We’ve all been there. Those situations at work where we’re having to tread on eggshells around someone.
It’s horrible, being worried about speaking out for fear of the reaction. It’s not healthy for anyone – you, your colleagues, or the business itself. And if it happens regularly, it makes you not want to even come to work.
You might lack Psychological Safety. That’s an environment where people feel comfortable getting the answer wrong, speaking up, asking for help and constructively challenging decisions or behaviours, and knowing they’re safe to do so.
Psychological Safety as a concept isn’t a new thing, it’s been talked about for decades, but the pandemic has brought it to the fore. People are wanting, understandably, to work somewhere they can freely offer opinions and experiment without fear of negative repercussions.
And it’s not just a fluffy, ‘nice-to-have’ in business, Psychological Safety is part of every high-achieving team – it’s a well-known fact that it goes hand-in-hand with productivity, motivation, and innovation. Plus, people who have it typically stay there longer.
It’s a win-win all around.
So, what does it take to create Psychological Safety in your workplace? There’s no easy or one-size-fits-all solution, that’s for sure. And it’s in flux - what makes people feel like they are being listened to and what makes them comfortable changes over time and can differ person-to-person. It’s important to temperature check. But there are a few key things to think about if you want to health check your culture. Here are our top 6 tips.
1. Encourage Open and Honest Feedback
This one will take a business to be brave to get it right, but the payoff will be worth it. Often organisations turn to quantitative scale-based surveys to gauge how employees are feeling, how engaged they are etc, you know the kinda thing, the annual tick box survey that’s emailed out in bulk to every employee. But that only scratches the surface.
Leaders and managers need to be delving much deeper to ensure they’re gathering genuine feedback. Questions around how supported individuals feel, how comfortable they feel putting across their opinion or challenging a decision that has been made are all ways of getting to the real crux of how people feel.
Feedback might feel unnatural at first, especially if it’s tricky to deliver. When feedback is only gathered annually, it can also become a very transactional and dreaded event. Embedding it as business as usual, a daily activity and a common part of processes, can really help. Leaders will be instrumental in demonstrating that they can give and receive feedback, building it into conversations and sharing their experiences.
Coaching and probing questions won’t come naturally to some leaders and managers so it’s important they’re supported to be able to take this approach and move away from classic leadership models of forging ahead and just telling people what to do.
A simple invitation can make a huge difference here – for example sharing all the leaders’ mobile numbers widely and encouraging anyone from any team, in any position, to just pick up the phone and give feedback. Yes, it’s a brave move but by creating an environment where people feel comfortable feeding back so openly everyone will reap the benefits; happier more engaged employees and a more successful business.
2. Upskill Leaders and Managers
It’s all well and good creating an open feedback loop to leaders and managers but what do they do with that information once they’ve got it?
Giving leaders and managers the skills to deal with these qualitative responses is essential. They need to know where the line is in terms of keeping things professional, particularly if the team member is finding their personal circumstances are affecting how they feel at work, how best to respond and when to escalate things further.
Empathy is fundamental here and so much more than a buzzword. But to be an empathetic leader or manager takes a specific skill set including active listening, clear and open communication. It might also involve real behavioural change to move empathy from artificial to natural and genuine. So, delve into specific skills gaps your senior team may have, ask them to reflect, provide opportunities to practise behaviours and curate a personalised toolkit to help them develop and support a Psychologically Safe environment.
A Training Needs Analysis is a great place to start – assess how people work together, how they deal with each other, whether your processes back up a coaching approach, whether your organisation rewards and celebrates when positive values are demonstrated and calls out and challenges if something goes against them.
3. Don’t Forget to Check in with Leaders & Managers Themselves
For leaders and managers to be able to create a Psychologically Safe workplace for their team, they need to feel Psychologically Safe themselves. Sounds a bit of a no-brainer doesn’t it, but it’s often overlooked.
Are your senior team getting the right support? Do they feel in a strong position to emanate Psychological Safety?
Asking these questions of your leaders and managers regularly and being perceptive to changes in them means you’re more likely to pick up on signs of struggle etc. early on and give them the support they need before it escalates.
4. Make Failure Part of The Learning Culture
Are members of the team walking on eggshells and worried about sharing their opinion for fear of upsetting someone or being made to feel like a numpty?
If the answer is yes, then they’ll never be able to be effective in their role.
Psychological Safety is all about being able to constructively criticise and offer feedback without the fear of negative repercussions. Whether that’s fear of losing their job, being ostracised, or being belittled, none of these makes for a positive environment for the individual or the company.
Offering feedback, and flagging when you disagree or are unhappy about something isn’t a problem in a Psychologically Safe workplace, it’s just a good way of working. Make challenging and questioning ok, otherwise, your organisation will be haemorrhaging great people and driving them to leave without having had the opportunity to demonstrate their true value.
5. Create Opportunities for Genuine Connection
It’s all too easy to ‘tick the box’ when it comes to checking in on your team, but feedback needs to be so much more than a transactional check-in. Otherwise, your leaders and managers won’t have a clue what’s genuinely going on.
Regular, brief, as-needed check-ins are much more effective than say, quarterly ones. You’re much more likely to notice subtle changes in someone’s behaviour or mood and if someone is struggling, if the gap between check-ins isn’t lengthy. Left unspoken, negative feeling will fester, build, and become a much bigger deal in the long run.
Building a safe space where individuals can shout up when they’re starting to find things difficult, rather than only when they’re in crisis, is super important.
6. Know Why People Leave
Last but by no means the least important is understanding why people leave your organisation. It can be tricky to get feedback at this stage but building an exit interview or similar can be a real eye-opener.
Leavers are much more likely to be open and honest about any areas where there’s room for improvement so consider questions carefully, which format is likely to get the best responses and who conducts the interview or asks the questions. The ultimate goal here is to build an honest forum.
This blog is taken from Episode 1 of our new Learning and Development Podcast Mini-Series.
When leaders and managers upskill, the whole company benefits. It’s a common assumption that when people get to the top, they’ve got there by being the best. And, while true in many cases, there’s always room for improvement.
There are 4 episodes available in the highly rated series, some of which feature special guest speakers in addition to our knowledgeable panel. Our hosts and guests speak candidly about their own experiences, provide advice, and discuss challenges. Check out the entire series and help yourself become the best you can be.