and good morning and welcome to this session on psychological safety and DE&I. We've been looking forward to hosting this session for you here in sunny Copenhagen this Tuesday morning. So for the next hour we will hopefully inspire you a bit and unfold these topics together, what they are and how they are related. But before we get started with that, we would both like to introduce ourselves but also ask who is with us on the call. So today, as you see, we are two people standing here, myself and Maise. And my name is Rant Blag-Barawi and I've been with Implement Consulting Group for a couple of years. I'm a trained psychologist and I'm a trained psychologist and I've been very, very, you know, invested in working with psychological safety for the last couple of years. So how do we create high-performing environments where people both can perform but also thrive? I'll come back to that later. But lately, I've been a bit intrigued to find, you know, a bit interested to find out how is this related to the DE&I agenda, which we know also takes up a lot of energy and focus out there. So finding, you know, the bridges between these two. That's why we thought this could be a nice topic. But enough of me. With me, as you can see, I have Maise. So Maise, a bit about yourself. Yes, thank you, Rant. My name is Maise Jarlthorp. I work as a management consultant here at Implement and I work most of my time with leadership development and team performance, etc. but also work a lot with diversity, equity and inclusion, helping out our clients, both creating a DE&I strategy, but also supporting them all the way to making sure that strategy actually has an impact. And before joining Implement, I've been working in two different global organizations with this DE&I agenda. So at least I tell myself that I understand a bit how it is to sit on your side of the table. Very nice. Thank you so much, Maise. But we also have been interested to find out, you know, who are you out there? And why did you want to spend this hour with us this Tuesday morning? So maybe if we can ask you to go to the chat and just in the chat, share with us, you know, who do you work for? What is your role in the organization where you work? And what do you hope to get out of the session today? And hopefully, we can try to tab into some of these aspirations. So please let us know in the chat. Nice to see we have both Maya and Enya here on the call with us today. so so my has a point on you know how do you build you know more understanding of what it takes to drive sustainable progress for the de and i in an organization hopefully we can tap into that nice to see you katrine an old colleague of mine welcome so a lot of different inputs coming into the chat and session is looking forward to get inspired we definitely hope we can help with that and also nicole one of our old colleagues and implement so you know you know curious to find out you know how to do this knowing that you know it's taking up more and more attention out there in organizations how do we bridge them how do we utilize and get the most out of the de and i agenda and we we think we have a perspective on on how we can actually magnify these two topics and concepts by try to to to bridge bridge them with each other yeah super cool thank you so much to to see this uh uh and just keep them coming and another thing with the chat and we will have a look on this and this is super nice for us to see a lot of cool people out there cool you know representing cool organizations so nice for us to see we will also invite you to use the chat as we go along we will try to monitor it so if you have any questions or reflections or comments or additional points please uh lean in and and and and use the chat to you know enlighten each other but also to to pose us questions because in the end of the session we we aspire to have a q a where we can try to tap into some of these questions uh so that will be a super uh cool way of doing that but maybe we can get more into you know why do we what do we hope to get out of this session so one thing is trying to tap into some of your uh uh you know aspirations and understanding those links and how we can magnify them but but more specifically as you can see here on the slide now we have also tried to define what the the purpose of this session is and it is to touch upon you know what d and d e and i is what psychological safety is for some of you you already know for some of you you have an idea we'll try to you know just unfold both concepts in parallel and then we'll talk touch upon uh you know why these concepts um why we cannot think of them as two distinct concepts but rather as interrelated and and and and we actually believe it's quite relevant to to understand that bridge because it's difficult to succeed with the one without the other and lastly we'll you know try to to unfold how we can then create sustainable high-performance organizations through inclusion and maybe you already get it here inclusion might be that one word that is linking these two concepts but but none the other and less try to do it is to try to do it and more or less try to give you some specific ideas of what can you do out there and we actually have defined eight specific hacks some of them a bit more structural some of them very much behavioral on what you can do to start to ignite this uh uh these agendas together so that's a bit about the purpose and as you can see the agenda for the session is as you can see here so doing the fly and check-in and very shortly from now my so will come in and explain a bit more about our our understanding of d e and i uh after that i will tap into unfolding psychological safety what we mean with that how we understand it and what we are inspired by and then we'll try to to look into so what are the benefits of having you know uh succeeding with the d e and i agenda but also fostering psychological safe culture which we believe is of course super important uh in 2023 uh looking at from a pno agenda then we will also look up on what are the barriers what is you know what is so difficult about this so difficult about this that we need to do something about which will be one of the last thing and what is the opportunity for impact so what can you do and this will be the two last parts before we open up for the q a where we will invite you to to lean in and to ask questions but also as we go along please as mentioned before utilize the chat so this is the agenda but before we move into this you know unfolding the concepts let's try to to just double click a bit on the time that we live in the context that we are embedded in and the world that we are part of because the whole idea about this is we need to foster sustainable environments in a time where everything is so complex and happening happening so rapidly out there and many of you have maybe heard about the vuka world you know the world that is volatile uncertain and complex and ambiguous and there is actually a new beast beast in town and this is from 2016 called the bani world developed by ito and hui uh where they talk about how to succeed in a in a in a faster future