Being Approachable

By Jade Garratt

Most of us would probably like to think of ourselves as approachable at work. We might have bad moments, or bad days, but we will likely think that on the whole, we are approachable. 

Approachability takes on a particular significance when it comes to psychological safety. If we’re not approachable, the very first barrier for people sharing their ideas, concerns, questions or mistakes with us may be too high. 

Sometimes we hear people express surprise, frustration or even disbelief that others might struggle to raise issues with them, because they perceive themselves to be very approachable. Perhaps they even have “an open door policy” or make it clear that they’re “always listening”. 

But one of the challenging things about approachability, and psychological safety more broadly, is that it’s a highly situational phenomenon. In fact very small shifts in the way we talk, behave or act can have a significant impact on the willingness of others to speak up around us.  

In a great piece of research which used simulation of team scenarios in healthcare education, researchers identified a couple of common misconceptions around approachability:

1. Approachability is a fixed characteristic – the belief that you either are approachable or you aren’t. 
2. Approachability is mostly about avoiding negative behaviours, such as overt rudeness, chastising people for disturbing you or punishing those who admit mistakes.

The research was aimed at tackling the “epidemic of silence” in healthcare and in doing so, improve patient safety. What their data showed was that approachability is “a dynamic state that is constantly reconstructed through action” and is “more fragile” than often assumed. And because it’s more fragile, we have to keep working at it, and do so more proactively to invite speaking up and engagement than we realise. This is especially true if we’re in a position of leadership or power. 

In other words, it’s not enough to avoid the behaviours that make you unapproachable. You have to actively engage in behaviours that make you approachable. 

This might seem like a lot of work, but the problem is, if we’re in a leadership role, and we assume that we are approachable – that this is a fixed state and that’s ‘job done,’ then we’re putting the onus for any change in ‘speaking up’ behaviour onto those around us. Unfortunately in many contexts, not just healthcare, this results in those with least power being asked to “speak up”, “be courageous” or “lean in” while ignoring the very real risks that doing those things may pose for them. And if they don’t speak up, it’s too easy to place the blame on them, when it’s likely that they want to speak up, or at least know they should, but the space they are in does not feel safe enough for them to do so. 

The flip side of this though is the realisation that because “approachability” isn’t a fixed characteristic, it is also something we can improve, especially if approachability isn’t our natural strength, or the organisational dynamics mean we’re in a position where many automatically consider us unapproachable. If we want to improve psychological safety for those working with us, this is well worth considering. 

So what can we do? Well the research also offers a few very practical suggestions to help improve approachability. There is, understandably, a great deal of overlap here with ways to boost psychological safety. 

1. Be more intentionally present. This one is so simple, but it bears emphasising. Approachability is intrinsically linked to accessibility. If people have to go out of their way to find you, cross a boundary to a space which feels like your territory (even if that boundary contains an open door), or risk disturbing you, they are less likely to do it. This applies as much in virtual work environments as it does in physical – how can we create spaces where we are easily accessible and available for people to talk to?
2. Think aloud and talk through your decision-making process. In the vast majority of the contexts we work in, from healthcare to education to manufacturing, there is a considerable ambiguity as to what constitutes “best practice” or even “good practice.” We work in areas that are complex, and where we can’t always be sure of the outcome of our actions. So having the conversation out loud about which course of action you are considering, and where you might be uncertain allows space for others to offer their perspective and lets them learn from your approach too.
3. Admit mistakes and be vulnerably imperfect – we often talk about the importance of leaders being the ones to share their mistakes first, because it helps others feel safer to speak up with theirs. It also tackles the “myth of perfection” – and there are few things more likely to make someone less approachable than our belief they are perfect (or perhaps worse – that they believe they are perfect).
4. Use debriefs and retrospectives. These are the ideal places to be explicitly “approachable”. You can actively invite an exploration of ambiguity and bring in learning from different perspectives in a team. This is how we create learning environments and organisations. They can also provide a space to retrospectively repair damage done to relationships and perceived approachability in the heat of the moment, or when real life scenarios haven’t allowed for communication of the transparency and detail that we’d usually aspire to.

