Creating “Safer Spaces” for “Braver Conversations
“Psychological safety and courage are simply two sides of the same immensely valuable coin. Both are – and will continue to be – needed in a complex and uncertain world.” Amy Edmondson, PhD
Over the past three years of the pandemic, I have often thought about the concept of “psychological safety”; what it is, why it is so often missing on teams and in organizations (or even friendships), and what can be done to address that void. During that time, colleagues from around the country have shared numerous stories about a lack of psychological safety in their organizations and the negative impact this has had on patient care quality, team effectiveness, and individual and group morale. And if my conversations at the recent AAFP Physician Well-being Conference are any indication, it’s getting worse.
Amy Edmondson, who has her PhD in organizational psychology, has written and spoken extensively on the subject of psychological safety in organizations. She defines psychological safety as “ … a belief that the context is safe for interpersonal risk-taking – that speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes will be welcomed and valued even when I’m wrong.” It is this sense of safety to engage in open, risk-free dialogue that many colleagues are yearning for but has been missing for them.
In recent years, the conversation regarding psychological safety has shifted from the goal of creating “safe space” to a desire to create “brave space.” Indeed, safe space can never be guaranteed because it depends upon the behavior of others. What can be done is to create the conditions for “safer spaces”, where the subjective experience of safety (which is quite real) helps to overcome fear, increasing the possibility for “braver spaces” to manifest. To do that, one must move from feeling secure (“safe”) to feeling vulnerable (“brave”), from simply unarmored to open, from comfortable to curious, from working “safely” in the same space with others to truly working courageously side-by-side.
But how can we both help create such cultures and feel free to express ourselves within them? The Center for Creative Leadership notes some practical steps that each of us can take to help create optimal conditions for psychological safety and as a result, “safer” spaces. They include making it an explicit priority within your group, facilitating everyone to speak up, establishing norms for how “failure” is addressed, and encouraging and creating space for new ideas (even wild ones). Perhaps most importantly, groups should strive to embrace productive conflict by explicitly discussing the following questions: How will we communicate our concerns about a process that isn’t working? How can reservations be shared with each other in a respectful manner? and, What are our norms for managing conflicting perspectives?
So this week, consider how you are contributing to the psychological safety of those around you by being vulnerable, open, and curious, and consider those circumstances where you are not doing those things because you yourself are not feeling psychologically safe. And then take some steps to address it, so you and your team can move through safer space into braver space. For it is from that space that everyone’s “best” will emerge, individually and collectively, and it is only under those circumstances that we will be able to provide both exceptional patient care … and caring. And that, after all, is why we’re here ….