BITE TWO
5 MIN READ
CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT OF SAFETY
“It’s okay. This is a safe space” she says with a zen tone and empathetic tilt of the head. Just try and not laugh when someone says that.
Corn-ball lines aside, coaching, is about creating an environment where people feel safe to share their struggles and stories, and to do so quickly.
What we are talking about, is a term psychologists call ‘psychological safety’. By definition, this means “a climate in which people are comfortable being (and expressing) themselves”. When you break that down further, what we’re really talking about is trust.
As is the common understanding, trust is something that is hard to earn and easy to break. It’s a delicate balance that can be difficult to get right. Especially if you don’t have a lot of time and are keen to start quickly with a deep level of trust. As is the case with coaching.
But helping someone trust you quickly is absolutely doable.
I’m sure we’ve all met someone from whom you immediately felt safe. The combination of their body language, eye contact, tone of voice, the words they choose, even how they were breathing; all of this sends signals to our brain about whether we are safe or not. So the good news is, learning to build trust quickly is a skill we can all learn.
But how? Well, let’s explore the quick version.
SIMPLY PUT, TRUST MEANS CONFIDENCE.
There are some key behaviours we can focus on help others feel confident quickly. (If you want to dig deeper into some of the research around this is, we suggest you read The Speed of Trust by Steven Covey. This goes into great depth on this topic.)
When you break the literature down though, we can build trust quickly by focussing on these four things: language, empathy, curiosity and vulnerability.
FOUR WAYS TO BUILD safety quickly
1. LANGUAGE:
Speak to everyone with respect, human to human. What does this mean? It means believing that all people matter, and it means speaking to them like they do; like they are worthy of your time and attention. This can be easy to do with people above us, or equal to us, but speaking to everyone with respect means you need to believe ALL people are worthy of your time. You need to see that all people are doing their best with what they have, to make their way in the world around them.
Can you say that about all people? Simple question. Tough call.
2. EMPATHY
The next behaviour that builds trust quickly is to practice empathy. This is a call to try and understand the world of someone else, the way they see it, from what is true for them and to do so without judgement. It’s about taking that insight and communicating it back to them, so they feel understood. Brene Brown describes empathy as the act of “feeling with someone, rather than for them”. Empathy drives connection and builds trust.
As is often the case, the world of animations and storytelling can help us understand this like few other media can. If you have a few spare minutes, check out the power of empathy according to pixar. A clip from one of the most sensational movies ever made.
3. CURIOSITY INSTEAD OF JUDGEMENT
Replace blame with curiosity. Blame and judgement are the fast lanes to breaking trust and undermining another person’s confidence. No ones likes to feel blamed or judged. As soon as we do, we wanna shut down.
Replacing blame with curiosity is a big call. Blaming and judging is something we default to when we feel pain. But we can train ourselves, to instead, default to curiosity. You could start this by asking: What is going on? Why would they be acting that way? What has happened in the past that they feel the need to show up like this?
4. BE REAL
Finally, the number one way we can build trust is to be real, to show some vulnerability. To ask for help and feedback. This idea came from the research of Brene Brown when she interviewed hundreds of leaders around what behaviours drive connection most from a leader. Asking for help was the number one most effective way to build connection. Why? Because it shows that we aren’t perfect, that we too struggle. This opens up a conversation and gives others permission to be human.
Permission to be human is a powerful permission slip.
I wonder how you go living out these behaviours?
Head now to ACTION ITEM #2 and take a quick quiz to determine what level of psychological safety you are used to in a workplace. Because you spend so much time in that environment, this can give us some handy insight into your norms and therefore how you may approach creating psychological safety in a coaching relationship. If you score low, that’s okay. That’s an honest place to start. We can work with that and luckily there are some excellent resources in this area if you want to grow in this space.