and what they say is that the world is bani meaning the world is brittle it's fragile the systems and the structures are fragile not only that because things are happening so rapidly because the technology technological advances are happening so quick uh everything is interrelated everything is monitored we also feel more and more anxiety right we also feel more and more anxiety right we also feel more and more anxiety right we also hear about at least the context that i live in so in denmark a lot of people they don't thrive at work we see more burnouts we even see young people struggling right there is anxiety in the system due due to the speed and complexity so that's the a for that in the bani and we also talk about you know things are not non-linear so so many many years ago we talked about cause and effect now you know things happen and we need to go back and we need to fix it we need to move forward again so we need to you know jump back and we need to move forward again so we need to jump back and we need to back and forth uh in this uh non-linear world and and that in itself of course is also super difficult to navigate in because there is a high level of complexity in this and then lastly last but not least is also an incomprehensible world meaning we have a lot of a lot of information out there so much information that to a degree it actually creates some noise so we need to find out how do we then help each other and help ourselves and organizations succeed succeed if this is the context that we are embedded in if we buy the idea of bani and vuka then we also tap into the idea or buy into the idea that things are complex fast-paced uncertain anxious fragile vulnerable and that calls for flexibility adaptability resilience embracing uncertainty and also inviting in diverse perspectives and that's why we believe we have a winning case for start to work with psychological safety and d e and i and really not only have those ambitions but really find out what it means for us in our organization and how we succeed with this because we cannot afford having unsafe cultures because there's a lot of unsafety out there we cannot afford of having environments where we don't include people where we don't invite in for diverse perspectives because we need these voices in order to succeed in a vuka and a banning world so this is a bit the tea up we have and why we believe is important to to not forget the context and with that i would like to invite myse back in here to share a bit about you know the de and i and unfold those concepts for us yes thank you and and we bet many of you already work with diversity equity and inclusion out in your organizations so you probably already heard a lot about this but just to make sure we're on the same page i would like to go through diversity equity and inclusion and what we mean the reason is that is to help thirty-one diversity when we talk about this is everything there and we have a conversation in when we talk about it to you know where we talk about it so just a shallow overview we're gonna deep dive into each of the dimensions and then we see that people are different from each different from each other we all represent our differences and then inclusion is no matter the differences we represent we should all feel part of the group we should all feel like we belong please if we have all over the groups we should all feel Part of the Group.O. including equity equity is then making sure that everybody who they are, they should all feel that they get the right kind of support in order to get equal opportunities in the end. But if we deep dive a bit into the diversity, we have the model here that shows that even though we often talk about diversity as being differences in our age or gender or ethnicity, there is a lot more to it than just that. So for example, if we look at gender, gender is defined here as having both cisgendered men, cisgendered women, and then everything that's outside of that. I don't know even how many genders we have for now. But if we look at that, we can show that some of it, depending on the context you're in, then you'll be part of either a majority group or a minority group. And of course, it will differ during the context. But we often refer to cisgendered women as being part of a minority group, which they're not necessarily, I mean, it's like half the population around the world that are women. But if we look into senior management positions, women are often seen as being part of the minority group. So if we deep dive into inclusion, that also shows that in order to have inclusion, we need both a feeling of a high value in uniqueness, that we feel that we can be our true self, but also a high feeling of belonging, that we are actually being part of that group. And when both things are represented, then we have inclusion. And that's what we're aiming for. But we also see many times, if we use the example again, for example, women in management positions, that they can easily feel that they have a high value in uniqueness, because they're the ones standing out from their peers within the team. But they can also easily feel a lower level of belonging, because they're not necessarily feeling a part of the group. Maybe there's in the management team, this kind of locker room talk, or etc. And that can put you into this box of differentiation instead of inclusion. And to use an example on how we see people who are in the assimilation box, that is people who have a high feeling of belonging, but a low feeling of value and uniqueness. That could be, for example, if a gay person at work is not confident or feeling secure to actually come out of the closet and express their sexual orientation. Then they won't necessarily feel that they are valued for their uniqueness, but they can feel that they are part of the group and that they belong, but not necessarily because they're being their true authentic selves. But we're aiming for this inclusion where both of them are present. And when we have this inclusion, we see that diverse teams also perform a lot better. But we also see that diverse teams without the inclusion perspective is not performing better. they're actually performing the worst, they're also worse than homogeneous teams. And that is because this diversity is tension. And we all know the feeling about being in a team where we're so different, we can barely speak to each other. But we need room for having these difficult conversations and be able to express our opinion. And it is when we have that, that D&I really makes sense. And you get this higher business performance in the end. And then to circle a bit back to equity and why this is a part of it. We see a lot of organizations have started using equity as part of their D&I strategy and agenda. And that's because equity showcased that even though we would all like equal opportunities in the end, some of us, we need different kind of support in order to look equally above the fence, as you see on photo too. Maybe I need a smaller box. Maybe I need a smaller box. Maybe I need a smaller box. Maybe I need a smaller box because of what he brings to the table. But