Psychological safety
Psychological safety in an organization is a climate that exists in which an individual feels one can be candid, speak up with questions, and share ideas and concerns. Psychological safety is not relaxing your standards, feeling comfortable, being nice and agreeable, or giving unconditional praise. Psychological safety is a culture of respect, trust, and openness where it's not risky to raise ideas and concerns, make mistakes or shape your thinking ‘in real time’.
Psychological safety is also not an organization that is filled with ‘toxic positivity’. Toxic positivity exists when open dialogue isn’t occurring, ideas aren’t challenged, and curiosity is not encourage or welcomed. Toxic positivity does not work towards a high performing system, and doesn’t serve the needs of an organization. But a fine balance must be struck between a positive workplace culture and a culture that allows for disagreement, dissent, challenging of ideas and working through problems.
In The Fearless Organization, Amy Edmondson explores this exact topic, and offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate. Not every idea is good, and yes there are questions that appear ‘off the mark’, and yes dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal, and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing.
An altruistic society is one that holds space for difficult conversations, challenging ideas and collaborative problem solving; all done in an environment of care. The opposite to this is psychological danger where people live in a sense of worry about making mistakes. In a psychologically unsafe system, people are reluctant to share ideas or speak up. Ideas are vague and a system, organization or community is riddled with underground conversations, creativity and innovation is stifled and where there is a lack of diversity, inclusion and belonging.
Benefits of being a member in a psychologically safe workplace is where mistakes are ‘caught’ before they happen, creativity and innovation thrives and diversity is welcomed and celebrated. I know which system I want to belong to.