Psychological safety - beware professional pride
I was facilitating a meeting with some senior HR professionals who all worked for the same global organisation. They were debating how to nurture talent within the business.
One of them made a suggestion or should I say demanded a decision. This is roughly how it sounded to me:
‘Let me tell you, I have been doing this job for 10 years and if you want to call yourself a fellow professional, you won’t even think about disagreeing with this suggestion. In fact, anyone who does disagree is clearly an idiot and doesn’t deserve a place at this table’
OK I may be slightly exaggerating but not by much. When I delved a bit deeper I discovered they had introduced an idea in their region and were proud of it. So proud they became a staunch defender of their work and a flag waver for everyone following suit across the business.
I have no problem with sharing best practice but they were so dominant in the meeting they crushed the sound of doubt and concern. In this example they were proposing a huge workload, mass form filling across the globe. Doubts in the room included concerns over bureaucracy, whether the benefits were worth the effort, whether the idea was scalable, cultural acceptance of the process and so on. And no one said anything.
The example made me reflect on the concept of psychological safety when professionals beat their colleagues with a stick labelled ‘professional best practice’. It sounds so compelling but is worthy of challenge.
My only advice is that next time you chair a meeting and witness a solidly argued proposal by a seasoned professional, thank them for their expertise and contribution and allow a few minutes to hear alternative views. In fact try these words:
‘Thanks for such a clear proposal. Before we move on, can we just play devil’s advocate for a few minutes. I would love to hear concerns, thoughts and ideas from everyone in here.’
Then perhaps follow this with some coaching for the professional who needs to learn some lessons in collaboration.