The safety you’re probably missing
Not long ago I traded LinkedIn messages with a former colleague of 20 years ago and his words got me thinking. He said, 'I miss those days when we worked together. Everything felt easy and yet it wasn't. Deadlines were tight, pressure was high, we didn't always see eye to eye and yet we loved every minute of it.'
We did, because we had each other's backs. We made the choice and took the time to agree how we'd behave towards each other, define what we were aiming for, and how we'd ensure that the way we worked together remained productive and rewarding, rather than letting it degenerate into a toxic mess.
Once we’d made these agreements work felt ‘safe’. The environment existed where we could challenge and provide feedback to each other to be great at what we did, individually and collectively.
Safety is something that all the great teams, projects, departments, and organisations have, yet I also remember the jobs I had where safety was lacking. There was fear, arguing, bullying, intimidation, anxiety and stress. People's names and titles were used as sticks to intimidate others with. Unreasonable demands were placed on time, energy, or emotions.
Here in the UK almost 80% of people are exposed to moderate to high stress in the workplace with 1 in 4 saying that they are unable to cope. Globally, days lost as a result of mental health issues cost businesses over $1 trillion in lost productivity every year.
Amy Edmondson, the leading global authority on psychological safety, describes it as fundamentally being about candor, creating conditions whereby people can be far more candid than is normal or natural. As she says, psychological safety isn't about staying in a comfort zone, it's about building an environment where it's OK to take risks, such that you can continually learn, as an individual and as a team.
You get the culture that you choose to build.
Only through the deliberate creation of a culture where every member feels safe to contribute, speak up, challenge, and do their best work can organisations ever hope to achieve their goals, whatever they may be.
