I’m a big believer in fostering psychological safety at work.
Without it, people will play it safe.
They won’t take big swings.
They’ll keep their concerns to themselves.
They’ll defend the status quo rather than seek creative new ways to proceed.
Oh, and the workplace will suck. People will be miserable. And that misery will ripple out into the wider world.
When psychological safety is lacking in your organization or division or team, creating it becomes What Matters Most. And all other outcomes and goals and priorities and values take a back seat.
So how can we create a psychologically safe workplace that rewards innovation and risk-taking and honesty?
As a coach, consultant, and facilitator, I traffic in the deep psychology and neurophysiology of threat and safety. In gigs where people don’t feel safe at work, I teach my clients about their triggers, glitches, and scars — old patterns of protection that signal danger to themselves and others.
And I guide them to master their mindsets so they can respond appropriately to current reality, rather than the superimposed maps of danger that were installed through past experiences.
You can read about this approach in most of my Mindset Mastery Memos.
Today I want to address the issue of psychological safety on a very different level.
My friend, psychologist Glenn Livingston, had a long and successful career as a marketing consultant to some of the world’s biggest companies, including major food conglomerates. (For the last decade, he’s “atoned” by teaching people how to defeat their food cravings and master their unwanted impulses at DefeatYourCravings.com.)
When we got on the phone to talk about how leaders can foster psychological safety in their teams and organizations, Glenn shared five practical tips.
A quote misattributed to Hemingway advises us to “write drunk, edit sober.” (I want to make it very clear that’s a metaphor — I’m not lining things up for my next book, The Shitfaced Creative.)
Divergent and convergent thinking are two completely different modes of operation, and they work best with a nice big firewall between them. That way, you can access the opportunity-seeking capabilities of the “Discover” mind (divergent) and the discerning qualities of the “Strategic” mind (convergent).
Glenn advises creating and publicizing a gentle ritual to point out when convergent, critical thinking sneaks its way into a brainstorming session.
In one company where he was consulting, team members decided to ding the side of their water glass with a tea spoon when they heard a “negative word.”
Eventually, people began dinging themselves, catching their mental train earlier and earlier. This process (which Glenn dubbed “self-dingulation”) gave participants the awareness to notice when their train of thought-habit was about to jump tracks and run over innocent bystanders.
We are creatures who crave safety and find uncertainty unsettling. Small meetings — me and seven others, max — allow my brain to focus both on the proceedings and the emotional tone of the other participants.
In a room or on Zoom, I can just manage that many faces without losing track of what’s being said.
A corollary to the small number of participants rule is to install a practice by which everyone contributes something to every meeting they attend.
That’s because when people don't talk in a group environment, other people fear that the silent ones...
