Episode Transcript
Lars Nielsen (00:01.278)
Hello everybody and welcome back to... Cultures... Shit. We're... We're gonna cut it out!
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (00:08.492)
Now you're swearing!
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (00:13.73)
You
Lars Nielsen (00:14.97)
Okay, three, two, one. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Cultures from Hell. This is the podcast. This is the podcast.
We're going to do it again. Three, two, one. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to. This is the podcast that dives deep into the toxic undercurrents that can plague your workspaces. I'm your host Lars. And today we are tackling a critical issue, psychological safety or more specifically.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (00:34.947)
Yes.
Lars Nielsen (01:02.268)
What happens when the freedom to share your opinions is not just discouraged, but actively shut down. We have a powerful real life story to unpack. And who better to help us navigate this than our very own co-host and expert in all things culture, Paulina, co-founder of the Culture Code Foundation. Paulina, welcome back to the show.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (01:29.614)
Thank you Lars.
Lars Nielsen (01:31.39)
How are we doing today?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (01:33.038)
as always when I get to see you and have to do this podcast!
Lars Nielsen (01:37.158)
Yeah, we should make this our living, right? Then we can just do this every single day.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (01:44.398)
Yeah, and I guess we would have enough stories to tell to do it on a daily basis.
Lars Nielsen (01:48.596)
I, we are never going to run out of stories. Like we, think, I think we had like, I think it was like 15 or 20 topics that we wanted to do initially, but already now we are getting so many stories coming in that we have only gotten to like three or four of the topics that we wanted to do. Right.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (01:53.25)
Yeah.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (02:09.986)
Yeah. And I've, I mean, I didn't expect it to be so clear before we started this, it comes, almost every story comes down to a couple of really basic things. And our today's topic, like psychological safety. mean, we've talked about it multiple times, but every new story that we hear around this topic kind of brings in different and new perspective onto it, which just goes to show how incredibly important this topic is and how much it can influence.
Lars Nielsen (02:38.554)
Exactly. Let's dive into today's topic. So we've heard this unsettling story about someone being told to stop talking simply for offering a diplomatic opinion on a specific discussion. What was your initial reactions to hearing this?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (03:00.686)
Well, this story immediately highlighted for me is a severe lack of psychological safety. It was really crass example of how fear can stifle valuable input and create a culture where people are actually afraid to speak their minds and not just for themselves, but actually warn their colleagues about speaking their minds too. But maybe let's look deep into the story itself for today.
So, today we're sharing the story of Marta and Marta, funny side note, by the way, I don't know if you've mentioned that Lars in any of the other episodes, we are actually telling stories from people from all over Europe. So it's not just German workplace or Danish workplace stories that we're telling, but we've had stories from Austria. We've had stories from the UK. We've had stories from Southern Europe. So that's really, really cool.
Lars Nielsen (03:57.908)
We are tapping into our international network.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (04:01.71)
Exactly. So today, again, we're sharing the story of Marta. And she was actually in a bigger meeting with roughly 10 to 12 people. And they discussed a workplace topic that had been proposed from one of the colleagues from one of the leaders actually that was in the meeting. And Marta wasn't really 100 % sold on the idea.
And she already had noticed throughout her tenure in the company that sharing your opinion wasn't always super welcome. So she was quite diplomatic when she gave her opinion on that specific topic. But while she was sharing her opinion, she actually received a team's message from one of her colleagues just
saying, stop talking, like literally in all caps. In the meeting, in the meeting, mean, so she had her laptop with her and she glanced over and she saw that she'd gotten that message, stop talking, like super bold out there, just shut the F up. I mean, that's my words, the literal words were stop talking.
Lars Nielsen (05:04.477)
in the meeting while it was going on.
Lars Nielsen (05:21.908)
Wow.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (05:28.154)
and later the same colleague, so, so Marta spoke to that colleague and the colleague told her that she should know by now that it was really dangerous to actually share opinions within this company and that people who were in the meeting were going to gossip about anything she said because she wasn't fully on board. So your opinion was welcome.
in this welcome to this company, as long as you were just saying, yes, yes, let's go ahead, nodding along and not giving any critic or any critical feedback or offering a diverse opinion to what had already been proposed. So they literally the colleague gave Martha the advice to don't bother with it, shut up in such meetings and just not along. If she wants to make her life easier.
and keep her job in this business.
