses. We kept losing people and promoting others from within who were not ready to lead a team, nor were they ever trained or set up for success and so they too left. Or worse, they stayed and people on their team left. And new people came and then they left… ☹️ hmmm

The great resignation is here and it is showing us the consequences of businesses that prioritized profit and product over people. Now what?

 

Three C’s of Retention



1. Compassion

Compassion says: I see you. I believe in you. I feel for you and for us. I don’t know what’s next but I will do my best. Smart leaders elevate their team members that care. The ones that have a natural ability to experience compassion and empathy (if you need help identifying those people please reach out to us and we can run a talent diagnostic for you).

Ever wonder what does compassion look like in a business setting?

Listening
Seeing people for who they are not who you need them to be
Getting curious and learning what your people need and want right now
Not making assumptions and decisions based on your own unconscious bias
Including and practicing equity




2. Courage

New leaders of tomorrow also must develop the muscle of courage. Real talk: nobody is born courageous and this is why you must teach the skill of courage to care enough to speak the truth and to be vulnerable enough to admit when you don’t know but still willing to stand up and support your people in the best way you can with the most information you have.

3. Championing

Finally, championing. It may sound like: I believe you can do this. I have seen you do this before. You are capable of doing this. I trust you will do your best.

Smart leaders champion their people to engage in tasks that play off their strengths vs developing their weaknesses. Finding out what turns them on and brings aliveness and a sense of fun back into teamwork. What we need is more passion in workplaces and identifying what people are really good at, then helping them see it for themselves and creating opportunities for them to do what they love!

You might think it’s just business, but it’s always personal. Because businesses are built by people and for people, not machines. This is why compassion, courage and championing are the three C’s of retention and engagement that will help your people to not only walk through the door but stay!

In truly effective leadership, these three skills are delivered in a coaching leadership style.

Coaching is a critical skill for all managers, especially new team leads.

We must stop fixing and solving problems, but rather empower our people to think for themselves and collectively build solutions.

Reach out to us. 

 

The post Retention Challenges: Are Your Managers Leading Talent Out? appeared first on Civility Partners.

Newly Promoted Managers: Five Ways Companies Are Failing Them

What are the ways companies are failing their newly promoted managers? A recent Fortune magazine study found a mere seven percent of Fortune 500 CEOs think their companies are building effective leaders. 

Ineffective leaders create ineffective toxic cultures that lead to high turnover, which in turn, lowers revenue and customer satisfaction and corrodes the company’s brand.  

Unskilled leaders create a culture of burn out and toxic conflict that ruins relationships and  prevents effective collaboration.  

Unprepared leaders don’t know how to build the trust and psychological safety required for  innovation. They waste their time in the “doing space” vs leading others to do their best work! 

Digital age and new ways of working requires a different style of leadership!  

 

Five Ways Companies Are Failing Newly Promoted Managers

People leaders are required to break down silos and redistribute decision making to create a more  connected network. The new world is smart, fast, and agile so we can no longer afford to wait for  everybody to agree and reach a consensus. We must learn how to have healthy conflicts and  innovate. We need leaders who can build the trust required for quick decision making and a team  of people that is flexible and democratic in their approach. 

1. Top-down leadership is a thing of the past.

Modern leadership requires managers to have  the ability to create teams of people that can collaborate and innovate together, since mindless execution of tasks has been automated.

2. New age people leaders have the ability to break down silos.

Coach each team member to overcome limiting mindsets and internal conflicts. The mindset of “I just need to do my work and don’t care about anybody else” is ineffective and has become obsolete in our dynamic fast digital world. Lone wolves will be voted off the island if they don’t  learn how to collaborate with other team members.

3. Emotional intelligence is imperative.

Knowing your people is a must and helps you7 understand various personality types, in order to match their unique talents with specific  projects, tasks, and objectives. A leader’s capacity to uncover each individual intrinsic motivation, while knowing what drives them, is a learnable skill.

