Do you want the truth? Sanction organizational fools.

"The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what
wise men do foolishly." – Touchstone in As You Like It

The nobility in Shakespearean plays often employed fools or court jesters that were licensed to speak up without fear of retribution. It’s a testimony to the wisdom of the fools but even more so to the wisdom of the leaders that employed them.  This strategy established fools as a necessary part of leadership systems serving as a critical source of truth and candor necessary for leaders to access honest and complete information that eventually guided decision making.

Truth as a source of competitive advantage

If you’re leading an organization or a team, why would you want to know the truth? Can you make informed decisions without necessary relevant information about the situation, people (employees and clients), services and products?  In today’s globalized knowledge economy, can you compete with other organizations for market share, labor and trade without the necessary and accurate information? 

Organizations that act first and fast often gain and maintain a competitive advantage in their respective industries.  That level of action and leveraging of organizational capabilities requires timely identification of appropriate opportunities, followed by a fast and accurate flow of information. It is often further paired with quick shared learning and establishment of revised routines and processes to guide employee behaviour and organizational performance. 

The most valuable information often resides with front-line employees and front-line managers—those that deal primarily with the end-users of your products and services and those that manage and support the employees doing those roles, respectively.  It is those people at the front lines with the lowest formal power that often hold the truth that can carry the organization forward.

The role of psychological safety in accessing truth

A psychologically safe workplace environment is one where employees do not fear retribution for taking interpersonal risks, such as speaking up, challenging the status quo, and engaging in congruent communication and collaboration for the greater good of the organization (Edmondson & Lei, 2014).  

As a leader, have you created a psychologically safe environment where staff feels encouraged to tell the truth?  Have you created a culture of candor that not only tolerates but rewards truth telling; a culture that gives its employees the voice to not only identify what’s broken but to also enable them to fix what’s broken or better yet help elevate the organization from good to great?

How to create psychological safety that would enable people to tell the truth?

Consider implementing one or more of the following strategies to establish psychological safety in your organization.

Hire for “courage” and “curiosity”

• Begin with selecting individuals who demonstrate the strength of courage—the courage to speak the truth and the courage to hear the truth. Although every individual need not score high on courage, it may be beneficial to have this strength adequately expressed by employees across all levels of your organization
• Hire leaders that are curious and love to learn. All predominant global leadership models include curiosity and learning orientation as key competencies for global leaders.  These leaders would be more inclined to seek dissenting views and understand situations from multiple perspectives before making decisions—conditions necessary for combating the added complexity for decision making in the global context

Walk the talk

• Actively reflect on and evaluate your responses to situations when others may have disagreed with you, challenged your assumption(s), and/or shared an uncomfortable truth with you
• Act as a role model who welcomes dissent, who seeks alternative viewpoints and encourages and celebrates staff that speak up
• Don’t shoot the messenger; truly listen and act on the ‘message’
• Act on the feedback collected through employee and client surveys 
• Create a culture where people are encouraged to disagree with one another, challenge each other’s thinking patterns and conclusions, and feel safe to challenge 'shared assumptions'

Take ownership and exhibit courage and curiosity

• Overcome your fear of speaking up for the right purpose
• Identify opportunities for improvement and implement small changes
• Begin with sharing lessons learned with other leaders and with staff through formal and informal channels of communication

When employees at all levels in the organization speak up to advance organizational goals, everyone benefits. Thoughtful leaders help create a psychologically safe workplace culture where people have dual courage to speak the truth and to hear the truth.  We need prudent leaders who'd actively solicit people's voice, encouraging people to act as fools, if and when needed and in doing so, generating collective wisdom.

What are some ways in which you establish psychological safety for your staff?

References

Edmondson, A.C. & Lei, Z. (2014). Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behaviour, 1, pp. 23-43. Available from: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091305

About the Author

Sandeep is an Industrial-Organizational Psychology Practitioner focusing on Learning, Leadership and Organizational Development. She is passionate about the Psychology of workplaces, work, and people at work and strives to help leaders create psychologically safe and healthy workplaces.