Phycological Safety: Safety and Ideas at Work

This is a heavy headline, but honestly it is a heavy and challenging topic. William Kahn defined psychological safety in an organizational or business context well -? “the ability to show an employee oneself without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career.”

In other words, if I am operating in an environment of psychological safety then I can do things like:

• share a crazy idea I’m excited about with the hopes that the out of the box idea will drive a great new business opportunity or, if it actually is a crazy idea, I’ll learn something that will improve my perspective and elevate my game; or,
• disagree with the organizational direction in a professional, constructive way and be appreciated for my contributions and drive to achieve the best outcomes for our customers; or
• bring constructive, but critical, feedback to a peer or colleague and be respected for the courage to engage in a critical conversation.

These are challenging items for most of us professionally. To lead any one of these, or similar, dialogues in a business is to expose oneself to risk and make oneself vulnerable. That takes courage for those with strength cultivated in these areas and a great leap of faith for those still working to cultivate such strengths. Unfortunately, it is all too common for those that risk themselves bringing these conversations forward to be met with resistance or reprisal that wounds in a way that discourages them from bringing their energy and ideas to the table a second time.?

That is really sad for organizations and customers. The truth is that no one individual in any organization is smart enough to account for all of the other people in their organization. We are going to show up better for our customers together than we are stepping into the wake of one individual’s ideas, energy, and solo direction. So how do we as leaders show up every day and work to cultivate the kind of psychological safety necessary for us to maximize the constructive dialogue and surface all of the relevant ways where we can deliver on our value promise to customers??

Not long ago I wrote about “rightness.” It starts with a leadership culture that is more obsessive about delivering customer value than it is about being “right” at the top of an organization. It is about the art of listening, which is a challenging art to master, and a commitment to curiosity that earnestly explores these ideas so a culture of being seen and heard is pervasive in an organization. We start by making tomorrow better for our customers than they have it today. This should be the filter through which we run every idea that comes into the business and that measurement should be infallible. If it makes a customer more profitable, improves a customer experience, and makes the company more profitable it is meritorious. This doesn’t mean every idea with merit will be pursued with abandon because having a strategy means saying no to good ideas, but it does provide the opportunity for all of our team members to contribute to their maximum potential.

I’m supremely grateful for the way our team listens and how we are heard. I’m confident that curiously investigating these dialogues through the lens of maximizing customer value is an approach that will serve any organization well.