S8 E11: How to Create Psychological Safety in the Workplace with Dr. Julie Morris

In this episode, Bart welcomes Dr. Julie Morris to explore why psychological safety is so closely tied to employee engagement and high-performing teams. Julie shares her journey from earning a ThD in ethics at Duke to working in technology and ultimately at Glint, Microsoft’s employee engagement platform, where her work led her to explore psychological safety and what it looks like in practice. Drawing on that experience, Julie discusses the six pillars of employee engagement and explains how psychological safety is woven throughout them. She also shares insights from the psychological safety program she developed for managers, including three practical strategies leaders can use to foster it on their own teams.

Along the way, Julie and Bart challenge common misconceptions about psychological safety and explore how leaders can create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking up, taking risks, and asking questions. At a time when people are asking more of their managers and leaders are looking for ways to create more engaged workplaces, this is an invaluable listen.

Connect with Julie on LInkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliermorris/

Show Notes: 00:27 Show intro 01:04 Introducing Dr. Morris 02:07 Bart introduces the idea of psychological safety 02:36 Definition of psychological safety 03:09 Stats on psychological safety 05:03 Julie talks about her career path 05:44 What she was doing at Microsoft 06:52 What she discovered in the research at Microsoft 07:57 Psychological safety survey 08:15 If your org scores low on P.S., how do you improve? 09:38 Psychological safety - similar indicators as 'belonging' 10:29 What can managers do to foster this? 11:03 How did the program they developed work? 11:51 Experiences rolling out the program at Microsoft 12:09 Tapping into leaders' anxieties 13:17 Are people looking for managers with these skills? 14:18 What do people learn in this psych safety program? 14:43 Negative reactivity - characterized by knee-jerk reactions 15:18 Shutting people down 17:24 Were managers willing to change? 18:46 Adapting these strategies to your managerial style 19:56 Bart introduces example scenario of tough environment 21:20 Give yourself a buffer to cool down 22:34 Tip 2: Listen without agenda 23:27 Schedule regular check-ins 25:39 All that small talk really helps! 26:37 Beginning of timing/misalignment 27:06 Tip 3: Model the vulnerability you hope to see 28:03 If you want your team to take risks, show them vulnerability 28:32 What is the distinction between weakness and vulnerability? 30:23 How do you model vulnerability? 33:56 Bart recaps 3 points 34:17 Common misconceptions about psychological safety 34:40 "It's not my job to be your mom" 36:17 "I'm just not a believer in all this touchy-feely stuff" 38:32 Final advice 38:46 Stick with it! 39:23 Thank yous 39:34 Outro