we would all like to have this equality in the end. So equity is the way to getting there. Then we have the non-critical approach in the far end. And that shows that maybe a way to go as organizations in the future is to really rethink our structures. How can we break down the norms and what we know currently and actually break down this fence and rebuild it so we're all being a part of the organization to begin with and it's not built for some norms rather than others. But that's a whole different discussion and we won't get more into that now. So with that being said, Ren, will you join me back on stage and tell us a bit about psychological safety? I would love to. Thank you so much, Maise. And already now I would like to say, oh, so the difference between a diverse team that is inclusive and a diverse team that is not inclusive, what is differentiating them and enabling them to perform? And you said, Maise, it's the ability to talk about things and I would say that is psychological safety. But we'll come back to that later because it's a discussion about the hen and the egg and what lies within what. We'll come back to that because we think that is a quite interesting discussion. discussion as well. Just a short question in the chat around Bani and VUCA, I would say. It's not necessarily that Bani is building upon. VUCA is another perspective, but they are related. I would say VUCA is back from the 80s. This is a newer way of understanding complexity. So I really like the way they define how the world looks like. So on that note, let's move on to the next part, which is explaining psychological safety. And again, many of you, I assume, have an idea of what it is. We have our take, of course, based on a lot of work we have done with clients and also internally here. And we are building our perspective on top of more established also thought leaders. So first of all, as you can see here, the long description is ours. And the two one in the bottom is our two main inspirators. So it's Amy Edmondson and it's Timothy Clark. But we believe that psychological safety can best be described by an environment where all individuals. And where all individuals can engage without fear. And with clarity on, you know, the norms, expectations and social room. So I'm not afraid. I'm not fearful. But I also know what is expected of me. And these two goes hand in hand, right? Because if you feel safe and unfearful, but you still lack guidelines or code of conduct, you can still feel a bit unsafe. And if you feel that, you know, everything is clear for me, but I don't feel, you know, psychological safe in the sense that I don't know how people, they react to me or with me, then you can also lower down your psychological safety. So they go hand in hand here. And in a psychological safe workplace, you are valued for who you are and for your uniqueness. Also coming back to the definition by Meise. And your ability to lean in, to contribute and to challenge will not be disregarded. Rather, it will actually be hailed by the organization. So you will be rewarded for showcasing that behavior. And I think a lot of you will recognize that you have been part of a team or part together with a leader or in a context where you were not hailed or appreciated or rewarded for showcasing this behavior. But this is actually an integral part of a real psychological safe environment. And then psychological safety will lead to performance and well-being. And this is the two parts of it, right? So one thing is, you know, I can perform if I feel psychologically safe, but I can also better thrive if I feel psychologically safe. And we believe that is the roadmap or the path for sustainable high performance environments. So sustainable in the way that, you know, I feel, you know, in balance. I feel that I thrive. I feel that I develop while all along performing. So I'm not thinking, I just need this month to pass. But actually, the setup is sustainable. As you can see, Amy Edmonds-san, she defines it, you know, psychological safety as a shared belief held by team members. And her perspective is very much built on team performance. You know, that I will not be, you know, punished or humiliated or anything like that for speaking up with, you know, and sharing my opinion, questions and concerns or mistakes. Whereas Timothy Clark, he has another approach, of course, very similar, but he says psychological safety can be defined as a culture of rewarded vulnerability. So when we reward people's ability to be vulnerable and to lean in, that's where we have psychological safety. And then, of course, we have tried to merge them and adding our own experiences. So this is psychological safety. And we believe it goes very much hand in hand with DE&I. And you can see why here, because there are different stages in building psychological safety. First of all, we, you know, the first, stage, and this is, again, very much inspired by the work of Timothy Clark. The first stage of psychological safety is, you know, the feeling of being included, which again, comes back from sense of belonging. So do I feel I belong here? Do I feel valued for who I am and what I contribute with? That's the first step. If that is the case, the idea is that then I can also feel more inclined to start to not only to be a part of something, but also start to learn, right, to develop, to grow, maybe to share a mistake, maybe to ask a question. But because the foundation is there, I feel included, I can also start to feel safe enough to learn. On top of that, if I feel included and safe enough to learn, that's where I will also be able to feel safe to contribute. So now I'm not only learning and receiving something, but I'm also giving something back. So I might share my opinion. I might even share a perspective on something. I'm creating real value here. And then on top of that, and this is, how do you say, this is the star in all of this. If we are able to create an environment where I'm not only feeling included and safe to learn and safe to contribute, but now also feel safe to challenge status quo. I feel safe to say, no, I don't believe that is the right direction. I don't believe that is the right decision because of. That doesn't mean that we need everybody to move up there all the time. Because sometimes for efficiency and productivity, you need people to be able to, you know, just contribute. You don't need people to challenge all the time. But sometimes when needed, and then in psychological safe environment, people are able to move up to that fourth stage and to take on that role. And if all of this is done in a way where, again, I don't feel any fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished, that's where I feel psychologically safe. One thing that can hinder that, how to say, that latter, is respect and permission. And let me try to explore a bit more what that means. On the one side, we can value a person for their contribution and respect them for what they do, right? And on another side of things, we can also give them permission to actually do cool things. If we find the balance between acknowledging and valuing their contribution and