4 ways to boost psychological safety at work

THese days, mentions of psychological safety in business are extraordinarily common, and the importance of creating psychologically safe work environments seems to be recognized across industries ranging from health care to tech to financial services. A popular topic before the pandemic, psychological safety has become that much more so because of its effects on agility, remote working, and diversity and inclusion. But with this ubiquity has come misunderstanding. one crucial misconception among business leaders is that psychological safety is present in any reasonably healthy work environment, in the same way that freedom from harassment and a commitment to keeping workers injury-free can generally be assumed to be present. In fact, psychologically safe work environments are rare.

Creating psychological safety— the confidence that candor and vulnerability are welcome—in a workplace is truly challenging and takes an unusual degree of commitment and skill. The reason for this is simple: It’s natural for people to hold back ideas, be reluctant to ask questions and shy away from disagreeing with their boss. And because of this tendency, the free exchange of ideas, concerns and questions is routinely hindered— far more often than most managers realize. To reverse course takes focus and effort; it’s a process of helping people develop new beliefs and behaviors, and none of it is easy or natural.

We’re not saying it can’t be done, of course. Quite the contrary—we have plenty of evidence that it can, and we view psychological safety as immensely valuable in any business that faces uncertainty or has a need for innovation. But it must be approached with a high level of commitment and ambition. Fortunately, we’ve seen those efforts pay off.

The four essential behaviors below can help management teams practice perspective-taking (the act of considering a situation from an alternative point of view) and strategic focus while building a capacity for candor and vulnerability:

Focus on performance

FIRST, emphasize what most executives want: performance. Building a psychologically safe work environment starts with making the case that the quality and candor of conversations matter for results. This is not an abstract claim: Achieving performance in knowledge-intensive work relies on integrating the ideas and expertise of multiple people, which requires a willingness to speak candidly in a timely manner. In contrast, it’s harder to create change when the stated goal of psychological safety is “to help people feel safe” or “to become better listeners.” Those things matter, but they’re means, not ends. Senior executives will buy into the importance of psychological safety when they appreciate its role in solving complex problems. Help your team practice candor and vulnerability in regularly scheduled, safe sessions. Then, encourage participants—and leaders in particular—to share stories that portray how candor, vulnerability and perspective-taking have enabled successful outcomes. As more people start to practice these interpersonal skills as part of their work, evidence of their effectiveness will grow.

Train both individuals and teams

In sports, winning teams undergo two kinds of training, one focused on individual skills and one centered around team practice. The same is true for management teams. Individual executives must learn and practice the skills of perspective-taking and inquiry that facilitate the candid sharing of ideas and concerns. But these skills will only take hold when teams practice them as a group, especially as a means to getting the “real work” done. This means participating in generative dialogues—conversations where multiple perspectives are integrated to generate novel solutions for how to move forward—about complex topics, structured and facilitated in a way that allows the team to assess the effectiveness of the various ideas as they go. To get started, you could hold weekly group sessions focused on individual skills alongside longer monthly sessions in which team members practice their new skills together.

Incorporate visualization

VISUALIZATION is used in various settings, ranging from athletes seeking to break world records to therapists helping individuals alter troubling behaviors. managers can tap into the power of visualization by leading weekly sessions in which participants are asked to visualize recent situations where they were successful at speaking candidly or at creating an atmosphere where others were able to engage fully. Participants can also be asked to visualize an upcoming situation and carefully walk through how they might act to create the right atmosphere for navigating complex topics or decisions. Visualization techniques emphasize detail; the idea is that by envisioning and writing down specific, tangible descriptions, people will be better able to internalize new skills and practices.

Normalize vulnerability related to work

IT’S normal to experience mild anxiety when you feel vulnerable. research on anxiety training shows that practicing small acts of vulnerability can help reduce this anxiety. In light of this, managers may want to ask executive teams to identify an important topic on which they've been unable to make progress and then facilitate a dialogue that uses perspective-taking and candor. Before engaging in this exercise, managers can “warm up” the team to interpersonal risk-taking by presenting safe, low-impact challenges for discussion. This is important—if participants hold back important yet sensitive or uncomfortable information, the dialogue won’t produce results.

Focusing on performance, working at both the individual and group level, using visualization, normalizing vulnerability and (above all) using real problems to develop skills while making progress on thorny issues constitute a powerful approach to altering the climate and capabilities of any team. We admit that this is hard work, but it’s what makes it a valuable competitive advantage. especially in tumultuous times, managers and their teams depend on candor, speed and creativity to make progress. Building capabilities related to psychological safety and perspective-taking cannot be considered “basic.” Increasingly, these skills are a vital part of achieving excellence in challenging business contexts.