Artikelenreeks om eigen meesterschap te ontwikkelen in Verbindende Communicatie
Boundary-crossing behavior, toxic work environment, safety in teams are all words that have to do with safe work environment, which are more relevant than ever. Connecting Communication skills can make the difference between an unsafe and a safe work environment. In this article I focus on aspects of Nonviolent Communication (here, referred to as Connecting Communication) that contribute to safety in teams and have important impacts on team atmosphere and organizational culture.
Psychological safety defined is ‘the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking’ (Prof. Amy Edmonson, The Fearless Organization).
A place where criticism is expressed is of course not automatically an unsafe workplace. Expressing criticism of your work is quite normal, yet it is about the manner in which feedback is given and received. Does your manager appreciate it when you provide feedback? And do you receive constructive feedback, or is your work overly criticized, with minimal learning?
Your sense of psychological safety is influenced by internal and external factors. How do you respond to others? And how do others respond to you? Ultimately, it is about the interaction between the two. Psychological safety is therefore about the subtle interaction between people.
We at VINE see this reflected in the issues with which organizations approach us for our specialism. Connecting Communication is not the goal in itself. It is about purposefully providing the specific interpersonal skills and interventions that contribute to the solution. We call this: effective training based on the principles of Nonviolent Communication.
The absence of psychological safety typically leads to stagnation of development and performance. Connecting Communication in this context is like a driving force for safety-enhancing behavior. It leads to positive changes in how people interact with each other and the dynamics of the team, which strengthens a culture of cooperation and mutual understanding.
The more safety-enhancing behavior you set and model, the more this contributes to connection and mutual trust. You can do this by integrating behavior that contributes to safety and omitting behavior that does not contribute. The team will transform if the safety-enhancing behavior occurs more often than the safety-limiting behavior.
This is exactly the core of what Connecting Communication’s practical skills bring to team settings.
Cultivating an environment of openness and understanding is essential for effective cooperation and everyone’s well-being. More often than not, we do not have the skills to support this, which means that tensions and differences of opinion are not expressed. And if they are expressed, it often comes across as blame, resulting in a conflict for which more conversations are needed to be able to work together constructively again.
“If there is mutual connection, openness, trust and closeness, team members can turn to and support each other, even in challenging situations.”
Something we see happening quite often in communication: a message is delivered in a blaming way, provoking a counter-reaction. Before you know it, a ping-pong discussion takes place in which people are busy defending their position and/or trying to prove they are right. Judgements and reproaches go back and forth, the situation stagnates and no progress takes place.
Every change starts with awareness of your own communication and behaviour. By this, I mean your verbal and non-verbal communication, and the responsibility you take for your behaviour in your interaction with others. This is about personal leadership as well as about yourself as a “connecting leader” for others. There are two sides to the coin: on the one side you want to feel the freedom to express your opinion in the group. The safety needed for this is created by the interaction between people. If you don’t feel free to be yourself and are afraid to make mistakes and admit them, this is called interpersonal anxiety. On the other side, you want to contribute to the whole, the interests of the team, which is an essential part of being able to co-create a psychologically safe environment. Without that safety, tension exists at the expense of sharing ideas and asking questions.
“The need to break the pattern increases when the pain or discomfort of the situation becomes too great. Or when the consequences become clearly visible”.
In your role as leader of a group, you are visible and have more influence on the team culture. Your challenge is to create a safe context where the power of the group can be make a difference. Your contribution to psychological safety happens in the small moments, in how you deal with your team members and the team as a whole every day. By this I mean that every team member experiences that they can approach you and that you are prepared to:
Here is an example: If you are a leader who talks about others or if you are judgmental about team members, you are enforcing the norm of a non-safe team. If you address others who gossip or judge team members, you contribute to the norm of a non-safe team. In this team you are held responsible for insufficiently contributing to safety.
If, however, you really listen during meetings, check for understanding, to see if you have heard and understood correctly, you contribute to a different norm. In this team a priority is given to listening in order to understand each other …
“It is important that managers actively invite their employees to give their opinion…”
The less safety there is in a team, the more support people look for satey in the (informal) leader. Research shows that a manager who creates the expectation that something will actually be done with the ideas and does not deliver is one of the reasons that some managers simply avoid the conversation. Another reason is that managers who are mainly guided by short-term goals are less inclined to create an environment in which people speak out. Achieving short-term success seems to be your best friend in the status quo. There is then the idea that changes that employees propose endanger achieving the short-term goals. Here too, the reflex of managers is not to ask employees to speak out.
The less safety people experience, the more they tend to rely on the (informal) leader for support. Research shows that when a manager creates the expectation that employees’ ideas will be acted upon but fails to follow through, it becomes one reason some leaders avoid these conversations altogether. Another reason is that leaders who are primarily focused on short-term goals are less inclined to foster an environment where employees feel encouraged to speak up about their ideas. Focusing on short-term targets often seems like the best option, and within this framework, employees’ ideas for change could jeopardize success. As a result, managers may reflexively choose not to invite employees to share their thoughts.
“Creativity and innovation benefit from people who dare to put forward their ideas, without the fear that they will be considered stupid or naive. Just as it is important that people who identify risks within an organization are not accused of being negative or not solution-oriented. Both creativity and identifying risks require employees to dare to speak up”.
