Psychological Safety and Its Critical Importance in Today’s Hybrid Work Environment
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For any given organization, there are different characteristics associated with team effectiveness. As I’ve said many times in my writings, no two companies are the same. Having said that, however, there are some characteristics that are the same across the board.
So, if I were to ask you - What are the top five characteristics you believe every company should associate with team effectiveness? - how would you answer the question? Take a minute to ponder the query. I’ll wait.
Okay. Now that you’ve done that, what did you come up with as an answer? There are lots of ways to answer the question, but I would be willing to bet… and I’m not a betting man… on that list, you included this term (or something like it): psychological safety.
Hands down, psychological safety in the workplace is arguably the top characteristic associated with successful teams within your organization. And given our current environment with work from home and hybrid approaches, it’s even more important now.
Psychological Safety
The Term Defined
I always like to define terms. It gives you the reader and the larger audience a center point with which to understand the article I’ve written. It levels the playing field in other words.
Psychological safety at its core is the belief an employee can speak up… sharing new ideas, asking questions, notating concerns or mistakes without the fear of being punished or humiliated.
One can, of course, expand on that statement in that psychological safety is also the belief that a team member will not be treated differently for speaking his/her/their mind.
A person or team within an organization that has created AND MAINTAINS an environment of psychological safety will bring their full selves to work and commit themselves to the cause of the organization.
Psychological Safety in Context
What does it take to build an environment of psychological safety? In today’s reality… with the pandemic ongoing, easing, but ongoing, creating an environment with this type of mental atmosphere isn’t easy.
Pre-pandemic, it was much different. I won’t say easier, but different.
Not only could managers and leaders see their people in person, but they could engage with them without the use of technology. Body language, eye contact, voice tone… you name it… played a huge role in creating and maintaining that environment.
Amy C. Edmonson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, and Mark Mortensen, associate professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, put it this way.
“When it comes to psychological safety, managers have traditionally focused on enabling candor and dissent with respect to work content. The problem is, as the boundary between work and life becomes increasingly blurry, managers must make staffing, scheduling and coordination decisions that take into account employees’ personal circumstances — a categorically different domain.”
Psychological Safety in Four Stages
All of that said, “A psychologically safe workplace begins with a feeling of belonging.” That’s according to staff writers at the Center for Creative Leadership. Furthermore, they wrote that they point to Dr. Timothy Clark, the author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation. He outlines four stages a person must feel before he/she/they feel free to make contributions in their workplace for challenge the current thinking.
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Stage 1: Inclusion Safety Inclusion safety satisfies the basic human need to connect and belong. In this stage, you feel safe to be yourself and are accepted for who you are, including your unique attributes and defining characteristics. Stage 2: Learner Safety Learner safety satisfies the need to learn and grow. In this stage, you feel safe to exchange in the learning process, by asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting and making mistakes. Stage 3: Contributor Safety Contributor safety satisfies the need to make a difference. You feel safe to use your skills and abilities to make a meaningful contribution. Stage 4: Challenger Safety Challenger safety satisfies the need to make things better. You feel safe to speak up and challenge the status quo when you think there’s an opportunity to change or improve. |
Creating and Maintaining
Knowing the information above is half the battle. Now, managers and leaders have to execute a plan to make that psychologically safe environment reality.
For this, I go back to Edmonson and Mortensen. Together, they’ve crafted a five-step approach to creating an environment that encourages employees to bring their full selves to work and commit to the success of the organization with which they’re employed. I’ve listed the basics below, but you can read more about them by clicking here.
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Step 1: Set the scene. Trite as it sounds, the first step is having a discussion with your team to help them recognize not only their challenges, but yours as well. The objective of this discussion is to share ownership of the problem. Step 2: Lead the way. Words are cheap, and when it comes to psychological safety, there are far too many stories of managers who demand candor of their employees — particularly around mistakes or other potentially embarrassing topics — without demonstrating it themselves or without protecting it when others do share. Step 3: Take baby steps. Don’t expect your employees to share their most personal and risky challenges right away. It takes time to build trust, and even if you have a healthy culture of psychological safety established around work, remember that this is a new domain, and speaking up about buggy code is different than sharing struggles at home. Step 4: Share positive examples. Don’t assume that your employees will immediately have access to all the information you have supporting the benefits of sharing these challenges and needs. Step 5: Be a watchdog. Most people recognize that psychological safety takes time to build, but moments to destroy. The default is for people to hold back, to fail to share even their most relevant thoughts at work if they’re not sure they’ll be well received. When they do take the risk of speaking up, but get shot down, they — and everyone else — will be less likely to do it the next time. |
In Summation
There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to creating and maintaining an environment of psychological safety. The difficulty isn’t just in creating and making that environment work, it’s in making sure it is fluid enough to handle the challenges thrown at the organization.
Take COVID-19 for instance. Pandemics aren’t forever and always. They come and go as do all challenges, but the difficulty lies in being able to navigate them without losing one’s way. A solid psychologically safe environment that’s agile helps ensure that navigation comes to a safe harbor at the end of the journey.