4. Team meetings and agreements have never been as important as right now.

We are all re entering the post pandemic world… so who will feel included? 

Who will feel invited? 
Who will belong? 
How are things done here?  
What is our culture and what agreements need to be put in place to be happy and agile?

5. Fear and punishment cultures have been replaced with inspiring leaders that people want to work with.

Modern leaders know how to enroll people in their shared vision and  acknowledge individual contribution. This creates a sense of community and meaning  that is the prerequisite for retention and employee engagement.  

Setting up your people leaders and managers for success means we teach them skills required to lead global and often remote teams with agility and autonomy.  

 

Setting Up Newly Promoted Managers For Success

What are those specific modern leadership skills that are mandatory to set up our managers for success?  

1. Building trust that creates autonomy and the ability to make decisions.

2. Creating psychological safety on team that helps with collaboration and healthy conflicts that lead to innovation. 

3. Having effective 1-on-1 meetings that lead to more human trusting relationships. When people like you they will do their best work.  

4. Giving honest and kind feedback. Modern leaders know how to create psychological safety, where people are seeking feedback not just being tolerated. 

5. Lastly, and most importantly, creating team agreements that help people feel included and celebrated for their unique talents and contributions.  

I am lucky and privileged to coach top performers and high potential leaders in organizations. Of course, they are often the ones that get a coaching allowance to get better at what they do and  even they struggle with the above so called “soft skills.” Don’t fool yourself – these are hard and  challenging human skills, that unfortunately, organizations do not teach when they promote top performers to leadership positions.  

Collaboration requires human skills. Innovation requires human skills. Trust and Psychological Safety requires human skills. Ability to have kind and healthy conflict requires you to be human. 

So how much time out of your day do you spend building relationships?  

Ready to invest in your people leaders and set them up for success? Reach out to our team at Civility Partners. We teach skills and create practice pods for your people leaders to safely practice these newly acquired skills that will lower your turnover and increase revenue. Happy people make more money and stay because of good managers and awesome teams.

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Top Three Priorities of Inclusive Leaders

The new modern digital world needs more inclusive leaders that care about their people and know how to support them in doing their best work.  

People stay because of good managers and people leave because of bad ones. Which one do you want to be and what makes someone a good inclusive leader?  

In our experience, they are the leaders that actually care about their people.

They know the names of the family members of their team. 


It’s important to them what each of their team member values. 


To build trust, they took the time to do so. 


Prioritizes what motivates them.


Sensitive to their challenges.


And are willing to invest their time and energy to build an awesome culture with happy people.  

But most importantly… they are professional dancers in this intricate tango of meeting organizational goals while supporting the individual growth of each team member.  

 

Priorities of Inclusive Leaders

This quarter is so important for you, as a leader, to show your support and full commitment to their success.

1. Reviewing goals with each team member.

This is such a perfect time to review the goals they set in the beginning of the year.  

Start by looking back at what has been accomplished in the last two quarters and what are the lessons your employee can integrate to assist in shifting their focus and priorities this quarter.  Your role is to help them realize what’s working and what’s not working.  Stay away from solving it for them.  

Some questions you might want to ask:  

Was there anything that worked particularly well over the past two quarters?
Were there any challenges?
How did you overcome those challenges?
What were you doing when you achieved your best results last quarter?
How did you fail this last quarter?  

One of my favorite coaching questions when coaching is always: “What failures can we celebrate?” This invites them to look at their failures as risk taking. As something that didn’t work, and now we can re-adjust and move on. If we want to be inclusive leaders and change  the inherited culture of fear and punishment- we must normalize failures and invite them!  Admitting mistakes and failures is the indication of your ability to create a psychologically safe  environment for your team. Congrats, if you did!  

Keep reading if you didn’t!