also giving them permission to do cool stuff, that's where we can have, you know, that stage model unfold. But if I'm only, if we are high on respect and low on permission, that would mean that, you know, I'm paternalizing you. So I'm a bit like a parent, right? So I like you, you're good and stuff, but please don't go there or please don't do that or something will happen if you do so, right? So always holding a bit back on letting you lose. On the other side, if I'm giving you permission, but not valuing you and respecting you for what you do, then that's where potentially we see exploitation, right? So I'm actually taking advantage of you. I'm taking the shine myself. I make you do the hard work, and I'm taking the shine myself, and I'm exploiting you. And that will definitely not lead to psychological safety either. And this next slide is quite nice, illustrated and visualized exactly of how this stage model unfolds. And you can see we have also two thresholds here, one between inclusion and exclusion, right? So if I'm not valued for who I am, then we are not even on the first step of the stage here. That's where we feel excluded. And if I'm actually surpassing the third stage, moving on to the challenge of safety here, that's actually the uppercut. That's where innovation can happen. So if you work within R&D, and if you work with people that need to innovate, think out of the box, problem solve in that sense, you know, the question we need to pose is, do we have challenge of safety? Do people feel, you know, able to challenge both from a behavioral perspective and a structural perspective? So that is one of, this is how we believe, also based on the works from others, that psychological safety is easily best described as a stage model. But then, okay, this is how it evolves over time, but how does it manifest? How can we see in a team, or how can we see in an organization, in a culture, if it's psychological safe or not? And for this, we would like to unfold these four dimensions that we believe are quite descriptive. We can actually even measure this. So Amy Edmerson developed this survey where we can measure these different, dimensions, and we can measure these different dimensions. And we can then, you know, work with a culture organization, a department or a team, and then come back after a certain amount of time and ask them the same questions again to see, has there been any involvement? You know, have you evolved as a team? Have you developed to be more psychological safe? The four dimensions are, as you can see, our, in the bottom left here, you know, inclusion and diversity. So do people feel welcome for who they are? I also mentioned that before. And are we utilizing the differences? Then we also have something around attitude to risk and failure. So do I experience it's permissible to make a mistake in the context that I'm working within or not? Open conversations all about, are we able to have the conversations that we need to have about the difficult topics? Or do we create a culture where we talk a bit with somebody here and a bit with somebody there, and hence elephants are piling up in the room? This is something we see many places. And last but not least, the willingness to help and teaming up. So one thing is, you know, do we have the time to actually help each other? But do I actually believe there's a willingness? So if I reach out, will somebody grab my hand or not? If yes, it might impact psychological safety to the positive. If not, it will impact it to the negative direction. So all in all, you can see, this is the manifestations. If these four are high, we can say psychological safety is high. Often we see some of these dimensions are higher than others. And that is, that helps us being more sharp on them. What can we then do for you? So if it's open conversation, why is it so? Maybe it's because your leader is dismissive, right? So no matter what you say, your leader is, you know, rolling with their eyes or, you know, not even noting what you're saying. And hence, you know, you don't feel included, but you don't even foster a culture of open conversation. Or if you make a mistake, you know, you get, somebody gets angry at you instead of trying to unfold, explore what happens so we can learn from it, right? And that might actually mean that the attitude to risk and failure is a bit lower. Hence, we can actually target the specifics and work with them in order to unfold the landscape around psychological safety. So that was enough of me talking. I could continue with this for ages. But instead, I would like to actually invite you, and Maycee, please also come to the stage here, because we're a bit curious to understand, you know, how you would rate your organization's commitment to working with both D and I, but also psychological safety. And the way we can measure that is to, we want to invite you to open menti.com. So either you can take a picture of this QR code, you will be directly directed to the mentimeter, or you can go to menti.com on your computer or your phone, and enter the code you see in front of you, beginning with 39. And then we will allow you to answer the two questions, and we will see what you say out there. So we're quite curious to see actually how much these numbers, they follow each other. We have an anticipation. Let's see if our hypothesis is correct. Yeah. It sure looks like many of you are working with both parameters. Yeah. And I can see we have around 33 answers. So we'll just give you 30 more seconds to conclude this, this menti. We got a good question from Martin, yes, around, you know, so one thing is commitment, another thing is ability. And we totally agree. And right now, we are curious about the commitment. And often, Martin, that's the next question. Okay, so we are committed to this, but how do we do it? We know what are the capabilities, you know, abilities that needs to be told true for us to actually succeed with this? And we can maybe talk about that later. But I totally agree with this distinction here. All right, Maisel, what do you see? Well, we see two numbers that actually look a lot alike. Which is great. I mean, of course, it would be even greater if all of you scored that you were champions already. But I mean, then why would you be here? Exactly. And we totally agree with the commitment and ability. And also Camila says, and then also, you know, stick to the initiatives. So we have intentions, but, you know, how are we doing with implementation of these? So maybe what you could do while we get ready for the next part is just highlight, you know, do you believe that there is a discrepancy, as you see it from where you work, between commitment, which is around, you know, 3.0, 2.9, depending on what we ask for, and ability and implementation. Or maybe both. So maybe, you know, and then there's no right or wrong answers. Just, we're just curious to hear, you know, how do you experience it out there? Because that's also what we see sometimes that, you know, there are intentions. But the very same leaders that are sponsoring this, they conduct a behavior that is not exactly fostering the same thing that they're