At a conference I attended recently, Amy Edmondson (author of new book ‘The Fearless Organisation’) described psychological safety as ‘permission for candour’. She talked about how it is incumbent on leaders to invite ‘bad news’ and opposing viewpoints if they are serious about creating an environment where people feel safe.
I agree with this. I’ve seen many folk in leadership positions shy away from hearing views they don’t welcome, find easy or useful. I have experienced many get triggered by the person who wants (or needs) to bring an opposing or inconvenient perspective. And seen some get irritated when they don’t hear the news they want to hear.
I wonder though if ‘permission for candour’ is all that psychological safety is about. Candour is about being open and direct. For me it conjures an image of someone expressing a clear and frank view about something. But what if it is less clear than that? What if it is less a direct view than a request for help or an expression of vulnerability of some kind?
A personal experience
I was part of a group of coaches recently that attended a stand-up comedy workshop. The aim of the group was not to pave the way to our first stand-up comedy gig, but to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone. That is what we ask our clients to do after all, right? So how about we do the same thing and learn more about what it feels like?
I had had a stressful time in the week leading up to the workshop so I was looking forward to a day of fun. I like performing so I was fairly relaxed about the experience, despite the fact that I was the newest member of the group and was apprehensive about the idea of being funny on demand. Would I be? Could I be? I didn’t think it mattered too much either way and was curious to see. I was also too distracted by other ‘stuff’ to overthink it.
How it unfolded
The session started playfully. Angie was our facilitator and was full of banter from the get-go. We did line-ups about how much we liked Strictly Come Dancing and football (my answer to both = loads!) and then how comfortable we were about doing stand-up (my answer = significantly less!). Then we were at little tables and into a bit of theory.
It’s hard to say exactly what happened. I remember not really understanding some handout that we had to complete. I remember feeling very short of time and under pressure to produce something. I remember doing an exercise where we had to give and receive feedback from our partner about the assumptions we would make about each other on meeting for the first time, and finding it a little edgy. I remember being told ‘headmistress’ or ‘judge’. I don’t remember being delighted by this but not unduly surprised or put out either (well, not the ‘judge’ bit!). I remember a round of feedback where Angie asked each of us what we had learned about ourselves and invited us to turn this into some kind of introductory gag we could use in a five-minute sketch. I remember feeling very stuck (not something I am familiar with), very exposed in my stuckness and as though I didn’t receive much help from Angie when it was my turn to share.
The final straw
And then the real trigger moment came. Everyone was done and Angie asked:
“Is everyone ok?”
Usually I would hide my unease and say nothing but this time I decided to admit it, so I said:
“No, I’m not ok”.
For me this was a big admission and took me way out of my comfort zone. In my mind it was a clear request for help. What I got in return (as far as I remember) was blasé:
“Something will come” from Angie.
To me this felt like a brush off. I had asked for help and got none. So the shutters came up.
So what does it take to feel safe?
To cut a long story short, I didn’t do the five-minute sketch and I didn’t enjoy the day that much. But I did learn something about how uncomfortable I am with feeling clueless in a group and what it takes for me to feel safe enough to take a risk in those circumstances. The first thing I need is relationship and trust. And the second is help when I ask for it from the leader.
However, in debriefing this with someone else in the group afterwards, I learned that what had felt to me to be a clear request for help and an expression of vulnerability, did not come across that way at all to those around me. No-one else had any idea of how stuck I was nor how I felt about that. There was a huge disconnect between my internal world and what I was giving off externally. Painful to acknowledge but priceless learning for me.
And whose job is it?
But this piece isn’t about me. It’s about what psychological safety means in groups, teams and organisations, how it is created and whose job it is to do so.
I agree it means permission for candour. I think it also means permission and support for vulnerability. This means inviting it, modelling it and creating a relationship context that supports both.
Once again it comes back to relationship. Do I trust you not to get cross if I tell you I disagree or tell you some bad news? And do I trust you to have my back if I ask you for help, or show you my vulnerability in some way?
So yes, there is a big leadership responsibility here. But, as my own example shows, it is not just down to the leader. Some of it, whether we like it or not, is down to us: down to our self-awareness, our ability to ask clearly for what we need and to find a way of managing ourselves when, for whatever reason, that may not be available.
Over to you
So what do you think? Whose job is it to create psychological safety? What environment do you create at work? And what do you need to perform at your best?
At Neon we believe in building ‘deeply human’ organisational cultures that inspire high performance. Psychological safety is a component of this.
To find out more about our work, go to www.deeplyneon.com and click here to take our short, free quiz to find out how deeply human you and your organisational / team culture are.