This is the fourth in series about psychological safety and team effectiveness.

Here is the overview, where I outline this series and make the claim the over-rotation towards psychological safety for teams did more harm than good. 

In Part 2, I argued that Project Aristotle's main conclusion, which started this whole "student body left" shift towards psychological safety, is likely not even correct.

Part 3 made the case that trying to find the "one thing, more than anything else" when it comes to team effectiveness kept us from working with the variation...understanding it, mapping it, and helping the team leverage it...that is far more important to increasing team effectiveness.

Parts 4, 5 & 6 will discuss some unintended consequences the focus on psychological safety caused and exactly how they impacted team effectiveness.

Here, in Part 4, I'll suggest that psychological safety caused us to forget a maxim we once knew.

What Are We Solving For?

"Psychological safety is not an unconditional good. A little discomfort, healthy conflict, and accountability often lead to better outcomes than an environment where everything is designed to make people feel safe."
— Adam Grant, Harvard Business Review, 2019

Let's say you are on a team.  And not a just a typical project team or client team or funnel management team.

A team facing an enormous challenge, where the outcomes and success are extremely important to both the organization and to you personally.

Which type of team would you rather be on?

A team comprised of the most talented individuals you have ever worked with.  One where you can't believe how much you are learning, but also a group that is so skilled that every day you wake up wondering if you might be the weakest link in the chain and in danger of being let go.  A mission-first group, driven to win, that does "not suffer fools gladly," and who don't mind telling you, publicly, that they aren't going with your proposal and suggestions because they were poorly thought out.  People who set a high bar and call out the efforts of anyone who does not meet the standard of excellence, commitment, attention to detail, and speed the team feels they need to uphold if they are going to win.

Or

A team made of talented enough folks but nothing that intimidates you.  They are some of your favorite colleagues, who practice conversational turn-taking. Who thank you for your suggestions, no matter how good they are.  A group where you feel like you could be yourself and a group that was very socially sensitive, one that would never embarrass you, who would even look the other way or tell you you, "That's OK, you did your best," even when your efforts cost them.  Where there was zero possibility you would be "rejected" or fired from the team. (NB: all words in italics were listed in the NYTimes article describing how Project Aristotle thought about psychological safety.)

When we're talking about a mission that is a serious challenge, and one where the outcome is meaningful to me personally...not a weekend softball game...not MBA case teams (troubling ones, that lacked psychological safety, were mentioned in the Project Aristotle article)...not a typical project team...that's an easy choice for me.  I'd take... "talent all around me that's forcing me to be better, albeit with no quarter and a high danger of not making it" over "mixed talent, not learning much, but safe"...every day of the week.

How about you?

Good to Great Companies.  Good to Great Teams.

Good to Great was one of the best-selling management books of all time.

One of the top seven levers associated with how Good companies became Great companies and left other good companies they were paired with for study purposes in the dust was to "get the right people in the right seats on the bus." 

Is this ringing a bell?

The book phrased this key good to great lever another way that I thought was so powerful: "First Who, Then What." They were saying not "right people for the mission." Talent is so important that you should get the right people and they will figure out the right mission.

If the right talent is a key change lever for companies to become great, wouldn't it defy logic for talent not to be a big lever, perhaps even the key lever, for teams who want to go from good to great?

For those keeping score at home, you probably won't be surprised to learn that increasing psychological safety was not one of the seven levers that companies used to go from good companies to become great companies.

Let's get back to those buses and having the right people on them.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski, famous Duke basketball coach, describes the the impact of something his mom said to him.

"That was the most pivotal talk I've ever had. And it really set the stage for what I did the rest of my life—was the night before I was going to high school. I was a cocky punk. And I'm going to Catholic boys’ high school in Chicago, and you had to take the city buses.

So the night before, my mom says, 'Mike, tomorrow, make sure you get on the right bus.'

And I look at her like, 'Ma, Damon to Armitage, Armitage to Laramie, I can take Division to Grand.'

And she says, 'That's not the bus I'm talking about.' '

What bus are you talking about?' '

Tomorrow you're gonna start driving your own bus and only let good people on your bus.'

Now, this is from an eighth-grade-educated lady who cleaned other people's houses—so wise, just the best person in my life.

And she says, 'And if you get on someone else's bus, make sure they're good people, and those buses will take you to places that you would never go alone.'

We all once knew about the importance of talent...even some of our moms knew.

But since psychological safety became the "#1 input affecting team effectiveness," we seem to have gone to sleep about the central importance of that variable in helping teams win.