Lars Nielsen (06:27.176)
Wow, that is insane. I keep getting amazed about the stories we get told sometimes.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (06:28.31)
Yeah.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (06:35.886)
Yeah, I mean, we're laughing, but honestly, this is just black humor at this point, because this shouldn't be happening. It shouldn't be.
Lars Nielsen (06:45.236)
But I'm laughing out of the emotional feeling that I get that I'm like, this is ridiculous, right? This is stupid. That's why I'm laughing. okay, so Pauline, for our listeners who might be new to the term, can you briefly explain what psychological safety in the workplace means and why it's so crucial?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (06:54.872)
Yeah.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (07:10.478)
Absolutely Lars. So psychological safety is the belief or the knowledge that actually that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes and that you actually feel like you're belonging. So it's about feeling safe to be yourself and take into personal risks. And if you don't have psychological safety, innovation will suffer.
Problems will go unaddressed. I mean, we've seen it in the story, right? So if you don't feel empowered to give your own opinion, you might have blind spots in any project or in any argumentation that you have, because you just have nod-alongs all the way and nobody may be pointing out black holes that you're missing. You don't get diverse opinions.
So your innovation will suffer, right? And obviously if people don't speak up about interpersonal things or workplace topics that can actually harm the company because they are afraid, then the business will suffer ultimately. And you know that I like to do that. I always like to look at both the effects that it has for the business itself. And on the same, on the same side.
Or at the same time, look at the effect that it has on employees. Obviously those two are super interconnected, but, and, and usually the effects for the people are more direct while the effects for the business are a bit more midterm or long-term effects, but definitely in this kind of situations, the wellbeing of employees is at risk.
dramatically so.
Lars Nielsen (09:11.859)
100%. 100%. And like with everything, you know, everything we talk about is, this is the kind of the topic of the podcast in general, that we are talking about workplace cultures, right? But all the things we are talking about is also applicable for your relationship or connect with your friends or your family or anything. Like if I'm thinking about my personal relationship and I'm going to throw my girlfriend into the mix here now.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (09:23.115)
Mm-hmm.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (09:39.534)
you
Lars Nielsen (09:39.636)
One of the big things why I am in what I would describe as the best relationship of my life is the safety, the psychological safety that I can tell her anything and she will never like put me down or put fingers at me or anything. I feel so safe at saying anything to her and talk to her about anything.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (09:47.406)
That's so sweet
Lars Nielsen (10:09.128)
So when we talk about all these topics that we do, again, everybody has to remember this is also applicable for any scenario in your life, right? Or most of it.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (10:21.294)
I mean, I guess that's true for almost everything that we talk about here, because every, whenever it comes to human or inter-human relationships or people interacting with each other, that is where those basic underlying, underlying, yeah, principles just work and, or don't work if you don't do it well, right? And you're absolutely right. Psychological safety for any.
Lars Nielsen (10:24.916)
Mm-hmm.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (10:51.264)
inter-human relationship. It doesn't matter if it's a partner, if it's a colleague, if it's a peer, if it's a parent, if it's a sibling, whatever, it doesn't matter. If you do feel safe with them, that's just a game changer.
Lars Nielsen (11:07.536)
Exactly. So this specific story, just back to the story of today, the colleague even advised, I get up laughing out of like, I'm like, mind blown, right? So the colleague even advised Martha to just shut up and not along to keep the job. What are the immediate and long-term consequences of such a toxic environment?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (11:08.556)
And just, yeah, sorry.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (11:33.89)
Yeah, that's, so you say immediately in that situation, you will see like, a spreading of fear because everyone who's witnessing that will also become hesitant to sharing their thoughts. Right. And even though it was a private message, people in the meeting must have realized that Martha suddenly stopped talking and they, if
they were, if they are paying close attention, they will also realize that Marta is now very hesitant to share her thoughts in any other meeting that comes out of that. Right. And because the colleague warned her, Marta obviously also talked to others trying to figure out if that's just one person opinion or other people opinions. So now you have the fact that people are talking about the fact that you cannot share your opinion and your thoughts.
Right. So over the time, this breeds resentment that just like flows into the organization and not just by people talking about it, but by people actually experiencing that on regular basis. Right. Because that's, as I said in the beginning, Marta already was very diplomatic when sharing her opinion because she had already realized that it wasn't always well received to her opinion.
Right. So this wasn't a single point in time where that happened, but that was a regular occurrence in that company. And once you have, once you start having this resentment within the business, then you will see rape and disengagement, a lot of valuable perspectives that could drive the company forward. And people definitely, from my perspective, will like, will become less proactive, less creative. And eventually.
Either they leave or they just do the bare minimum.
Lars Nielsen (13:36.148)
And in the previous episode, we were talking about workplace gossip. And like you said, the message to Martha might have been a private message, but that person might as well go out to the colleagues and say like, I told Martha to shut up in the meeting because she was going in a rant. She was like doing this and that's wrong and so on. So that could easily be spread via gossip. Exactly right.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (13:43.138)
Yes.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (14:06.23)
Absolutely. And I mean, the colleague that warned Marta actually even told her that because she didn't share a popular opinion in the, in the meeting, that there was a high likelihood that others that were in the meeting were going to gossip about her unproductive opinion after that meeting. So yes, as again, right, so many topics are intertwined and we've, we've talked about the, gossip.
I think just last week. And this week we're talking about psychological safety. just
Lars Nielsen (14:43.016)
Yeah. I think like let's encourage everybody to go back and listen to all the episodes because they're kind of mixed well within each other, So Paulina, through your work with the Culture Code Foundation, you have worked with many organizations. How common is this fear of speaking up, even if it's not always as blatant as a stop talking message?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (14:43.116)
It all belongs together in a way.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (15:12.782)
that's, that is actually, unfortunately, much more common than many leaders realize. It very often, manifests in much more subtle ways, like people self-censoring meetings, basically what Marta did before she was told to shut up because she was already dialing her opinion down and making it more digestible. it can be, it can also be avoiding difficult conversations.
or simply agreeing with the loudest voice in the room. So, and that part becomes specifically tricky in, in situations where you have very outspoken and very silent people on the same team, like introverts versus extroverts, because you will always miss out on the introverted.
opinions if it's become common that you just agree with the loudest voice in the room. Right? I mean, this story from ATA is definitely an extreme example, but the underlying dynamic of fear is something that we see far too often.
Lars Nielsen (16:25.276)
And what are some of the key indicators that a company might be struggling with psychological safety, even if there aren't explicit stop talking incidents?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (16:41.324)
Yeah. so definitely you should look out for things like low participation in meetings, like people all muting themselves, people not, really interacting or sharing their opinion. or actually not just sharing opinion, but even asking your, a lot of questions or not asking a lot of question can also be a sign of that. definitely a lack of open debate.
people that are hesitant to challenge ideas. And I think we talked about this two weeks ago, blame culture where mistakes happen, really big red flag here. And another key indicator would be from my experience, like a general feeling. know feelings are hard to assess, but you can grasp that in a way.
that people...
Yeah, exude that it's better to stay quiet than risk criticism. It's really hard to nail down this last part, but I think you can feel it when you are in a meeting.
Lars Nielsen (17:54.816)
And when you said that look out for people that are muting themselves in meetings and so on, actually reminds me about a story I read a while back. think it was on LinkedIn, somebody posted about it. This leader, he was actually taking notes on who was like muting themselves, not speaking up in meetings and so on, and actually reached out to that single individuals afterwards.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (17:59.822)
Mm-hmm.
Lars Nielsen (18:20.436)
in meetings saying like, hey, I just want to say like reach out and say, hey, is everything okay? We talked about this topic today. Do you have any feedback on it? Because he wanted to get everybody's feedback and he was like aware that we are so different. I think that in the tech industry where we have been working most of at least the last couple of years, it's very, I would say.
perceived that sales is very outgoing and programmers is very introvert, right? So sales is like the big voice in the room and so on. And he was reaching out to the ones that didn't like speak up on meetings and not to put them on the spot saying like, hey, you didn't spoke up or something. He would just go and say like, hey, I just want to catch up and see if everything's okay. What do you think about today's topic? And so on. I think that was a great way of doing it.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (18:55.234)
Mm.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (19:03.799)
I love that.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (19:17.102)
I love that. That's amazing. That is such a great way of just, first of all, seeing your own people and really making, and then secondly, making sure that everyone's voice is being heard. And especially when it comes to introverts, a lot of introverts actually feel much more comfortable sharing their opinion or their feedback in written form. So if you reach out to them, um, and for example, via Slack or Teams or whatnot,
Lars Nielsen (19:18.793)
Yeah.
Lars Nielsen (19:24.03)
Mm-hmm.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (19:44.492)
and you give them the chance to really think about what they want to say and they can write it down. That is actually an amazing way of including the lower volume voices and not just the ass-sales kaboom people.
Lars Nielsen (20:04.722)
I don't know who you're talking about. Okay, Paulina, when we're these podcasts, we like to give people concrete advice. So if someone finds themselves in a situation similar to the one described in Martha's story, where sharing an opinion is met with such negativity, what would your advice be?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (20:07.042)
Hmm
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (20:31.118)
Well, my first advice would be basically exactly what Marta did to try to have a private conversation with the person who sent the message. If you feel safe to do so, to understand where they're coming from and why they felt the need to warn you. And if that was a company wide thing, or if this was specific to a certain person, just to understand more where you're at.
And then secondly, I would consider taking this issue to HR or a trusted leader. Like if you do trust your, your direct manager, or if you have a peer that is, um, another, yeah, if you are a leader and you have a trust peer, for example, that could be a person to talk to and talk and hi, actually highlight the impact this kind of environment has on your ability to contribute and on the overall team environment.
So like always in this kind of situation, I would advise to really prepare this kind of conversation and do a bit of research on how this kind of can affect team productivity, collaboration, et cetera, to give like concrete things because unfortunately we still live in a time where it's not wildly common to just talk about feelings and the
the effect that things have on your mental health. So it usually makes a discussion with anyone in a business easier if you can detach the situation slightly from yourself and rather talk about the impact it has on the business itself. If you're super lucky and you do have a manager or a trusted peer that you can talk to about the emotional side of things, that's even better, obviously.
And I would never discourage anybody to do that. I just say in most environments where you see that kind of behavior that we're talking about here, that that part is probably less likely. in such an environment, I would definitely rather be on the other side of things on the side of caution and talk more about the business impact and the business effects that that it has. And
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (22:54.146)
Then last but not least, if the environment remains like really challenging for you and you've, and it doesn't improve and you feel like you really can't be yourself here and that it really affects you. mean, there are people who are fine with not having, not, sharing their opinion on a regular basis. Right. And if that's good, if that works for you. All good. Fine. Happy. I'm happy with that. Just take it right. But if, if it does affect you.
and things don't improve, it might be time to consider other employment options for your own wellbeing.
Lars Nielsen (23:30.854)
That actually reminds me that this advice we have given more than once about like, well, you have to leave if things don't change and things don't work out for you. think we have to do an episode on why it's so hard for some people to leave a workplace, right? Yeah. So Paulina, this was for like, for more like an advice for the...
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (23:49.548)
Yeah. Yeah, let's do that.
Lars Nielsen (23:57.836)
in employees out there. So for leaders listening who want to cultivate a culture of psychological safety, are, let's say three things they should focus on?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (24:10.466)
Yeah. That's the beautiful thing as a leader. Yeah, you do have the opportunity to create a completely own micro culture within your team or within your scope of reference. So you're not necessarily dependent on the entire business changing, but you can do things differently for the people that you're responsible for. And you can do that at
any point in time, you just have to want to do it. Right. And in this specific situation, I would start with actively encouraging diverse perspectives and creating space for everyone to speak. This also comes down to if you're hiring, try to hire for more diverse perspectives as well. And it also means within the existing team to be mindful of who dominates conversations.
And to actively soliciting input from quieter team members, just like the story you told before, Lars from the team lead who would just ask for written advice on top of the things that were discussed in the meeting. Secondly, one of my favorite advice all over the place, model vulnerability and be open to feedback yourself. When you as a leader admit mistakes or show that you're willing to learn from your mistakes.
that automatically creates a safer environment for others and will inspire them to do so themselves. So that's why I always encourage leaders to ask for help from their team members and like actively asking, okay, this is my perspective. What do you want to add? What do you have to add here? Or how can we make this idea better? Right? Like actively pulling them in and also make
Take an effort to normalize disagreement. For example, you can call out smoothness as something super unproductive. If you do hold a meeting with zero questions or disagreement, just coming back to the example we had before, you can actually point out that this is unproductive. Like you can say, if everybody agrees, why did we actually have this meeting? Because.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (26:31.904)
If there is, if everyone is aligned on the same opinion, there is no need to spend time in a meeting and discuss the exact same thing. Right. So, and if you do that, then it becomes clear that your, that your expectation is that things are being discussed and that you're looking at it from different angles and that you, yeah. So that's actually a, a really great starting point from here. Right.
Lars Nielsen (26:41.277)
Mm-hmm.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (27:01.978)
And when it comes to mistakes, you can also flip the typical business script, which would be hiding or concealing a mistake. And the most successful leaders I know, they actually highlight and remember mistakes that actually work to create clarity and find new or successful paths. So they will tell and retell stories of famous mistakes.
that actually had a wonderful outcome. And yeah, I love that. I love when leaders do that. So let me summarize this into three simple steps. You can give people stretch assignments or actually it's four steps. So first step, clear expectations as always in terms of, do value disagreement. I do want to see vivid discussions around it.
Secondly, give stretch assignments and let them know when you give them the stretch assignment that you actually expect mistakes to happen and then create a safe space for them to learn from mistakes, from these mistakes that are going to happen.
Lars Nielsen (28:21.416)
But that was only two rates?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (28:25.258)
no, there was a, sorry. I didn't mention it with one, two, three, four. First clear expectations, second stretch assignments. Third, let them know that you expect mistakes and fourth, create a space to learn from mistakes.
Lars Nielsen (28:33.33)
Yes.
Lars Nielsen (28:43.504)
Okay, was just like, I not drink enough coffee today?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (28:48.691)
Yeah.
Lars Nielsen (28:51.962)
Okay, Paulina, as always on the show time flies by and we are coming to the end of today's episode. First of all, thank you Marta, for reaching out and telling the story. We love when people reach out. And as always, we encourage people to reach out. If you want to be a hundred percent anonymous, we are of course kind of respect that. So don't be afraid to come out with your story and tell us.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (29:04.878)
Yes, thank you very much.
Lars Nielsen (29:20.948)
what your Cultures from Hell story is. I would say that...
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (29:26.882)
And we're still always happy to have people on the show live telling their story themselves.
Lars Nielsen (29:35.662)
Exactly. So this story of today really underscores the importance of creating environments where people feel safe to contribute.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (29:47.104)
Absolutely Lars. I mean, a culture where opinions are stifled is a culture that is ultimately limiting its own potential and harming its employees.
Lars Nielsen (29:58.032)
Exactly. Paulina, just to round things up, can you please kind of summarize what we have talked about today?
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (30:05.826)
Yes, of course. So today's conversation has highlighted once again, the critical importance of psychological safety in the workplace. Marta's real life story that we discussed was a stark reminder of the damaging consequences that can arise when individuals fear to share their opinions. We have discussed that psychological safety is about creating an environment where people feel safe to speak up.
ask questions and make mistakes without fear of punishment or humiliation. And the key takeaways for leaders include actively encouraging diverse perspectives, modeling vulnerability and establishing clear norms for respectful and integrative communication with integrative, mean, bringing in also the less voluminous voices.
Lars Nielsen (31:06.622)
I love it. I love it. So if you're experienced or witnessed similar situations or if you're passionate about building better workplace cultures, we encourage you to connect with Paulina and the Cultural Foundation. You can find them on their website and social media platforms. And we, as always, it's going to link to everything in show notes. I'm also going to put my details in there. So.
Whoever you feel is comfortable reaching out to, just look us up and we'll be happy to talk to you. Thank you for tuning in to Culture from Hell. Join us next time as we continue to explore the complexities of workplace dynamics. Until then, take care and cultivate a culture where people thrive.
Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (31:59.502)
Thank you everyone and thank you Lars.