It is the start of a team meeting, and there’s coffee and a relaxed atmosphere. A vigorous discussion about a decision arises, and it is heated but not aggressive. The extroverted team members are the first to speak and the quieter colleagues are asked if they want to contribute something. When resistance shows up, further questions are asked and this brings depth or perhaps a new direction. Everyone’s input is considered important! In the end a strong proposal is made and the final decision is one that everyone can get behind.
This team experiences open and effective cooperation and the team and organizational goals are achieved. We can say that the following four basic principles are secured, a case of ‘two plus two is five’.
✓ Trust ✓ Safety ✓ Connection ✓ Responsibility
Understanding is about the process of empathic listening and being able to make empathic loops in a dialogue. In Connecting Communication, understanding is more something I do than something I say. In my experience, the words ‘I understand you’ do not always lead to meaningful understanding and connection. It is a challenge to really understand someone else’s experience and requires the skill of empathy and listening ‘behind’ the words someone speaks – the underlying motivations and needs. You ‘jump on the surfboard’ of the speaker and surf along with what is alive moment by moment. This requires a special kind of focus in which approximately 95% is silent listening with your attention fully on the speaker. A nod with your head and other body language that indicates that you want to truly hear and understand the other person. It involves empathically guessing about the speaker’s underlying need or feeling that you may be sensing. Empathy is very powerful when it comes to someone experiencing being understood; often it is about being seen, heard, recognized as they are. This often has a calming effect, the creation of openness, and differences of opinion can be resolved constructively. It is ‘the oil in the dialogue’.
Protection is mainly about inclusivity, actively inviting and checking the voice of the minority. This involves supporting team members who bring a different perspective and appreciating its potential for enriches decision-making. It may also entail protecting certain values, principles and processes that help ensure safety. In Connecting Communication, this is about expressing appreciation and giving connecting feedback. Another aspect of protection is allowing unpleasant emotions like resistance or irritation about certain behaviors to be discussable in a connecting way without blame and reproach. Instead the team member maintains their place in the team and the team connection is restored. How you as leader use your influence and power to protect certain values, principles and processes can play a very important role for team safety.
Boundaries are about setting clear limits on behavior that diminishes safety if team members are not yet able to address each other directly in a connecting way. Examples of this kind of behavior include: constantly interrupting each other in meetings, having an accusatory tone, limiting discussions to yes-no responses, not listening and being obstructive. Setting limits means that you set the standard for safety-inducing behavior. It can be a challenge because it sets your position clearly apart from your colleagues, unlike in the first two pillars, understanding and protection. It is maneuvering in a field of tension. Without connection there is no real entrance; you will need to search how you go about setting boundaries without undermining relationships, connection and safety. As a leader, people mainly look at what you do, not at what you say. When you set limits, this will provide reassurance because others experience that you guard the team culture and maintain the safe framework. Connecting Communication skills, such as expressing yourself clearly, knowing how to deal with your own triggers, setting limits in a way that is focused on needs and feelings, and making crystal clear requests, will contribute greatly to effective collaboration.
Give teams their own responsibility and stimulate interdependence of team members (as opposed to working in silos). Intertwine the work of team members, stressing that collaboration is in the interest of everyone. Make shared goals, interests and responsibilities explicit and transparent while also establishing concrete agreements on the working methods at both personal and team level. This requires trust, transparency, clear goals and equity. It’s moving away from permission and towards coordinated empowerment. Connecting Communication skills include inclusive decision-making, fast consencing (shortened decision-making process), making clear proposals, making clear requests and positive feedback loops on results.
Below I give a brief summary of the effects of integrating Connecting Communication as a professional, in your team and the organization:
Familiar behavior
Gossiping, talking about each other
Interrupting each other, not allowing the
other to finish talking
Thinking in judgments, assumptions, interpretations
Defending, attacking when there are different perspectives, opinions, approaches
Providing feedback based on judgments
Seeing conflicts as “who is right / wrong?”
One-sided decision-making
Changed behavior
Expressing in clear and connecting ways
Listening and giving each other space
Open curiosity, asking questions, checking for understanding
Empathy and understanding for each other’s differences
Conscious connecting feedback based on needs
Seeing conflicts as important sources of information
Broadly supported, or inclusive decision-making
In closing, integrating Connecting Communication is like a new ‘communication roadmap’ that leads to higher psychological safety, improved collaboration, stronger relationships, constructive conflict resolution, efficient powerful decision-making and a positive work culture that results in higher productivity. How safe is your organization?
This article was created from our own knowledge and experiences from our VINE trainings, various studies and the book ‘The team leader as a culture maker’ by colleague Sara Leysen.
* Headerfoto Hein de Kort
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Een lijst met behoeften én gevoelens die aanwezig kunnen zijn als behoeften wel of niet ingevuld worden of zijn. Deze lijst is bedoeld om je woordenkennis over gevoelens en behoeften te verhelderen en te vergroten. Het is bedoeld als een beginpunt om een ieder die dat wenst te ondersteunen bij het proces van de verdieping van zelfontdekking. Daarnaast kan het behulpzaam zijn om begrip en verbinding tussen mensen te vergemakkelijken.
Wil je dat je met plezier en energiek je werk kunt doen? Je team enthousiast en gemotiveerd samenwerkt?Medewerkers en leidinggevenden opgewekt, tevreden en betrokken zijn?
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