Getting Your Team to Tell You What You Need to Hear: Building a Culture of Psychological Safety

by Jack Gordon, Ph. D. and Marshall Goldsmith

On June 18, 2023 the Titan submersible operated by the tourism company OceanGate imploded during an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic.? All crew members were killed, including OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush and four other passengers.

Follow-up investigations conducted by an expert panel led to some troubling findings. David Lochridge, OceanGate’s Director of Marine Operations, prepared a report in 2018 documenting significant concerns regarding the Titan vessel’s safety. His employment was terminated soon after filing the report. Another former employee, who worked briefly for OceanGate in 2017 before leaving the company voluntarily, had raised similar concerns. He also reported that several employees were aware of safety issues and either chose not to speak up or were stifled and silenced when they did. Over the next few years numerous industry experts who had studied the Titan’s design highlighted potentially catastrophic safety issues, which were generally dismissed by OceanGate’s CEO.?

The OceanGate example is hardly unique - similar stories involving failures to report safety concerns due to fear of reprisal have been reported over the years, including the Challenger disaster (1986), Deepwater Horizon explosion (2010), and Volkswagen emissions scandal (2015).? While these incidents are among the most highly publicized, many organizations struggle to create cultures where employees throughout the company feel comfortable saying what is on their minds.? While the consequences in most cases are not as dramatic as the examples noted here, the impact on organizational health when employees are afraid to tell the truth is undeniable.

The notion of psychological safety

Dr. Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, introduced the term psychological safety into business language in 1999 to account for dynamics similar to the examples shared above. She defined it as “a belief that the workplace is safe for speaking up, with ideas, questions, concerns, and even mistakes. It’s a sense of confidence that your voice is valued.”? Subsequent research has demonstrated clear benefits of a culture of psychological safety on a number of key metrics. A 2021 Accenture study found that companies that cultivate psychological safety experience 76% higher employee engagement, 74% less stress, 50% higher productivity, and 27% less turnover.

Building and maintaining a culture of psychological safety

Organizations have historically tackled the challenge of building a culture of psychological safety through organization-wide programs and policies intended to provide employees with a vehicle for sharing ideas and concerns. While some have been more successful than others, even the best of these programs require complementary efforts to embed the behaviors that support a culture of psychological safety into the day-to-day actions of leaders, managers and employees.?

As Dr. Edmondson concluded in a 2012 study, “the most important influence on psychological safety is the nearest manager, supervisor, or boss.” With that key point in mind, we will focus in particular on what managers can do to help create a culture within their teams where employees feel safe and confident telling them what they need to hear. In addition, we will offer suggestions for employees on how they can shape their messaging so that managers are open to hearing and considering the employee’s views.?

Importance of the manager in creating psychological safety

Let’s take a hypothetical situation where Lucas is meeting with his manager Kristi.? Kristi has overall responsibility for reporting and acting on customer satisfaction results for the mortgage department of a regional bank.

Lucas: “Kristi, I’m a little hesitant to raise this but there are some issues on our team that you ought to know about. A few of the people on the team are not confident about our strategy.? They don’t believe it’s possible to get everything done that we’ve promised with a team of six people and they believe that some of the programs we’re working on are not high value. It’s created some tension on the team between those who believe we’re headed in the right direction and those who don’t.”

Kristi: “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this Lucas. Unless you can tell me who is on board or not on board there is nothing I can do about it.”?

Kristi’s response will very likely discourage Lucas from offering feedback to her in the future (for sake of simplicity we use the term feedback to include observations, concerns, ideas, and suggestions).? Whether Kristi chooses to believe the feedback or not, Lucas took a risk by sharing his concerns with Kristi and did not betray confidences. Kristi’s response signaled to Lucas that he did the wrong thing by not elaborating on the concerns he raised by naming names.