sponsoring. So there is actually some kind of paradox here. And we're a bit curious to hear more about that. All right. But thank you so much for leaning into this Mentimeter and for playing along. We'll move a bit on. Yes, thank you for sharing. And I think it's your time. It's still your time to shine. It's my time. All right. So it's good to have our flow set up here. So maybe, Andreas, if I can get the slide on here. Perfect. So right now, what we are asking ourselves, and I think that also initiated or actually fostered our curiosity around what we need to talk a bit about this. Because it's no secret for some of you that I have been working with psychological safety for many years. And for me, psychological safety is one of the main enablers of, you know, sustainable organizations, both when it comes to performance and bottom line, but also culture and thriving. That we can agree on. Yes. And you come more from a D&I agenda perspective. Yes. So the D&I perspective, now we just heard how you see inclusion as being one of the steps you take in order to create a psychological safe space. Where from the D&I perspective I come from, we often refer to it more as D&I as being the umbrella. And then psychological safety is one of the actions you can take to make sure your organization is actually being inclusive. Exactly. And I think it's a nice discussion because what is enabling what here? And this is not a discussion that we need to necessarily come to a conclusion on. But nonetheless, we like to say that, for me, I've always said that psychological safety is not the goal or the end goal. It's rather a means to something. And if that is to create, amongst others, inclusive workplaces, so be it. But I think there is a discrepancy in the understanding of whether psychological safety is a part of inclusion or inclusion is the first that we're going to be creating psychological safety. But what we think is... And what we do agree on is that inclusion is the bridge. Inclusion is the bridge. And it doesn't really matter what is the hen and what is the egg. What matters is that we see this bridge. That they are related. Because, maybe you read the invitation here, we don't believe that we will succeed with our D&I agendas. If the fundamental embedded culture that we try to succeed within is psychologically unsafe. This is a coalition that cannot be... We cannot work it out. So we need to find out if we don't succeed with the D&I agenda. Maybe it's because it's just one part of living somewhere in the corner. We see that sometimes. Yeah, we do. But maybe it's also because these initiatives cannot flourish because the fundamental safety of the organization is unsafe. So we need to find out what can we then do about this? How can we play them together? How can we magnify the D&I agenda with psychological safety? And how can psychological safety be better understood and maybe also thrive even more by being attached to the D&I agenda? So that is actually one of our agendas today. To bridge them instead of talk about them as two different things. But they actually are linked. And inclusion, as we see it, is the link. Yes. I very much agree. Cool. So far so good. Good thing we found common ground. If we can agree, then everybody else should be able to agree as well. Yes. So that was some of the things we'd like to highlight. And I think you'll talk a bit about what are the benefits of all of this. Yeah. So if you actually succeed in creating this inclusive organization, what are the benefits of all of this? What are the benefits from it? We do see there are many. One of the points we would like to highlight today is the people agenda. Then we do see that many employees, they feel that they can become and be their true self when they come to work. This is very much reflecting the lower turnover these organizations also see because people feel like they belong. They feel included. And then that also reduces the discrimination rate in these organizations. So a lot of people benefits from having a big focus on DE&I, but also psychological safety. One of the other things we would like to highlight is the innovation argument. That we see that if people are actually represented within the room, if we have this diversity, which also means a diversity of thought represented in a team, then it will enhance the creativity we see and we will come up with better solutions. This will also mean that we actually reflect our customer needs in a better way because we can reflect how our customers look. Maybe they're being a diverse slate of people. And then if we reflect it, we understand how they think and what they need from us and our solutions. The third argument we would like to come up with as a benefit is the reputation and responsibility. So this is the reputation and responsibility. So this is the reputation and responsibility. So this is that it increases an organization's brand. If you start looking at DE&I and psychological safety, it has a large brand value. Many employer employees, future employees out there in the society, they're looking into what is actually the organization doing on this agenda. It's really important for them. And then this also creates that we get insights into a bigger talent pool. Also, if we start searching for diverse employees or people that represent something different than what we used to look for, we get a broader scope of talents out there that we can actually recruit from. And the fourth dimension is the numbers game that all research and all the cases we've been a part of as well that shows that the financial performance, it increases. It's simply just a good business case to focus on this. So when we've highlighted all of the benefits there are, then what is it then that gets in the way of building an inclusive and a psychological safe workplace? Why is this not necessarily that easy without some of the complexity we see? And then we have some different takes on it. One of them is that it comes down to power and privileges. So if you would like to revisit this module, which I showed when we talked about diversity, then this is actually actually also a will of power showing that the different diversity dimensions that are closer to the middle, they're usually the ones, of course, depending on the context, but usually the ones having the most power within the room. So if you're imagine you're sitting out in a team, and you're sitting as being one of the minority people in the team, then it can be more difficult for you to share your opinion and to express how you feel or how you think. Because there will most likely be more severe consequences than if you share an opinion, which is the same as the rest of the majority group, if you were a part of that. And this is something we need to balance. We need to make sure that it's not only a safe space for the people with a lot of power or the people who are part of the majority group, but it's a safe space for everybody that's here, that we can all share how we think and how we feel without it having any consequences. But Ran, I know you have some other great arguments on this as well. What can be some of the barriers