As a side note here, the fragile, dynamic nature of subjective phenomena such as approachability and psychological safety is also why attempts to measure them can be really challenging and sometimes completely misleading. The answer to a survey-style question about whether someone is approachable, or whether you feel psychologically safe might be “yes” or “sometimes” in theory. In a real-life and urgent situation, such as when you need to address someone who seems tired or overworked, that answer might very quickly turn to “definitely not” – precisely when we really need them to be approachable.

Ultimately, approachability is not a static trait. Creating an environment where people feel they can approach us and speak up requires continual effort. By deliberately acting in ways that improve approachability, while being mindful of how quickly even subtle shifts in our behaviour can damage approachability, we can help foster psychological safety for those around us.

With thanks to community member Jenny Landis for sharing the fantastic article that inspired this piece.

References and further reading:

Pack, R., Columbus, L., Duncliffe, T.H. et al. “Maybe I’m not that approachable”: using simulation to elicit team leaders’ perceptions of their role in facilitating speaking up behaviors. Adv Simul 7, 31 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41077-022-00227-y

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Psychological Safety in Practice

Safety Theatre

Thanks to Jeffery Lyth at Safety Differently for sharing this paper from Sidney Dekker: “Safety Theater:
Where your accidents hide in the green”. Dekker describes “safety theatre” as a new term (although I would disagree here – I first heard “safety theatre” at a tech conference around a decade ago.)

The paper is worth a read, and there are some valuable takeaways, including:

• Success breeds failure. Reminiscent of the red line concept in HOP, we may not be aware that the red line (the potential for an injury to occur) is raising, whilst the organisation is (at least superficially) successful.
• “Zero Harm” approaches can result in more harm overall, partly through suppressing the reporting of smaller incidents that could signal bigger issues and serious injuries.
• Safety Theatre – compliance can become a performance, which disappears once that scrutiny is gone. It presents an image of ‘work-as-imagined,’ only to revert to ‘work-as-done’ when left alone to get on with things.
• Honesty and openness is critical. You may not be hearing about your incidents because your organisation is putting active downward pressure on people’s willingness to share and disclose.

Dekker says that “a safety culture is a culture that allows the boss to hear bad news”, and I’d suggest that in environments where “safety theatre” is prevalent, psychological safety is likely to be low. When people feel it necessary to performatively comply with policy and procedure, it’s likely that there’s some pressure to keep concerns, questions and improvement ideas to yourself. Compliance-driven safety can suppress open communication, and a pursuit of metrics such as “Zero Harm” can suppress the disclosure of smaller incidents and injuries that signal underlying issues, but only until they’re too big to hide. 

The “Deep Rules” in organisations

This is a great piece by Jim Detert, describing some of the “deep rules” in organisations about what can and cannot be said. They include things like:

• “I’m not motivated to work harder or innovate when you and your bosses get most of the credit and all the bonus money.”
• “Employee engagement is low because key leaders aren’t trusted or respected and nothing serious gets done about that.”
• “I can’t make good decisions unless you and your bosses are more transparent with financial or strategic details.”
• “I think we’re growing and making enough money right now.”

He then describes three tactics for addressing these, including “discussing the undiscussables”, “fixing the follies” and “exploring the ‘veil fails.’”. 

From a personal perspective, I remember once challenging my then-CEO with pretty much exactly the words “I can’t make good decisions unless you and your bosses are more transparent with financial or strategic details.”. It was not received well!

Trust, safety and the power of failure.

Thanks again to Charles Feltman and Ila Edgar for inviting me to their wonderful podcast! Here is part two (part one we shared in a previous newsletter) 

And here is a sneaky peak behind the scenes, where we weren’t intentionally “doing” the podcast, but we thought it was too good to not share 🙂

This week’s poem:

Excerpt from Here’s the Thing About Fear, by Jaiya John

Dear. Here’s the thing about fear: It stops us from composing the living poems we were sent here to be. The best verses still wait inside you, gathering scent and potency patiently. You came with a mission: Be me. Quickly, a tidal wave washed over your valley: human judgment and projection.

Read the rest on Substack.

From Jaiya John’s book “All These Rivers and You Chose Love.“