There are other common responses we hear from managers in conversations where employees are offering feedback that will have a similar effect on employees and shut down further conversation:

• “I already thought of that”
• “I tried that, it didn’t work”
• Deflecting the issue or making excuses … somebody else is the problem
• Getting angry or lashing out, shooting the messenger
• Not making any changes based on the feedback (or if not intending to make changes suggested by the employee, circling back to the employee to explain why)

While it’s critical that managers respond in a healthy and constructive way when employees offer feedback, the real key to building a sustainable culture of psychological safety is about one word.

Trust.?

What can managers do to build trust across the team?

One of the most commonly quoted lines about trust is “Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose.” The good news, however, is that it is entirely possible for managers to build a strong, sustainable sense of trust across their teams by focusing on an ongoing basis on the three C’s of trust-building: Caring, Consistency, and Communication.?

The following are questions for managers to reflect on to ensure they are doing the right things to build trust:

What can employees do in delivering feedback to the manager??

Feedback of course is a two-way street. While the manager’s reaction to an employee providing feedback has direct influence on psychological safety, the effectiveness with which you as the employee deliver feedback or suggest new ideas can make a significant difference on the outcome of the conversation.?

For employees, it comes down to three things: (1) taking the time to prepare rather than “winging it”; (2) making sure to position the conversation up front in a way that will get the manager to be open to hearing your feedback or ideas; and (3) how you deliver the message during the conversation.

The six principles below, shaped by the work of Peter Drucker, often described as the “inventor of modern management”, will have direct bearing on your ability to influence the manager’s thinking and decision-making.?

• When presenting ideas to the manager, realize that it is your responsibility to sell, not their responsibility to buy. In many ways, influencing managers, or any decision-maker, is similar to selling products or services to external customers. They don’t have to buy – you have to sell! While this may seem obvious in external sales, an amazing number of people in large corporations spend countless hours “blaming” management for not buying their ideas.?
• Focus on contribution to the larger good and the manager’s needs – not just the achievement of your objectives. An effective salesperson would never say to a customer, “You need to buy this product, because if you don’t, I won’t achieve my objectives.” Effective salespeople relate to the needs of the buyer(s), not their own needs. In the same way, when influencing the manager, focus on the impact of your feedback or suggestion on the manager, team, and/or larger organization.
• Present a realistic cost-benefit of your ideas – don’t just sell benefits. Every organization has limited resources, time, and energy. The acceptance of your idea may well mean the rejection of another idea that someone else believes is wonderful. Be prepared to have a realistic discussion of the costs or potential downsides of your idea. By getting ready for a realistic discussion of costs, you can prepare for objections to your idea before they occur.?
• Address the manager with respect. This may seem like an obvious one but it's always good to remind ourselves that most managers aren't intentionally trying to be difficult, and they usually aren't aware of their negative impact. Many times, miscommunications, perceptions or assumptions have created the issues employees are seeing, so it is best to assume positive intent. Before offering feedback it is generally good to ask yourself whether this feedback will help: Our company Our customers The manager I am talking to The person I am talking about?
• Frame feedback as coming from a place of caring rather than a place of anger. If the manager experiences it as you saying, "We're in this together," instead of perceiving a me vs. you dynamic, the feedback will be much better received and help keep the relationship intact.
• Focus on the future – let go of the past. One of the most important behaviors to avoid is complaining about the past. When people constantly complain, they inhibit any chance they may have for impacting the future. Successful managers appreciate getting ideas aimed at helping them achieve their goals for the future. By focusing on the future, you can concentrate on what may be achieved tomorrow as opposed to what was not achieved yesterday. This future orientation may dramatically increase your odds of effectively influencing managers or other decision-makers.?

Jack Gordon is a Ph.D. I/O psychologist who has led key OD functions for Fortune 500 organizations. He is the founder of Kingsbridge Leadership Solutions, providing consulting services in the areas of leadership capability-building, team effectiveness, change management and culture/engagement surveys. Jack can be contacted at?[email protected].