The two sides of psychological safety

“The highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety.” — Laura Delizonna, Harvard Business Review

In some topics it’s not so nice to be experience expert. In my work life, I have had my head chopped of twice. My nature is to be clear and bold and I am not afraid to stick my neck out. That enabled me to experience the agonizing results of sticking my neck out in a work environment where there is no psychological safety. Twice. It’s a painful experience. But it’s also an experience from which I have learned a lot and have gotten stronger because I went through it. On the one hand, I would like to contribute to a psychologically safe environment in which people can speak their mind. I believe it would help the problem finding and solving capacity of organizations dramatically. On the other hand, I am grateful for the pain this caused because it allowed me to get a deeper understanding of who I am.

What did you expect?

The first time my head got chopped off was in my first job out of university. I knew nothing about the rules of the corporate world. This first experience would define my behavior for a long time. I was in a group meeting with my boss. My boss told us we were going to have an open conversation in which people could speak their mind freely. I remember being enthusiastic about this idea. This was cool. I liked to dive deep and I had a lot of ideas of how we could improve the company. We were brainstorming and there were no limits. I freely spoke my mind. I had some pretty good ideas and felt I was winning the arguments I had with my boss. Apparently he felt the same because the next day I was told my contract was terminated. I lost my first job. The trap I fell into was that the illusion was created of psychological safety. When there is psychological safety, everyone can speak their mind and everyone is treated with respect and arguments are constructive. If there is no psychological safety, your head gets chopped off if you stick it out.

Maybe I should have known better. When I told the story to my dad, he asked me “What did you expect?”. This is how the corporate world works. This is how the world works. If this is how the corporate world works, I better keep my mouth shut if I want to keep my job. If I have an idea that might be a break from the norm, I better keep it to myself. I better show no weakness. If I struggle with something, I better hide it and only show my good side. I better not risk failure. I better not trust people, especially if they encourage me to be frank. So for the next years, I kept my head down. I was not going to stick my neck out.

It worked for a while. I listened to the wise words of my dad and kept quiet. But my character gave me a hard time. I am a stick my neck out kind of guy. Especially when others are not treated right. In the argument in which I stuck my neck out that costs me my first job, I was protecting a colleague that was attacked by our boss. If things are just not right, I have a hard time keeping my head down. And something in me still believed that if people can just speak their mind freely and there is a constructive discussion, everyone wins. I am an idealist. Naive maybe. I am always digging for the essence of a problem and a open discussion with crazy ideas is a effective way to get to the bottom of things. I believe that if everybody is afraid to speak their mind, you only scratch the surface of problems and will never get to the really good solutions, the good stuff, the deep truths.

Embrace the pain

So, you have guessed it: years later I couldn’t help myself and I stuck my neck out again. The same trap: there was supposed to be a safe environment, constructive, open, honest. Nobody was sticking their neck out, nobody was being open and honest, but I was. Same result: my head got chopped off. This time the lesson was different. This time the lesson was not to keep my head down. This time the pain of my severed head brought me to a deeper understanding of who I am and what I stand for. This time the pain inspired regeneration and rebirth. This time the pain made me stronger. This time I was able to embrace the pain and dive deeper into myself. I could use the pain to grow and I was grateful for it.

“If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” — Rumi

Pain has the capacity to move us into unknown emotional depths. Pain is one of the most transformational forces. If you can dig through the pain, it can take your through the surface level into the depth. If you can swim through the mud, you come out stronger.

Limiting potential

At the time, I was grateful for the transformational power of pain but I felt it didn’t create an environment that helped people to be the best version of themselves. It limits the creation of ideas. It limits the potential of people, of collaboration, of teams, of organizations. It takes courage to stick your neck out in an environment without psychological safety and most people will not do it. And after someone’s heads get chopped off, the willingness of people to stick their neck out will only decrease. I believe in the potential of people. The core in me which the pain helped me uncover is that I am driven by potential. To me, there is nothing more beautiful than the creative potential of people and there is nothing more satisfying than helping people unleash their potential. And there is nothing so detrimental to potential as fear, the fear to get your head chopped off, the fear of punishment by people with power. I believe psychological safety must be possible at work. There is something in me that cannot let that idea go. There is nothing more cruel for me than limiting someone’s potential.

Creating a safe space

Amy Edmondson researched psychological safety at work and wrote a book about it, called The fearless organization. I found this article by her in which she describes how to create psychological safety at work:

• Expression of appreciation: show public appreciation if people have the courage to stick their necks out. Show people it is not just safe to speak up but actually appreciated highly.
• Destigmatizing failure: show that there are no failures, only steps closer to the solution, only chances to learn. Be constructive, look for the potential in stupid ideas.
• Sanctioning clear violations: if someone in the organization chops someone’s head of after having the courage to stand up, sanction that so it is clear to everyone that the chopping off of heads is not tolerated.

That made sense. I can do this. We are going to need psychological safety more than ever. The problems we are facing are getting more and more complex. The world is getting more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). And to solve complex problems, we need access to people’s creativity, to their ideas. Ideas need to flow freely. Creativity needs to be unleashed. People should not be afraid. The age where people in organization were just there to do what they are told is coming to an end. We should unleash the creative potential of people, not limit it.

Fear is not just in the organization. It is also in people. It’s a grey-ish area sometimes: is there no psychological safety in the organization or does the fear only exist in the person? The fear to speak up is as much in the head and hearts of people as it is in the organizations they work in. I saw I needed to continue to work on getting over my fears and my other own limiting thoughts. But I should also work on creating a safe space where people can thrive. That is the only way to tap into the potential of people.

Think like a designer

Also on this topic, design is a huge inspiration. In design, there are no stupid ideas. In design, we need crazy ideas. Design is a safe space. Boldness and speaking up is required. Boldness is a quality in design. Designers are safe. We forgive them for crazy ideas, for speaking their mind. In the creative process of design, it’s obvious that we need all the ideas on the table, also the crazy and stupid ones. Especially those ones. In the creative process of design, it’s obvious that if you chop someone’s head of for an idea he puts forward, you are limiting the creative process. In the creative process, it’s obvious that there are no mistakes, only learning opportunities, stepping stones. I try to take these things from design and create the same safety everywhere: projects, workshops, personal relationships.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. If you clap for this essay, I will know I connected with you. I will dive deeper into the topics around Design Leadership in upcoming articles. If you follow me here on Medium, you will see them pop up on your Medium homepage. You can also subscribe to an email service here on Medium which will drop new essays right into your inbox. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to see new articles in your timeline or talk to my bot at dennishambeukers.com :) You can also find me on Instagram. When I am not blogging about Design Leadership, I work as a design strategist and project manager at Zuiderlicht.