Just came across this piece by McKinsey: ‘What is psychological safety?’ Rang a few bells for me – in the context of change, post COVID, business reorg, major projects. And also in the context of pursuits outside work e.g. finding your level in a cycling group, coaching a football team, building new relationships. Psychologicial safety at work is just a sine qua non.
Definition
‘Psychological safety means feeling safe to take interpersonal risks, to speak up, to disagree openly, to surface concerns without fear of negative repercussions or pressure to sugarcoat bad news‘. Seems a reasonable definition for many different settings. I think often overlooked is the responsibility of the manager or supervisor to be available to facilitate ‘speaking up’ – in different situations. Maintaining a very busy status all the time is tantamount to killing the safe psychological space.
What is the reality?
Per McKinsey: ‘Psychological safety is not a given and it is not the norm in most teams’. If you believe that psychological safety is important for the individual and important to the development and sustainability of the organisation then this assessment should be of great concern to any organisation finding itself in this status.
Leadership development
I have always thought the first basic requirement for any effective manager is to take an interest in team members. There should be time to ask how are things going, how was the weekend, how are the family – or whatever works for some genuine interaction and listening. Think McKinsey right on the requirement for ongoing leadership development:
- Go beyond one-off training programs and deploy a scaled system of leadership development.
- Invest in leadership development experiences that are emotional, sensory, and create moments of realisation.
- Build mechanisms to make development a part of leaders’ day-to-day work.
Again, if people are your number one asset, if providing a psychologically safe environment/ experience is a priority, then failing to invest in development of these skills across the leadership team is, simply, failure.
Mental health
Now seems to be on everyone’s agenda. Some of the stigma associated with talking about mental health challenges seems to be dissipating (but far from gone). McKinsey identify a number of practical steps – and I think ongoing changes post Covid, change in hybrid work and impact of AI will all drive greater requirements to understand and manage mental health.
Lower earners
Lots of good sense in this paper from McKinsey. But this last piece really caught my attention. Work is made up of people of different abilities, education, age, career direction and earnings. But all need psychological safety – all are needed to make the business work. And perhaps in the lower earning group there are greater challenges and insecurities – need to be aware of this and act accordingly. In a different environment the backs may not be making the money the forwards make but you need the whole team. In fact when the backs let you down the cookie crumbles pretty quickly.
