In my last POST, I mentioned the upcoming legislation that will make organisations (and by default, their leaders) responsible for the Psychosocial Well-being of their employees.  A key element to this will be how organisations provide what has become known as ‘psychological safety’ in their workplaces.

The term ‘psychological safety’ was coined by Dr Amy Edmondson, best known for her work on teams and ‘teaming’.  And boy, did the idea take off! The problem is that when this happens, ie, when a great idea takes off, if not managed well, those ideas can fall prey to Weasels, Grammar distortion, and in the case of Psychological Safety – tigers.  Let me explain.

WEASELS

Clever things, weasels! They seek out animals who are nesting eggs, wait until the mother leaves temporarily, then drill a small hole in the egg and suck the contents out of the egg leaving the shell intact but empty – the shell is left without ‘substance’ and literally, without life (yes, I know – awful, but clever). We humans do the same with words, we take something with great potential and over use it.  We ‘suck the substance and meaning’ out of words until they becomes grammatically distorted.  We create ‘weasel words and phrases’.  Think ‘low hanging fruit’, ‘moving forward’, ‘jobs, jobs, jobs, ‘stop the boats’ and my favourite ‘shall we unpack this’!

I think that psychological safety has fallen victim to this phenomena.

GRAMMAR DISTORTION

Psychological Safety is not a NOUN’.

Actually it is a noun in that it is a ‘belief’.  The official definition:  a belief that you will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.  The problem is that when we see it as a noun, a thing, it lacks movement and energy and impact. As a noun it is seen as something that others (often leaders and organisations – ‘they’) are responsible for.

We need to start thinking about psychological safety as a verb, as a doing thing. And we need to create cultures where every individual understand that their behaviour and mindset impacts the psychologically safety of others.  Everyone is responsible or the concept doesn’t work.  This, of course, takes a good deal of self-awareness, self-motivation, self-regulation and self-accountability to develop and of course, that must start with the leaders, but it can’t stop there or it simply won’t work.

TIGERS

And to explain the tigers – well it’s a reference to the ‘brain state’ we refer to as ‘threat’ – a primitive and evolutionary human survival mechanism that puts the brain into ‘fight, flight, freeze or appease’ mode (note, there is a lot of appeasing going on these days) and a reference to the brain impact of a saber-toothed tiger in the presence of a primitive human.

Your brain will protect you at all costs. When triggered into threat mode, ie, feeling unsafe – physically or psychologically, the brain will shut down and protect – defend, lash out, resist, push-back, white-ant, blame, vent, wallow and so on. Most importantly, in a ‘threat’ state, the human brain cannot learn and cannot communicate accurately.  Today’s ‘tigers’ are fear of humiliation or failure, not feeling valued or supported, a feeling of unfair treatment, a lack of control and choice.

SO HERE’S THE POINT …

• When a human does not feel psychologically safe, they cannot not functioning effectively until they can self-regulate and refocus, or be supported to do that.
• People can feel ‘unsafe’ with colleagues and customers as equally as with leaders.
• Learning, engagement, motivation and productivity all suffer when psychological safety is not taken seriously.
• Taking it seriously means expecting it from everyone in the organisation, including customers or clients.

What is your plan to shift psychological safety from being a noun (a passive belief and a goal) to a verb (a proactive behavioural expectation)?