Making It Safe to Not (Yet) Be Competent

        Ego and psychological safety are huge factors in the way people work together.  We desire esteem and we want to be trusted.  So naturally, it feels very counter-intuitive to admit that we may not excel at a task, if assigned to us.  No one wants to raise their hand and declare themselves not yet competent.  So whether it is in new employee orientation, when promoted or just a typical Tuesday, when asked if we “got it” we timidly nod our head yes.  There doesnt seem to be any other acceptable response.

If you desire to lead a thriving organization, it must be one in which it is safe to say “I dont know that yet” or “I am not quite ready to do that”.  Sure we want to challenge employees that are right on the edge of a new skill, but we don’t want to make it the norm to say we can do it, when we cant, simply to avoid the threat of appearing weak.

How can organizations make it safe to share about our places of “not yet competent”?  First, we can reframe the way in which we gauge comprehension after informal training.  Too often, we end a demonstration or explanation with “Understand?”  “Any questions?” or some other somewhat faux invitation. These kind of “check-ins” presume that all is good and make it seem as if it is inconvenient to slow down the process by admitting that you didn’t confidently comprehend important aspects.

What do you do instead?  You could simply ask questions like “if you were assigned this tomorrow, what part would you want to run through with me to make sure you felt comfortable with the process?”  Or you could invite the employee to replicate what you just demonstrated or described.  Chances are low that an employee will do something successfully the first time it counts, if they have only observed or heard a description of what is involved.  At that point we risk a poor deliverable, a discouraged employee, frustrated manager and we’ve wasted time

Make it a part of your culture to be vulnerable enough to say “slow down” and “run through that with me one more time” or “can you unpack that acronym, phrase or concept for me a bit further?”

Foster a mistake-friendly environment.  Allow enough initial trial space so that they can fail without consequence.  When we don’t need to expend energy shielding ourselves from judgement we can channel more energy toward becoming successful.