In your world, you might talk about physical health and safety all the time. Psychological safety is the same thing, “Do I feel free from harm in the workplace?” But this is another notion where we need a great reset. We need a course correct on it.
There is a kind of behavior in the workplace that’s associated with the fear of being harmed psychologically, and that’s a huge problem. Being screamed at, being belittled, being ostracized, being threatened, expressions like one throat to choke, for example, are things that if you lead people, you need to take 100% responsibility for making sure that people can walk into the workplace every day knowing they will be free of being psychologically harmed. That’s 100% all on management.
Individual Responsibility in Psychological Safety
But one of the problems—when I read LinkedIn and talk with friends about the workplace—is I hear people talking about feeling unsafe in ways that I’m like, “Hmm, okay, that’s not your colleagues and that’s not your boss, that’s you.” Imposter phenomenon, perfectionism, fear of conflict, needing to be liked. These are people telling themselves stories about, “Well, I can’t say that, I’d be fired,” with no evidence that anyone had ever been fired for saying anything like that.
And here’s the problem: every single one of you needs to take ownership of the psychological fear in your own head. You own that. Your boss can’t fix that for you. Even if they wanted to, they can’t fix it for you. You own that. You own the conversations going on in your head. That’s 100% percent on you as an individual.
Discomfort vs. Danger
Where it gets juicy is in this middle category, which is—I think the biggest, most important conversation we all need to be having in our workplaces—do people become afraid at even the least bit of discomfort? The answer right now is yes.
My boss challenged my approach in a meeting, gave me feedback that I didn’t like, “Whoa, my boss doesn’t like me.” Even the language, “I got in trouble today.” What are we, seven?
Does anybody remember “The Price Is Right” range finder game? It looks like a huge thermometer. When contestants think the price of the prize is within the red window, they press a button to stop the range finder. When it comes to discomfort that we can handle without feeling unsafe, the range finder right now is knee-high, boys and girls. It’s down low. We’re getting triggered by anything. We’re jumping to the conclusion that we’re in trouble or our colleagues don’t like us.
Our job is to have experiences that allow us to move that range finder up. Where we’re able to have uncomfortable experiences that still feel safe, “I’m not loving this, but at least I know we can go for a coffee after. This is going to actually enhance the respect among us, not decrease it. I’m going to be in a better position after this hard conversation, not worse.” This involves asking for people to disagree with us, “Okay, this is the plan. This is how we’re thinking about this event. What have I missed?”
Creating Safe Spaces for Disagreement
I’ll give you three questions I love. If you know the design thinking method, they use three questions that are great for getting people to disagree in a way that feels safe.
The first question is, what do you love about this plan? What do you love about this event agenda? What do you love about this activation?
The second question is what do you wish? And it’s interesting—I should do an actual study on this—but when I ask people, can you give me some constructive feedback about the plan? They respond, “Eh.” When I ask, what do you wish, they’re like, “Well, I wish this and I wish this.” Asking this question is a psychologically safe way of sharing what could be different. Use “I wish.”
Third question: What do you wonder? Wonder is where we can talk about, “Hmm, I wonder how this is going to work for people who are used to going to New York and Boston only.” I wonder. I bet you wondered that too, right? “I wonder if we’ll get Winter Symposium participation rates if we’re going to Philly?” The answer is yes, yes, yes!
I love “What do you love? What do you wish? What do you wonder?” These are psychologically safe ways of inviting dissent. And then, when someone says something that’s upsetting, when someone says something that you’re, “Just be authentic about it,” it will make it safe to struggle for you, too, right? And you do that. You do that by saying, “Oh, that’s hard to hear.”
It’s okay to say that in the workplace. “That’s hard to hear. I was kind of hoping that this plan was already across the line. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to work on this on the weekend.” It’s okay to be authentic, but then say, “Thank you so much for raising that ’cause we do need to deal with that.”
Move that range finder. The people who disagree, the people who are willing to have uncomfortable experiences, they become the stars.