we do see? So if you would like to join me? Thank you. So super interesting to hear, you know, how these power elements and privileges can impact our, you know, sense of belonging and inclusion and, you know, even how safe we feel, right? So these might be some of the barriers that we are facing, that there is this power game and that I'm maybe holding back because of X and Y stakeholder in a given situation. But not only the privileges due to which groups that we represent and are part of and the powers that are in the organization, there's also actually another layer that we would like to unfold. So, and that is a more psychological heavy, so to speak, layer because it's all about, you know, who do we cope with? Who is the stakeholder in front of us? What is their past experiences in life and what are they bringing to the table? Because they are individuals with past experiences and with the luggage. And this is impacting their preferences and the way they interact with others. And we'll talk a bit about that because we term that as, you know, intellectual bravery or psychological courage or our focus on social reputation. So besides the power and the privileges, so focusing on our social reputation will also impact our ability to act brave in certain situations. And the idea here is that, you know, psychological safety. Ideally, if everybody feel totally psychological safe, everybody are able to lean in, right? So it doesn't take as much courage for me from time to time to just lean in because I'm safe. We know that environments out there are not 100% psychological safe. So it requires an ability to lean in either how, an ability to be psychological, psychologically courageous or intellectually courageous or intellectually brave. You can call it what you want. But leaders that are often, you know, main creators of, main fosters of a culture, they really need to be aware of both, first of all, is this culture that, or is this context safe or not? But also, what is triggered within the stakeholder that I'm talking with? You know, what are their preferences? Are they, you know, are they prone to just speak out as per default because that's how they have taught themselves to do? Because they're intellectually brave? Or are they holding more back? And if you really want to foster that psychological safety, you need to include everybody, you need to really facilitate that, but also need to have an eye on what you do as a leader, as a role model, and what that triggers in others. So I'll come a bit back to that. Because what we need to do is to understand how the brain works. And this is going back to, you know, evolutionary psychology and sense of belonging work, etc. But what we know is that we all strive for belonging. We are hardwired to belong. So we are social animals. Going back to the savannah, our survival was important to us and our ability to reproduce was important to us, to our ancestors. Both of which were impossible without other people. Hence, we develop this, you know, need for others. We want to be a part of a pack. We want to be part of a group. This is inherent within us. That means that I am becoming more and more, as an individual, as a human being, we are very much aware of our social reputation. Because if my social reputation is low, and I will potentially be unattractive to others, and if I'm unattractive to others, I might be rejected and excluded. Hence, my brain thinks something was wrong, and is, of course, triggered in a negative way. So what we'll do is that we'll do anything we can to be included, to think about our social reputation, and to maintain a high level of social reputation. And that's where we start to really think about, you know, in-person management. So what do people think about me? How can I be the best version of myself in front of people, etc.? So in-person management becomes quite important. But if I feel safe, then if I'm, you know, I'm totally, I'm totally relaxed, I'm totally, you know, trustworthy of the fact that nothing will happen to me, nothing will be used against me, then I will not think so much about my impression management or my social reputation as I would if I feel unsafe. And the problem is, if I feel a bit unsafe, and if I'm starting to manage my impressions, what I will do is potentially, I'll try to lean into some of these four dimensions on the left side, right? So I'll do everything I can to not look ignorant. I can just stop asking questions, and that's easily solved. I'll do everything I can to not look incompetent. I'll just stop admitting mistakes and weaknesses, easily solved. I'll stop, you know, being perceived as, do everything I can to not look incompetent. So I'll just, you know, I'll just stop criticizing status quo. Because doing this, playing this safe, will at least help me support my quest in not being rejected by others, because I'm not sticking my head, my neck too much out. What we need to do is, we need to utilize the competencies and the skills of everybody that works in our organization. We need them to lean in, we need them to challenge, we need them to be intrusive from time to time, we need them to offer ideas, we need them to admit mistakes and weaknesses, we need them to ask questions. So we need to be able to foster that psychological safety so we can tap into their courage and their bravery. And we start with ourselves, what am I doing as a sponsor, as a leader, as a role model, that is potentially triggering them in not leaning in? And both the privilege and power dimension and the intellectual bravery dimension are important in order to understand the barriers that we are facing in order to create real, inclusive workplaces with psychological safety. So, the question for you now, and we'll do this anonymously, so that's why we use Mentimeter again. So please play along with us. We know that you're out there. Mentimeter.com, take a picture of the QR code or just enter the code the same as before. The question is, what can hold you back from being brave from time to time? Please let us know. We see fear to be criticized and imposter syndrome, also a great aspect of this. The leader's ego, that's back to what you said about permission, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you also need permission to be invited into the room to share your opinion? Absolutely. So very much related to the permission part. Being perceived as negative, defensive attitude, fear of how it will be perceived by others, negative consequences like being exposed in a bad way, no trust with my manager, no backup, that is not supporting your carrier, no trust with your career, no trust with your career. Being perceived as too critical. A lot of good things. And, you know, I can relate to all of them. Yeah. You know, in a sense, at a certain time in life, you know, one of them I've tapped into in a certain context, I've been tapping into this. And we are talking about human systems here, so it's complex. And we need to be aware of this. Being a young woman among male senior management, coming back to some of the the things that you talked about, right? Yes. Minority. And then, so the manager's attitude, fear