Psychological safety is, nowadays, essential in any context, such as health, technology, economy, among others. After the existence of the Covid-19 pandemic, psychological safety gained greater relevance in terms of agility, diversity, inclusion and online work. But because of this omnipresence comes misunderstanding. A crucial misconception among business leaders is that psychological safety will be present in any healthy work environment, such as freedom from harassment or a commitment to keeping workers free from accidents. In fact, psychologically safe work environments are rare.
Creating psychological security, that is, the confidence that openness and vulnerability are welcome – in a workplace, it’s really challenging and requires a high degree of commitment and skill. The reason for this is simple: it’s natural for people to hold back ideas, don’t ask questions, and avoid disagreeing with their boss. Given this tendency, the free exchange of ideas, concerns, and questions is hindered—far more often than most bosses realize. To reverse it takes focus and effort. It becomes a process to help people develop new beliefs and behaviors.
But what explains the success in promoting psychological safety? In this article, we identify four essential elements, based on the SEB study, that were put into practice with different techniques that helped management teams to focus on their perspective, while considering the others, their frankness and its vulnerability.
Focus on Performance
First, think about what most executives want, namely, performance. Building a psychologically safe work environment begins with changing the narrative of the cultural change intervention or interpersonal skills, with the goal of demonstrating that the quality and openness of the conversation is important to the results.
In contrast, it’s harder to create change when the goal is stated as “helping people feel safe” or “becoming better listeners.” These things matter, but they are means and not ends. Senior executives believe in the importance of psychological safety when they appreciate its role in solving complex problems.
Still, insight alone does not produce behavior change. First, it is necessary to help a team at an individual level, in order to progress on the most important challenges, practicing new interpersonal skills in safe and regularly scheduled sessions.
Second, it is important to help participants who have experienced progress in difficult situations to spread to other teams, starting with those they lead. Encourage them to share stories that portray how openness, vulnerability and perspective-taking enabled successful outcomes.
Train both individuals and teams
To train individuals and teams, it is necessary to develop individual skills and their perspective, as they facilitate the frank sharing of ideas and concerns.
But these skills gain strength when teams practice them together, that is, participating in dialogues between teams (conversations where multiple perspectives are integrated to generate new solutions) on complex, structured and facilitated topics.
Incorporate visualization
Visualization is used in a variety of contexts, from athletes looking to set a world record to therapists trying to help individuals change problem behaviors.
Visualization techniques emphasize details. The idea is that by imagining and writing specific, tangible situations, people are better able to internalize new skills and put them into practice. While it is difficult at an early stage for executives to present examples, it becomes easier over time as they become better at seeing positive and more deliberate examples.
Normalize vulnerability related to work
It is normal to experience mild anxiety as a result of feeling vulnerable. Several studies on anxiety show that practicing small vulnerability behaviors helps to reduce levels of anxiety.
By focusing on performance, working at the individual and at the same time the group level, using visualization, normalizing vulnerability and (above all) using real problems to develop skills while progressing in more complex situations, constitute a powerful approach to changing the working environment and habilities of any team.
It should be noted that it is hard work, but it becomes a powerful competitive advantage. Building capabilities related to psychological safety and perspective taking cannot be considered “basic”, but it becomes increasingly pertinent to achieving excellence in challenging business contexts.
Original article: 4 Steps to Boost Psychological Safety at Your Workplace
