<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have individual meetings with my team members once a month and typically include summer students. When I asked the student about her project, I noticed she couldn\u2019t quite articulate it. I had delegated supervising the student, let\u2019s call her Terra, to a postdoc in my lab. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked the postdoc, Anna, to join our meeting to explain the project. I did this to get a better idea of the problem and because I genuinely wasn\u2019t sure what exactly the student was working on. Oops! Faculty accomplishment unlocked, I guess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I couldn\u2019t have explained the project to Terra even if I wanted to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal of getting both Anna and Terra together was to enhance transparency and identify areas for improvement. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also better to have all parties involved in a project or \u201csituation\u201d at the table before you form opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, when I started asking questions about the project and interjected even more questions when Anna explained, she got a little flustered and repeatedly stated \u201cBut I told you this. \u2013\u2013\u2013 We talked about this. \u2013\u2013\u2013 I explained this before.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She did this with quite a bit of intensity and an energy of blame in her voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anna defended herself because she didn\u2019t want me to think, she didn\u2019t do her supervisor’s job well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, I secretly judged Anna a little for not taking responsibility and for being so oblivious to Terra\u2019s needs. So I participated in the blaming too, even if just in my head. People usually pick up on this energy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are not careful with situations like this, i.e. if you talk to people separately and let your opinions shape before you see the full picture and if you don\u2019t take control when communication derails, those situations can easily contribute to a toxic environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Fostering a psychologically safe culture means that you correct yourself and others with clear and determined communication.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n When the dynamic that I described above unfolded and I noticed tension building, I interrupted this pattern (mine, Anna\u2019s and also Terra\u2019s as you will see) by saying: \u201cLet\u2019s not play the blame game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What really happened here was that Terra didn\u2019t understand Anna\u2019s rapid fire explanation of the project that included lots of tech lingo and sciency shorthands but didn\u2019t want to bug Anna with questions. Anna, the postdoc, is new in the role, hasn\u2019t worked with very many people and with no student in the U.S., which led to assumptions about the skill and knowledge of the student. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My bad, really! I should have set the two up for success by having a joint meeting at the start and checking in more frequently and earlier. I did get a sense that communication didn\u2019t go well. But with lots of other things going, I didn\u2019t have the presence of mind to do something about it earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when I said \u201cLet\u2019s not play the blame game!\u201d and followed that up by explaining a little more about the learning and teaching process, I got all of us out of the tense moment. Terra apologized for not having brought to Anna\u2019s attention that she needed help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s rarely too late to course-correct. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We went through the project, I \u201ctranslated\u201d some tech speak and we broke it down until we were at the right level of communication. Then, we had a discussion about teaching and learning. There are those 4 stages of mastering a skill or field:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my humble opinion, we haven\u2019t made it to true mastery until we know what we know and know what we don\u2019t know, so that we can teach, train, and coach others through a process of deliberate practice. This means we help people operate right at the zone between know\/don\u2019t know. We take them carefully out of their comfort zone but not so much that they get stressed, overwhelmed, burned out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s one thing we do with our clients in Research Leadership Mastery. We increase your levels of awareness and your ability to adjust your approach and communication, so that you are on eye level with the people you work with while elevating yourself and them. You also learn how to foster a psychologically safe culture. From my example above, you saw how this is more of an ongoing process of working with your team, not a one-time thing to set up or something that happens if you have the right intentions. It also requires quite a bit of self-awareness and self-regulation skills on your end to pull everyone out of weird dynamics rather than participating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n