2. Feedback

It is super important to be prepared for this conversation. Make sure that  you, as a leader, are in a good mental space to give feedback. Have your facts ready.  Bring this person to mind and ask yourself the following questions:  

What have you seen them do really well these past two quarters?  
What was their contribution? Often employees fail to see how they have  individually contributed to the collective result. 
What are their strengths and weaknesses?  
What impact did they have on overall team achievement?  

As an Inclusive Leader, your role is to connect the dots for your team members and  acknowledge their efforts. Good leaders have a capacity to see the bigger picture and articulate  it in terms of individual contribution to build confidence and a sense of belonging to something  larger than themselves- which is the most important element of positive psychology!  

Don’t shy away from giving them some unpleasant feedback, if necessary. As a leader you must  take time to prepare facts and not your perception of them. In our Performance Management Training we often talk about giving feedback in terms of impact:  

“Here is what happened…… Here is the impact it had on ….. team, person, project, results.  What was your experience of this situation? “  

Let them speak openly, as it will reveal the ,understanding of their actions and self-awareness  or lack thereof. This leads to the opportunity to coach them.  

3. Coaching

Third quarter is an awesome opportunity for coaching your team members before their year-end performance reviews or else you might be faced with a question of: “Why did we not have this conversation before when I still had time to improve performance? “

Good coaching skills will allow you to help your team members create self-accountability and self-responsibility, because at the end of the day these are their goals. These are their results. These are their failures. Like a good parent- let your team members develop autonomy and hold their hand if they fall down.  

Here are some good coaching questions to ask:  

What did you do well last quarter?  
When you achieved the best results, what were you doing?
How did that particular mistake come about?
How would you have handled things differently last quarter?
What support do you need? This is one of the most important questions you can ask to  develop responsibility for self. Tell me what support you need. If they don’t know, ask  them to think about it, as this could be a pivotal point with performance.

This one question below will pull any employee out of their victim mode and bring back responsibility for self:

“You are in charge of your career. You are in charge of your results.  How can I help you do your best work? “

Once you have explored their best work, their worst work, the impact they have, and the contribution they have made – now is the perfect time to go over their priorities for the next quarter and create a plan of action.  

Schedule weekly check-ins. Schedule team meetings to explore what’s working  and what’s not working.  

As an inclusive modern leader your main priority is to ensure that people on your team are doing well and delivering results. Make it your main priority this quarter.  

Stop doing the work- start leading others do their best work!  

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Is Being More Human at Work Really Unprofessional?

Is being more human at work really unprofessional? I remember being a mother for the first time and returning to my corporate office. I had left my little baby behind and I was worried for her well-being. I thought about her being alone in that day care and having all the feels first-time mothers experience. Every time my baby coughed or had a runny nose, I would lose sleep worrying about asking my boss for a day off to take care of her. It was ok once. It was somewhat ok the second time but by the third time, I was asked to choose between being a mother or an employee. 

That was back in 2008 and it’s hard to imagine that flying today. Our world has changed (a bit) but at that time it sent a clear message that you do NOT bring your personal stuff to work- it was “just business- nothing personal.”

So, this got me to thinking- how often are our feelings hurt in meetings and later we’re told – don’t take it personally- it’s just business? 

The notion that humans should separate emotions from their work life is bizarre. When we are asked to do this, it creates a toxic environment where managers and leaders learn to be detached from their employees’ feelings and who they are as human beings. If you start treating people as a resource to achieve the company agenda and priorities, people stop caring personally. 

 

What’s the cost of being more human at work?






These environments cause employees to stop caring about going above and beyond- they will do the minimum expected to keep their jobs
They stop caring about their colleagues, engagements, and being committed to their company
Those employees will not take a risk for a “jerk” boss
There is a lack of innovation because innovation requires security and safety.  If employees worry about being fired when they take a sick day- cross innovation right off!

But most importantly, they stop trusting you as their LEADER. How can we trust somebody who says it’s not personal- just business?

New generation of managers care personally. They actually care about people on their team doing what they love, their career growth. or if their parents are dying or if they ask you to use a different pronoun that makes them feel more included, and most of all, when people care personally – they will do their BEST to be the best. 

