Psychological Safety seems to be one of the hot topics as of lately, at least judging by what we can read in our Linked In feed. The fact is that it is nothing new, quite the opposite. Psychological Safety is something that has been mentioned for quite some time, decades even. But it has become more and more of a “buzz” within the Agile movement.
Articles on psychological safety multiply themselves throughout the web multiple channels, most of them focused on how to achieve psychological safety within our teams. And although I agree with many of those articles, I believe psychological safety should start in the recruitment process.
In fact, when you are creating an advert for a recruitment process, the way you present the role and the company impacts the expectations a candidate may create around the role, what is expected from him/her, and the organisation as a whole.
Even if you do a good job at creating such advert, once you start interviewing candidates, the same rule applies. Think about it.
Scenario #1 – you present the role, the structure, who’s leading the team, who are the stakeholders. All the info is there. What the candidate gets is a description of the chain of command, who he/she will have to answer to, and where he/she will fit in the organisation.
Switch to Scenario #2 – you present what values the organisation believes in, how you aim to work together towards a common goal, how the candidate’s skills will become an added value to the whole team, and how you all expect to move forward. Basically you present almost the same info from a much better perspective, inviting the candidate to become excited with the idea of joining your organisation, without fear, and a clear vision of what is expected and where you want to go, together.
No, you offer the candidate the opportunity to present himself/herself. In which scenario do you think you’ll get a much better grip of who they really are? In Scenario #1 probably your candidate will provide a summary of the already known resume, highlighting the strengths and major projects/victories. OK, but what does that tell you? You already have read the CV. Who is that person? How will they fit with your organisation’s culture? Scenario #2 will provide an enthusiastic response, sharing experiences, discussing beliefs, getting to know who is this person in front of you. (if not, you know it’s not the right candidate at all)
The CV tells you where they have been. You can then ask specific questions about certain experiences and roles, but discovering who is the person behind the resume is invaluable.
Provide the sense of psychological safety needed from day 0, when you first meet someone. Then reinforce it every step of the way. During onboarding, by HR, and by everybody else. Allow them to question, discover, discuss, throw you a curve ball sometimes. Be honest and let them be honest, from the moment you meet, in that first encounter, right after the first hello.