Amy Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, wrote in her book "The Fearless Organization" how achieving high performance requires the confidence to take risks, especially in a knowledge-intensive world. This is a book that I highly recommend.
How can leaders create the psychological safety that employees need in times of burnout, languish, anxiety, depression, fear, and stress?
It's not news that knowledge and innovation have become vital sources of competitive advantage in almost every market and industry. "For knowledge work to flourish, the workplace must be one where people feel able to share their knowledge!"
Another important factor is that the problems we have to solve today are so complex that the only way to solve them is in a collaborative way. More than ever, our decisions and actions are interdependent. Hiring talented people does not guarantee results if they do not know how to work collaboratively. Organizations need people who break down silos, move beyond formal responsibilities, and proactively seek solutions as a team. Individuals who bring their talent to do their best work for a higher purpose.
“People must bring their brains to work and collaborate with each other to solve problems and accomplish work that’s perpetually changing.”
That’s why psychological safety is so important. When individuals feel safe at the workplace, they can take risks, fully participate, and teams can perform at their best.
“Psychological safety is broadly defined as a climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves. More specifically, when people have psychological safety at work, they feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution.
(...)
When a work environment has reasonably high psychological safety, good things happen: mistakes are reported quickly so that prompt corrective action can be taken; seamless coordination across groups or departments is enabled, and potentially game-changing ideas for innovation are shared.”
An excellent distinction between what is and what is not psychological safety:
Source: Janko Kotze
“Brain science has amply demonstrated that fear inhibits learning and cooperation. (...)
Research in neuroscience shows that fear consumes physiologic resources, diverting them from parts of the brain that manage working memory and process new information. This impairs analytic thinking, creative insight, and problem solving.”
In a time when we need to work collaboratively to do the work that serves our customers, it's relevant that people feel that they are able to take risks, speak up, question the proposals, share information, and work with each other to create lasting impact.