So, please start caring. We can’t leave parts of our lives and hearts at home and still show up fully at work. 

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5 Signs of an Unhealthy Work Environment & How to Fix It

We hear a lot of various words and phrases being thrown around these days – toxic work environment, unhealthy work environment, lacking psychological safety, and more.

In fact I’m often asked, “What is the definition of a toxic work environment?” 

My response is, “Ask your workforce. Let them help you define what unacceptable versus acceptable behavior is.”

That said, lately I’ve been using the phrase “exclusive behavior” because it highlights that all behavior that makes others feel excluded is inappropriate. It doesn’t have to be toxic or unlawful for it to be addressed by a manager or human resources department. 

While I personally operate in the world of workplace bullying (I’ve been researching, publishing, speaking and coaching on the topic for almost 15 years), a lot of behaviors can be considered toxic, exclusive, unhealthy… whatever you want to call it. 

 

Behaviors that Create an Unhealthy, or Exclusive, Work Environment

Someone who frequently interrupts, is constantly negative, acts helpless, is defensive, is chronically late, is unable to read nonverbal cues suggesting you need space, or is passive-aggressive likely falls under the category of someone who exhibits unhealthy behaviors.

These behaviors are also exclusive, in that interrupting someone excludes them from the conversation, and showing up late to their meeting certainly doesn’t show them you respect them. 

I tend to find there are four categories of unhealthy behaviors at work:

Downer behaviors – complaining, critiquing, impossible to please, defensivenessBetter than behaviors – one-upping, name dropping, constantly comparing to others, showing off, grandstanding, humiliating othersPassive behaviors – not providing opinions or suggestions, time sucking, waffling on decisions, helpless, not being direct/talking around sensitive issuesAggressive behaviors – explosive, bossy, controlling, emotional, passive aggressive, stubborn, abrasive

 

5 Warning Signs of an Unhealthy Work Environment 

While the behaviors above can be observed when someone is paying attention, that requires your managers to be trained in this skill and empowered to address the behaviors when they happen. I know from experience that this type of training is fairly non-existent (unless you’re working with us, of course), so you may need some additional tools to get a sense for your work environment and whether it is healthy and inclusive or unhealthy and toxic. 

 

1. Observable behavior demonstrates a lack of collaboration.

Observe your team – Do they tend to operate in isolation, or perhaps one person isolates themselves? Do they laugh and appear to enjoy each others’ company? Are their nonverbal behaviors indicative of being open and comfortable with each other or closed off and lacking trust? 

 

2. Data shows high absenteeism and turnover.

Surely you can run reports wherever you store your employee data and determine if one particular site or department has higher absenteeism or turnover than others, an indication that it could be unhealthy there. You might also look at productivity, and whether employees are working slower, making more mistakes, or delivering services or goods that are less than quality. 

 

3. Silence or exclusive behaviors during meetings or training sessions.

As trainers, we often observe things that indicate a lack of psychological safety, or the presence of unhealthy behaviors, during training sessions. For example, we may hop around the Zoom breakout rooms to hear what’s happening and will witness people gossiping, making fun of a co-worker, or talking poorly about leadership. We also witness silence, where the lack of participation from the people of color, for example, indicates they aren’t comfortable speaking up. 

 

4. Your organization exhibits risk factors known to foster discrimination, harassment and bullying.

If you check out this page on the EEOC’s website, you can find a nice long list of risk factors. If you have a homogenous workforce, for example, the underrepresented groups can feel isolated while the majority group might feel threatened by the “other” group. Workplaces that value rainmakers is another example, where the rainmaker is allowed to engage in unhealthy behaviors because leaders believe their results outweigh the damage. 