Teams know. They recognize whose got talent.  And they recognize the C players.  They know who is prepared, who "does their job" impeccably, and who can always be counted on to do what they say they will do.  And they know who isn't pulling their weight, who's about as reliable as a rain dance, and who, for some reason, keeps getting away with it.

Teams Know This.  Why Don't the Experts?

One of the things that makes me nuts about the team assessment surveys out in the markey is that many don't include a section on Talent. 

They ask lots of questions about what the leader does and how the team acts toward each other but they don't ask any questions about the quality of the people doing that "doing and acting."

It's almost like every one has to take the team as "a given"...something sacrosanct...as if its as if it is some kind of unwritten faux pas to ask people if they think the team has the right people to win.

And this is a real mistake, because the team knows. 

I played a lot of pickup ice hockey over the years.  As soon as the light and dark jerseys were on, everyone knew who was going to win.  It wasn't because the team that was going to win had better norms or better equipment or more psychological safety than the other.  It was because that team was flat out better, with the right mix of "skill" and "grind."

Teams know. 

They recognize whose got talent.  And they recognize the C players.  They know who is prepared, who "does their job" impeccably, and who can always be counted on to do what they say they will do.  And they know who isn't pulling their weight, who's about as reliable as a rain dance, and who, for some reason, keeps getting away with it.

Ask them.

And more important, if you are the leader, ask yourself if you have the right team to win.

Like Pat Riley, NBA Hall of Fame Coach, said, "You can't have 12 milk drinkers in the locker room.  You need a couple guys who drink Jack Daniels."

The Dream Team Exercise

Once my First Hundred Days clients have been on the job a month or so and have started to get clear on the SWOT they have inherited and also the "better place" they need to get to in the medium term, I guide them to do the Dream Team exercise.

This exercise is simple at its face.  Given the situation and the mission you are envisioning, what is the Dream Team...the team that if you had it, you know that you would absolutely crush your goals?  What number of people? What level? What structure? What mix of skills? What characteristics? And yes, what team chemistry?

The Dream Team exercise gets leaders quickly focused on "right people in the right seats on the bus," the right mix, and what they need to win.  They are unlikely to get a team like that in place in their First Hundred Days, but having the vision of what great looks like pulls them forwards towards it.

As an aside, speaking of the characteristics and chemistry of the team, you might want to think twice about assembling a bunch of "nice guys" and a play nice environment. Too many leaders are uncomfortable with friction and conflict.  They don't realize that friction and conflict can be birthing processes for something new and important. They can't handle the tension conflict creates and want everyone to sing Kumbaya and just get along.

But if you're under the gun or have a steep hill to climb, you're probably going to need some sandpaper on the team, people who challenge both the choices being made and others on the team who aren't upholding the norms. "Agitators," "grinders," call them what you will, they are often the ones who keep the standards high and keep pushing the team.

Like Pat Riley, NBA Hall of Fame Coach, said, "You can't have 12 milk drinkers in the locker room.  You need a couple guys who drink Jack Daniels."

The Slippery Slope of Not Focusing on Talent

In my experience working with hundreds of leaders in transition, the ones who make the best starts in the challenging new jobs they are stepping into focus on getting the talent right first before they worry about anything else.  First who, then what.

If it is important and works for leaders in transition, why not all the time...the way sports teams constantly evaluate and shuffle talent? Or like consulting, accounting, law, and investment firms have an "up or out" norm.

Because when you're not constantly focused on talent, entropy takes over and you are actually lowering the chances of team success. 

Not only because as circumstances change (the explosion of AI to name just the most recent example) you might find yourself not having the right mix of skills and characteristics to win, but also because "going with what you have,"...the status quo...is how complacency sets in. 

It's how getting along, not offending, "close enough" and safety...can become more important than seeing how good we can become and going after stretch goals that can deliver big, shared rewards for the whole team and organization.

It's how "wanting to be myself" becomes more important than "being what the team needs me to be" for us all to win.

Coming Attractions

Part 5 will talk about side effects in the team dynamics that can easily occur when they over-emphasize psychological safety.

I will conclude this series in a few weeks by highlighting what I think the gravest unintended consequence of pushing for more psychological safety:  the lowering of our aspirations for teams and for the individuals on them.

Dennis Adsit, Ph.D. is an executive coach, organization consultant, and designer of The First 100 Days and Beyond, a consulting service that has helped hundreds of leaders stepping up into challenging new jobs get the best start of their careers.