Milena Braticevic - PhD Integral Health, SCS Instructor, and founder of Nondual Perspectives – shares tips on improving psychological safety in the workplace.
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the level of uncertainty, complexity, and change in our workplaces. Teams have faced numerous new challenges, from reduced team building and knowledge transfer due to prolonged work from home, to increased burnout rates due to physical and emotional depletion. The first report by Mental Health Research Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces indicated that one-third of Canadians are feeling burned out at work. In the new work environment, psychological safety is becoming increasingly important. Making the environment safe for open communication about ideas, concerns, and challenges is becoming a key leadership skill.
In her book Fearless Organization, Amy Edmondson defined psychological safety as ‘a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking'. Improving psychological safety can be the key to creating a work environment of the future, and promoting new ideas and sustainable solutions to current challenges.
Psychological safety can foster team innovation in five important ways: by improving authenticity, boosting creativity, promoting learning, encouraging interpersonal risk-taking, and increasing collaboration.
1. Improving authenticity
Being authentic means being true to oneself and acting according to our own values, personality, and spirit. Every individual is unique and has a specific set of traits, strengths, and talents that make us distinct from others. Creating an environment that is psychologically safe is important in uncertain times because it enables us to contribute in unique ways and challenge the status quo to create new solutions. This implies a degree of autonomy – the right for self-government and to be guided from the inside. When we can connect to our deeply held values as individuals, we are also more able to act according to the basic values that we all share as human beings, such as tolerance, appreciation, respect for others, and generally holding life meaningful and valuable. This can help reduce judgement and inspire team building and true collaboration.
2. Boosting creativity
According to the RBC report Humans Wanted: How Canadian Youth Can Thrive in the Age of Disruption, creativity is among the foundational human skills essential for the future of work. Science of creativity shows that creative individuals don’t necessarily have a specific set of skills, but have a high degree of adaptability and are able to apply whatever skills they have in different ways. Creative individuals also have fluid attention and a high degree of openness to experience, a trait that is crucial for dealing with uncertainty and adjusting to changing circumstances. An environment that is psychologically safe is open to new ideas, which boosts team creativity and helps long-term innovation and growth.
3. Promoting learning
In the past, it was commonly believed that ‘effective performers do not fail’. Research on psychological safety, however, shows that effective performers produce, learn from, and share lessons from mistakes. The ability to re-frame failure as a natural by-product of experimentation can contribute to promoting fast learning and innovation in psychologically safe environments.
4. Encouraging inter-personal risk-taking
A moderate level of interpersonal risk-taking is necessary for high-performing teams, as it allows us to confront differences with others in ways that lead to learning and change. Unwillingness to take interpersonal risks can destroy value in an organization. Being able to speak up, give and receive feedback, ask a co-worker to clarify a particular point, or raise a different point of view in a meeting can all lead to improved innovation and better solutions.
5. Increasing collaboration
The key to psychological safety is to approach conflict as a collaborator, not an adversary. Engaging in exploration and brainstorming, not making assumptions about what other people think, and asking for feedback to illuminate blind spots can all be beneficial for innovation. Speaking human-to-human and working to achieve mutually desirable outcomes can positively affect the entire organization, as well as the success of its clients and their customers.
The topic of psychological safety is becoming increasingly important in today’s changing work environment. Creating a place where people feel safe to be themselves and work creatively together without fear of being punished can have exponential effect on collaboration, learning, and innovation. It just may be the key to creating a better world.
Milena holds a PhD in Integral Health from the California Institute for Human Science. Milena’s work explores prevention-oriented methodologies for mental health, sustainability, and well-being. She teaches her experiential mental resilience and psychological safety programs at University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies and provides seminars to organizations and educational institutions. Milena’s programs have helped individuals build resilient minds and have contributed to the reduction of common mental disorders and stigma. For more information, visit www.nondualperspectives.com.
Her upcoming course, Psychological Safety, starts this Fall.