of looking stupid, no trust from management. So there's something within ourselves. And there's something that is fostered with the way that we are met by others, right? So there's this interaction. But nonetheless, it's the complexity in this that makes this interesting. And we don't, I don't experience that we have a language for that out there. Do you experience that mindset that we have this deep, deep, deep conversations about, you know, what is actually at play here at stake? But also, just now, not to criticize ourselves, but we also called it what is holding you back from being brave. And one thing is to be brave. Now, we go back to being perceived as difficult as one person mentions. One thing is you're brave enough to actually share. But then another thing is how people interpret that thing you're sharing. Exactly. If they give you room for it. And often, often, we're conditioned in a certain time in life to do as we do today. For example, you had a manager that dismissed you, or that laughed when you said something. How much motivation and engagement do you have to do the same next time? Question mark. Or the question might be obvious, right? Yeah. So we are conditioned to this. And sometimes we need to understand what am I conditioned by in order to rewind and work with that and reflect then what does that actually, how does that impact my work life? And you're also talking about, you know, sometimes it's easy enough to take the fight, yeah? So we're resigning a bit, withdrawing. Totally get that. The problem is so much knowledge and so much wisdom that is getting lost in that resignation. Yes. Or withdrawal. It has a consequence on the organization and the whole business impact we're going to have as a team then if we don't come up with these creativity solutions. And also, I see, usually, I don't hold back. But that has come with a very high cost, as one of you mentioned. And this is the definition of psychologically unsafety, right? So that is, you know, not to be feeling safe. And there is an issue in the organization that you're embedded in if that's how you feel. So thank you again for playing along. That's super nice for us to get this input. Thank you for sharing. This is very nice input for us. And we really thank you for leaning in and sharing with us. So the question is, Majse, talking a bit about all of this and unfolding the barriers and difficulties, what is the opportunity for impact? Yeah. So what is it that you can actively go out and do different starting today? And here we're taking a look at, so what can you do if you're a leader, a manager, an HR manager, or you're working with the D&I agenda out there? And one of the things we see is that we need to be aligned on our story. What story and narrative is it that exists within our organization? Are we clearly communicating how come we work with this diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda and our psychological safe spaces? Why is it important for us as an organization? And is this story something that is clearly understood all layers down in the business? And is it stories that differs depending on if you're in the R&D part of the organization, for example, where it can very easily become the innovation business case argument that's the highlight of your story? Or if it's in the HR department where it can more easily become the people business case argument that becomes your core story? So are you aligned in the stories within your organization? You need to be in order to get everybody to join this movement. So that's one thing you can go out and check. And to make sure that you have the right buy -in for the sponsors all the way up in the top. As we do see, D&I and psychological safety is an agenda that's very important to drive both top-down but also bottom-up. But it's also important that we have, which goes to our next point, we have the leadership buy-in. Then we have some leaders all the way up that showcase this role modeling behavior that shows how it is to be done. How can we secure this inclusive environment role models that you have the permission to actually share here in this organization and here in my team? And I'm curious on hearing your perspectives. So we need to see managers taking this part because we know that they're the most important change agents we have on this agenda. And with that, we have this great matrix. Jan will share what actions you can take. Thank you so much. So we have tried to define, so based on our previous work and based on the work for this webinar, we tried to say, so what are the things that we can start doing out there? And sometimes there are no quick fixes. Rather, it's a movement that we need to create. But first of all, what we say is that we need to identify the right stakeholders to influence for this agenda to be elevated. And that comes from the fact that we know that the more stars on the shoulder, the bigger impact you have on building the right initiatives and fostering a culture. So if this only happens somewhere down in the organization, in a part of it, you know, the impact will be less and it'll be difficult to actually also do it in a sustainable way. But if it comes from the top with the right sponsors involved, then we also know the impact will be greater and the commitment will be higher. So find out who that is. And then set the stage with these people. Set the stage with the organization. Create a common understanding on why this is important. Right? And this is all about focus and attention. And it's all about aligning across. The third one is educate stakeholders and why the importance of this. Tell them it's about bottom line. It's about well-being. It's about performance. It's about all that matters to them as well. We have plenty of research showing this. So this is all about educating them as well and having the right conversations. Having courageous conversations around this is also important. And often we are met with an either or approach, right? It's either or. It's either performance or well-being. It's either people or processes. I might be exaggerating a bit here, but it's often a both and. So find that common ground and have those conversations. Then for yourself as an agent out there and also as part of often P&O organizations, HR organizations, the way you can impact others is also to start role modeling bravery. Dare to be vulnerable and to show fallibility that you're imperfect. And I know it's easy to say be vulnerable, but first you need to find out what is holding you back from being brave that will lead to the vulnerability. And then work with that in order for you to be able to lead into the vulnerable space. The vulnerable space is the glue between people. That is where we can build those bonds that really can impact the culture. The fifth one, as you can see here, is all about being curious and humble in your approach to meeting people. Instead of always giving feedback and fostering that, start to ask for feedback, turn it upside down. That is also a vulnerable act. That will lead to hopefully lead them to do the same with you. So your leader or your direct reports, whoever it is. Whenever