Do you make people feel safe

do you make people feel safe

in my first job i had a boss who was

wise enough to set aside some time in

almost every team meeting

for us to share new ideas and

suggestions for improving the business

he got some great inputs

and impressive results the first few

times

i contributed after joining the team he

responded with something like command

derek

i’m sure you can do better than that so

although it knocked the wind out of my

sails a little bit

i took it as a challenge and i tried

hard to do exactly that sharing

any new ideas i could conceive of

however out there they seemed

on one occasion you described what i had

proposed as hair

brained in fairness as i recall it was a

little bit

out there next time i went to contribute

he saw my hand and he said okay derek

what hair brain idea have you got for us

today

with practice that became his mantra

anytime

i offered to contribute all the while my

colleagues offered silent support of the

boss

often accompanied by an awkward smile

which in retrospect i realized

was likely driven by fear of getting on

the wrong side of the bus combined with

relief

that the boss’s focus was not now on

them

so over time i became really selective

in what i shared determined only to

bring up ideas i was certain would be

well received

as a result i often heard others

contribute ideas i previously thought of

but which i held back fearful they might

not be good enough

ultimately i stopped contributing

completely and just coasted quietly

through those team sessions making no

eye contact

and afraid to say anything that would

draw attention to myself

in the end i found those meetings such a

source of anxiety that i left a job i

loved on a company i admired

to go somewhere where i hoped i’d feel

more comfortable

have you ever had anything you said

dismissed or ridiculed

have you ever been made to feel like you

don’t belong

have you ever felt stupid because of

somebody’s reactions to your ideas

or your opinions have you ever known the

answer to a problem

but felt afraid to say anything

if so don’t worry you’re not alone

take a look at the animation behind me

these are the responses that we got

from more than 800 people on a recent

webinar

when we ask them the same questions

these are common

experiences now take a moment

and think of three words for how those

experiences made you feel

have you got three words okay hold them

for later

now again take a look at the animation

behind me

this is how those 800 people in the

webinar said their similar experiences

made them feel

there’s this luck or even feel familiar

there are so many words there but the

three that really spoke to me of how i

felt in that first job

were small worthless

and stupid if you’re like most people

experiences like these and the feelings

that came with them

very likely made you feel cautious about

being yourself

in front of the person or the people who

sparked them so you reigned back your

inclination to openly contribute share

your opinion ask questions or stick your

neck out in any way

for fear that you might screw up or be

judged and have to feel those feelings

all over again one of the biggest topics

in business today is what’s called

psychological safety which

despite the jaw-breaking name is simply

a sense of confidence one has in a team

environment

that speaking up and being yourself

won’t result in rejection

punishment or embarrassment by other

members of the group

almost 20 years of research showed that

teams that are psychologically safe

where people are unafraid to speak up

and be themselves get much better

outcomes

in terms of productivity engagement by

members of the team

and innovation visionary organizations

are therefore equipping their managers

and their leaders with the skills to

foster psychological safety in the

workplace

this is a really important development

but sometimes this focus upon making the

boss or the organization responsible

hides the fact that the way we feel in

groups is not just driven by what an

organization or his managers do

psychological safety is also driven by

the individual members of a team

everyone has a responsibility to

contribute to the creation of that

environment

psychological safety is a function of

the way that

every member of the group shows up you

either contribute to it

or you take from it if even two

or three of my colleagues had done

anything to create a space that was even

slightly more psychologically safe for

me

to make my contributions the impact of

the actions of my boss upon me

might have been substantially different

it’s probably easy to see therefore the

undesirable impacts of making people

feel unsafe

in that work environment your common

sense and research tells you that people

will disengage

and refuse to interact so that they

protect themselves

psychological safety is therefore

critical in a business environment

but there are environments that are much

more important

than business what if the people you

care about don’t feel safe enough

to be themselves around you how would

you feel

if you thought that the way you were

showing up to those you care about

was making your father your mother your

siblings your spouse your partner your

children feel small

worthless and stupid too afraid to be

themselves

around you what if they decided to

disengage go quiet or pull back to

protect themselves from the fear of

getting on the wrong side of you

perhaps they can’t change families as i

change jobs but

sometimes people check out leaving their

families or relationships without

actually leaving them

i’m not sure that that’s not actually

worse and would you even know possibly

not

most of us tend to take silence as

ascent assuming that a lack of negative

input or feedback on how we show up

means everything’s okay and it’s not

always so

how many times have you feared or

resented somebody in complete

happily there are some things you can do

to be a net contributor to the sense of

psychological safety experience by

everyone around you

and the good news is that once they

become part of the way you show up they

affect

all aspects of your life business and

personal

so whether you’re a senior manager in

charge of a large team of people or a

parent raising a small family or

something in between

here are some things you can do to make

those around you

feel safe to be themselves first

don’t be afraid to say you don’t know

amy edmondson the foremost researcher in

this space

says be a don’t know show it’s okay

not to have all the answers second screw

up

in front of those you want to have feel

safe around you let them see you drop

the ball

and own it demonstrate that it’s okay to

try something new and screw up

then when people drop the ball ask what

did you learn

help them own the upside of their

failures as well as the downsides

get people involved ask what do you

think and then really

obviously listen and involve everybody

get everybody sharing their opinions and

feedback let them know you don’t have

all the answers

i know i’m missing something what is it

have you any ideas

now there are many more things you can

say and do to enhance the sense of

psychological safety of those people

around you

but once you get started with this and

get into that mindset you’ll find that

other ideas start to flow naturally

now bring back to mind the three words

you thought of

at the beginning of my talk the three

words that described how you felt when

you were in

a psychologically unsafe environment

have you got them

take a moment to really reinhabit them

really feel them

now tell me do you want to be someone

who makes your children

spouse family valued friends or

colleagues feel that way

or do you want to be known as a person

who contributes to helping everybody you

interact with feel safe enough to be

themselves

do you want to make people feel safe

it’s as simple as deciding right now

that this is important to you

and setting an intention to show up

accordingly

from now on now to me

that feels like an idea worth spreading