 

5. Your workforce survey data indicates a problem with trust, relationships, or engagement.

While the data may specifically point to low ratings on specific questions, keep in mind that there’s some hidden information too. We recently reviewed a client’s great place to work survey, for example, where approximately half of the survey respondents didn’t indicate their race; the half who did were white. This can indicate a lack of psychological safety around being a person of color in this workplace, something we’re digging into now. 

 

How to Fix an Unhealthy or Toxic Work Environment

As highlighted on our website, the first step is to conduct a survey to uncover the problems and gain clarity on what to focus on.

Be sure to do a climate assessment, which seeks to understand your culture; not to be confused with an engagement survey, which seeks only to measure the level of engagement. We’ve had many clients whose engagement survey scores were great, but when we asked about things like inclusivity, trust in leadership, or effectiveness of communication, the scores pointed to much room for improvement. 

Second, hold a few planning meetings to review the data and develop a clear and tangible action plan for change. When we engage in this process with clients, we end up leading three meetings to get that crystalized plan. The plan should be published to the workforce so they can monitor its progress, and participate where they’d like. 

Third, implement the plan. Now that you have a plan, go for it. Keeping in mind that culture change happens through organizational change and behavior change, your plan will have several action items in both areas.

 

Often, our organizational change plans and projects include things like:

Coaching key leaders struggling to adjust their own behavior to meet with the culture vision and core valuesRevamping the performance management system to gain accountability for the core values and new culture being created and assure a consistent feedback loopDeveloping career mapping, succession planning programs, and professional growth opportunities for the workforce so that they can see their path inside the organizationCreating an employer branding program and/or creating a formal onboarding program that includes orientation to the job and socialization (e.g., buddy system)Conflict mediation between individuals or departments

 

Our behavior change plans (i.e., training programs) often include topics such as:

Coming to agreement on values and behaviors as a whole companyAdapting values and behaviors across departments and teamsCommunicating with civility and respectPerformance management trainingDiversity, equity and inclusion topics, including minimizing bias, being an upstander, or helping everyone uncover their own diversity storyProactively building a positive team culture and bringing it to fruitionWork-life balance or minimizing stress

 

Another Solution

An unhealthy work environment is certainly one that doesn’t have psychological safety. Luckily, we have a webinar coming up on March 15th, 10pm PST on “Creating and Measuring Psychological Safety”. Join us and gain clear and actionable tips for building a culture where people can bring their whole-self to work.

P.S. The webinar is quickly booking up, so claim your spot here.

 

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Creating and Measuring Psychological Safety

One of the strongest proven predictors of team effectiveness is psychological safety. At Civility Partners, we understand the importance of psychological safety and its impact on employees, the organization, and the community.

According to research by Gallup, 3/10 employees strongly believe their opinions don’t matter at work. That number is just way too low!

A diverse workforce leads to a higher level of innovation and creativity. However, when individuals don’t feel comfortable speaking up or feel like their opinions don’t matter, it can have significant negative effects on the organization. 

Psychological safety is not about everyone being nice all the time, but rather embracing conflict, respectfully challenging ideas, and fostering trust within the team. This creates a strong and cohesive team where everyone feels confident in their abilities and has the support of their colleagues.

We believe that a workplace where employees feel psychologically safe not only benefits employees but also contributes to the overall well-being of society. After all, most of us spend the majority of our time at work, making it a vital part of our lives. When employees feel safe to express themselves and take risks, they bring that same energy into their homes and into the world around them.

But creating psychological safety is not just about having a few trust-building activities or recognizing employees for speaking up. It’s about incorporating it into all aspects of the organization, from recruiting and performance management to onboarding and beyond.

 

Creating and Measuring Psychological Safety

 

We know that creating psychological safety takes effort and commitment. But the benefits are well worth it. So, we’re offering a free webinar on “Creating and Measuring Psychological Safety” on March 15th, 10AM PST to show you some of the ways you can incorporate psychological safety into your organizational systems. Join us and learn how you can create a respectful and engaged workforce that benefits everyone.

Check out our registration page for the full description! Let’s take action towards a more positive and thriving workplace!