somebody makes a mistake in a project, in a product, in a process, whatever it is, be aware of how you respond to that. Be aware of how people in your organization respond to that. Maybe you have an issue with that. You know, what is your body language? What is your communication style? How do you react digitally, physically, etc.? The seventh one, as you can see here, is in order to be more inclusive, you need to explore which biases you have. I once had a nice conversation with a colleague, said it's difficult to know, you know, about your unconscious biases because they're unconscious. I totally agree. But, you know, be explorative around what biases are, what they are to you, what you are biased by, what you potentially could be biased by, and then work your way through it that way. And the last one, be inclusive in everything you do. When you facilitate meetings, when you conduct conversations, when you invite people in for collaboration, make sure that the silent voices, the less courageous people are also invited. Of course, in a way that also feels safe for them. But be aware of how you facilitate, you know, structures, processes, sessions, such that you are inclusive in everything you do. Always have an eye for that. Always have an eye for finding that common ground. So that is our eight hacks. And we have also been asked, do we share slides? Some of the slides will be shared, yes. So hopefully you can also take some of them back. We'll also love to have conversations with you after this, which hopefully we can, you know, how can you say, we can inspire each other because you have also experiences out there. We are, we don't have any answer, all the answers. We have one perspective, you have others, and we also see some good points in the chat here. But with that, we really hope to continue the dialogue with you. We have a couple of minutes left. Yeah. And we would like to know if you have any questions. Also questions we haven't seen in the chat already. So feel free to share your questions in the chat if you have so. We have one that Martin has a comment around. It's important to remember that leaders also need a psychological safe space for themselves to be leaders in, not just creating it for others. It is not a given that the audience wants them to express vulnerability, fear, uncertainty. I totally get that. And we totally agree with the fact that they also need to be facilitated. They also need to be helped. But at some point, we have a top management. And the arrow points to somebody, but also to all of us. So we are all agents, right? So that's our approach. We are all co-creators of a culture with our behavior. But of course, the more stars on the shoulders, the more impact you have on role modeling a certain behavior. So you can have a team where they say, we want to be psychological safe and we want to work with this and that. But the CEO is the one that is being dismissive all the time. Then it's difficult to really do something about it because the gallery of persons is as it is. That also comes back to the whole power dimension of it. So it's easier to share your honest opinion if you have the formal power as well. But of course, people with the informal power should also give you space to share. And so far, we haven't got any questions in the chat, but we'll just wait another minute. Otherwise, we will be wrapping up soon. And we will also like to hear in the chat. If you don't have any questions, maybe you can already in the chat, share with us what are your two key takeaways from the session. So what really, you know, what is really stuck with you? So what are the two key takeaways that you're bringing back home? So please leave us with that. And then have a nice rest of the Tuesday. And if you still have any questions, we'll just stay a couple of minutes more. We have Carlo saying, however, if the leaders who have the power don't create the safety themselves, who will? Of course, it's difficult for middle management. And it just confirms the importance of the top leadership supporting the DNI and psychological safety story. We very much agree. Thank you for that input. Very interesting input. Yes. And Martin says that as this is a learning journey, what are your thoughts on setting some early boundaries to get started? This is not full inclusion, but can get the ball rolling. That's a great question. Yeah. What do you think? Yeah. I'm a bit more curious to understand what you mean with the early boundaries. So if you can elaborate that, maybe even in a conversation afterwards, but also aware of time. But we will stay as mentioned. But if you need to go, you go. And Anne, thank you. And thank you for joining the session. I even saw some other good people in the session, Medagosk. I think some of our colleagues are also joining. So nice to see all of you also, all of you who haven't met before. We really want to continue this conversation with you in a sense that in a way that makes sense. And we're really, really curious to have conversations about what you experienced, because we can learn so much from you. Yeah. And I think just a quick note to you, Martin. I think one of the things you could do is to make sure you have a super structured meeting approach where you do it a very inclusive way. So it's very formal, like who turns, take turns. So it tries to reduce some of the both the formal, but also some of the informal power in the room, making sure that everybody is being listened to. So that's one of the actions you could do. But thank you so much, all of you. So I'm looking at the address. How many do you have left in the call address? 60. 60. Okay. So we have people left still here. That's a good sign. So again, questions are coming in. We are still replying them. And please also leave us with your takeaways. We have also a comment or question here. We really appreciate also the comments here, the takeaways. So Iris, Enya, et cetera. Thank you so much. Trini, you say something about how communication plays a role here. That is a very good question. And I think it plays a huge role. How do we communicate? So there's both on the micro level. How do we communicate on the micro level? So from day to day in conversations, body language, communication style, but it's also on the more corporate level. How transparent are we? How clear are we on the norms and the guidelines that can help people, right? So there are different elements in this. And how clear are we on stating why this is one of our purposes? Like what is we gain from having this focus on DE&I and psychological safety? Why is it important for us as an organization? That can be something that is very nice to have very clearly communicated since some people out in the organization might feel that they have the headwinds towards them right now in these times. Very, very, very good point. So communicate the why so we can also create some engagement out there. Thank you so much. And thank you for leaning in and joining all of you. Thank you. And we wish that you will have a wonderful Tuesday. We will reach out to you and we will share some of the slides with you and have a nice day. Thank you.