Product Momentum Podcast

119 / Building Resilient Organizations and Safe Cultures, with Alla Weinberg

Sep 19, 2023

Alla Weinberg, CEO of SPOKE & WHEEL, discusses the importance of having conversations that prioritize people over work to foster psychological safety in the workplace. She emphasizes the role of leaders in creating a safe environment and highlights the significance of emotions in decision-making and building connections. The chapter also explores stress assessments, the importance of candor, and building resilient organizations and safe cultures.

21:26

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Episode guests

Alla Weinberg

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Creating psychological safety requires having different conversations that go beyond work-related topics and addressing the well-being and emotions of team members.

Resilient organizations take responsibility for their mistakes, have honest conversations about what went wrong, and make changes to prevent similar issues in the future.

Deep dives

Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Psychological safety in the workplace is about creating an environment where people feel safe to be honest and share their ideas, mistakes, and emotions. It is the neurological perception that we are connected to others and their nervous systems are not a threat. Creating psychological safety requires having different conversations beyond just work-related topics. It involves discussing feelings, concerns, and providing physical and emotional safety. Leaders need to believe and support employees when they disclose their struggles or concerns. Vulnerability is also crucial for fostering psychological safety, where team members can authentically express their thoughts and emotions without fear of judgment.

Introduction

3min

Creating Psychological Safety and the Importance of Different Conversations

5min

Creating a Safe Environment: Listening and Empathizing

6min

Assessing Stress Levels, Psychological Safety, and Candor in Teams

5min

Building Resilient Organizations and Safe Cultures

1min

Alla Weinberg, CEO of SPOKE & WHEEL, says that the key to designing relationships that resolve (even avoid) workplace tensions is to have different conversations than the ones we’re currently having. Our relentless focus on the work, she explains, distracts us from focusing on the people and making sure that we have created an organization where they feel safe.

Alla is a culture designer who has incorporated her design background with the principles of neuroscience, positive psychology, and relationship research. She is also an author; in her book, A Culture of Safety, she applies these principles to improve workplace culture. In our chat with Alla, she defines psychological safety through these lenses.

“To create psychological safety,” Alla continues, “we need to intentionally find time for conversations that are drastically, even radically different than what we are doing right now.”

Yes, we are at work to perform a job, to deliver a solution for our clients. But there are times, she says, when not talking about work creates deeper connections and, as a result, more resilient teams. Creating these connections is an opportunity to practice leadership, by introducing (if not modeling) candor and vulnerability.

“Leaders need to get vulnerable first,” she adds. “If you’re a leader and you’re seeing evidence that people don’t feel safe, you need to say that. Then ask your teams, ‘what am I doing to create that environment?’ And when they tell you, don’t be defensive or try to justify your behavior.

“Show yourself to be vulnerable and say, ‘Yes, I am doing that and I’m going to try to be better.’”

Keep in mind: psychological safety and resilience are not the same. It’s only when leaders create a psychologically safe environment for individuals that we can create resilient organizations.

Looking for more tips from Alla Weinberg to build resilience in your organization? Be sure to listen to the entire conversation.

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Product Momentum Podcast

119 / Building Resilient Organizations and Safe Cultures, with Alla Weinberg

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace

Designing Work Relationships to Foster Psychological Safety

The Need for Resilient Organizations

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts