Karolin Helbig integrates neuroscience to help leaders transform their organizations through psychological safety. Minette Norman develops transformational leaders who create inclusive working environments with a foundation of psychological safety. They are the co-authors of The Psychological Safety Playbook.

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Show Notes

• “Beyond the definition, Psychological Safety is a deeply human feeling.” [11:21] Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. Minette Norman explains what psychological safety is and the immense benefit this environment brings to an organization. 
• “Psychological Safety is not what happens by default.” [13:26] Karolin Helbig explains the two big barriers when it comes to understanding and implementing Psychological Safety. Firstly, we are biologically wired to avoid risk, it’s not easy to speak up. Secondly, the traditional model of leadership; we have been conditioned to view vulnerability as weakness. 
• “Courage, to me, is one of the most fundamental skills that a leader has to have in order to create a psychologically safe environment” [20:40] Marcel speaks on Play #1 from The Psychological Safety Playbook. While any of these plays can be learned and implemented in any order, and you can use them at your will BUT Karolin and Minette chose Communicate Courageously to be first because of the fundamental basis of courage as a leader. 
• “Really truly listening with the intent of understanding the other person is an art” [26:45] How often are you wholeheartedly listening with no distractions? Karolin explains, Play #2: The Art of Listening, and how to practice this muscle of listening and learning to be committed to understanding others, without the need to be right. Closing down external distractions is the first step, but what is more tricky is going internal and clearing the distractions from our minds.
• “There is a stigma often in business settings to acknowledge that we’re going to fail on the way” [34:10] When it comes to Play #4: Embrace Risk and Failure, Minete explains that in order to be innovative and be successful, there will be failure. It is crucial that leaders talk about failure openly and not be afraid of it and instead say, what can we learn from it? 
• “Suffering at work…we spend most of our waking hours at work, that means suffering at life” [42:05] The suffering is real on many levels. Creating Psychological Safety in your organization can create more positivity. It is Karolin and Minette’s hope in their contribution to this book to reduce suffering and create value in the lives of leaders and their teams.

The Book:

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Psychological Safety Playbook
• Karolin Helbig
• Karolin Helbig on LinkedIn
• Minette Norman
• Minette Norman on LinkedIn
• Marcel Schwantes

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