1: We are given a puzzle. The goal is to arrange colors and shapes on a map. We can work as long as we like.
The instructor exits the room leaving us alone.
Two minutes later, the instructor returns and hands us a handwritten note. We are told it is from Steve, a fellow participant we have never met.
“Steve did the puzzle earlier and wanted to share a tip with you,” the instructor says.
We read the note and get back to work.
Although we don’t realize it, everything is different.
“Without trying, we start working harder on the puzzle,” Daniel Coyle writes in The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups.
“Areas deep in our brains begin to light up,” he notes. “We are more motivated—twice as much. We work more than 50 percent longer, with significantly more energy and enjoyment.”
And that’s not all.
“The glow endures. Two weeks later, we are inclined to take on similar challenges,” Daniel shares.
A simple note from a stranger has turned us into “a smarter, more attuned version of ourselves.”
Guess what?
“Steve’s tip was not actually useful,” Daniel shares. “It contained zero relevant information. All the changes in motivation and behavior we experienced afterward were due to the signal that we were connected to someone who cared about us.
Wow.
That’s the power of psychological safety.
2: Experiment #2: Would We Give a Stranger Our Phone?
SCENARIO 1: We are standing in the rain at a train station. A stranger approaches and politely says, “Can I borrow your cellphone?”
SCENARIO 2: We are standing in the rain at a train station. A stranger approaches and politely says, “I’m so sorry about the rain. Can I borrow your cellphone?”
QUESTION: To which stranger are we more likely to respond?
“At first glance, there’s not a lot of difference between the two scenarios. Both strangers are making an identical request that involves a significant leap of trust,” Daniel writes.
“All in all, a reasonable person might predict that the two approaches would yield roughly equal response rates.”
Sorry. A reasonable person would be wrong.
“When Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School performed the experiment, she discovered that the second scenario caused the response rate to jump 422 percent.
“Those six words—I’m so sorry about the rain—transformed people’s behavior. They functioned exactly the way Steve’s tip did in the puzzle experiment. They were an unmistakable signal: This is a safe place to connect. We hand over our cell phones–and create a connection–without thinking.
3: “These are massive effects,” says Dr. Gregory Walton of Stanford, who performed the Steve’s tip experiment and others. “These are little cues that signal a relationship, and they totally transform the way people relate, how they feel, and how they behave.”
That’s the power of psychological safety.
Psychological safety matters. A lot.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Think back on a group I was part of that was uber-successful. Describe how that team interacted.
Action: Focus on creating psychological safety today in my interactions with my team.
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