 

Sincerely,

Jenny & The Civility Partners Team

 

Let’s create a plan to build a positive workplace! | Invite Catherine to speak | Check out our webinar library

 

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What Happens If Your Workplace Lacks Psychological Safety?

Psychological safety is a crucial aspect of any positive workplace culture. It refers to the belief that one’s workplace is a safe place to take risks, share ideas, and speak up without fear of negative consequences. 

Unfortunately, many workplaces lack psychological safety, and the consequences can be dire. From decreased productivity and employee engagement to increased absenteeism and turnover, the impact of a lack of psychological safety can be far-reaching.

Here are three real-life scenarios:

 

1. Boeing’s 737 Max disasters 

In 2020, Amy Edmondson wrote an article about the importance of psychological safety in the workplace, drawing attention to the FBI’s investigation into Boeing’s 737 Max disasters. The investigation revealed that some workers at one of Boeing’s factories in North Carolina were aware of catastrophic flaws in the jet’s algorithm but did not speak up due to fear of losing their jobs or promotions. 

This illustrates an extreme example of potential consequences that may occur when teams do not have a culture of psychological safety and don’t feel comfortable raising concerns and potential threats to customers, employees, or the product. 

 

2. Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank

Another example is Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, where high standards were set for employees to open a large number of accounts per customer. This pressure led employees to engage in unethical behavior, such as lying and creating fake accounts and credit cards, ultimately costing the company $185M in fines. 

This is another great example of what can happen when there is a lack of psychological safety in the workplace and individuals feel unable to speak up and admit mistakes, leading them to resort to dishonest methods to meet unrealistic expectations. Our clients share similar stories with us quite often, and the question we ask is, why? Why do they not feel safe to speak up? We uncover the answer with climate assessments (i.e., workforce surveys). 

 

3. Nokia

Before the emergence of Apple, Nokia was the dominant player in the mobile phone market. Executives at Nokia were aware of the potential threat posed by Apple, but were afraid to share this information with their engineers. 

As a result, engineers at Nokia were unaware that their technology was not compatible with Apple’s, and Nokia’s failure to adapt resulted in their decline and eventual disappearance from the market. 

Wow, leaders can experience a lack of psychological safety too? You bet – we see this all the time with leaders engaging in bullying. The CEO, for example, is afraid to hold a bullying executive vice-president accountable for better behaviors. The CEO fears retaliation or that this high-performer will quit, taking all of their great results with them. 

 

What role do leaders play in co-creating psychological safety inside organizations? 

In short, leaders play a critical role. 

In this “Brady Bunch” kind of world where team members are remote and not physically together all the time, it’s even more crucial to create a safe space for open communication and different perspectives. As a leader, you must actively seek input and opinions from team members, and get creative with the tools to increase engagement in your meetings. This will ensure that everyone feels included and that their opinion counts.

And please remember that, as a leader, you don’t have to agree with every idea or opinion that is shared, but it is important to listen and understand where your people are coming from. 

One tool that we use with teams is a classic improv game that teaches the value of accepting each other’s ideas and cooperating with one another, called, “Yes and…” If you want people to contribute to the conversations, it’s critical to validate everyone’s idea and eliminate any, “buts” that come to mind. This helps to keep the conversation open and receptive.

Play this game at your next meeting to generate all kinds of wacky ideas and master the art of responding to different situations, which will create a culture of psychological safety within the team.

 

Sincerely,

Anya Soto & the Civility Partners Team

 

P.S. Want to learn how to measure and build psychological safety on your team? Look no further! We are hosting a FREE webinar on “Creating and Measuring Psychological Safety” on March 15th, from 10am PST!

Yes, join us to learn valuable insights, tools and strategies, AND… have the opportunity to earn 1 SHRM PDC by participating live. This is a chance to take your team’s culture and performance to the next level. Don’t miss out on this opportunity. Register now and secure your spot!

 

 

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