In the real world, psychological safety is political.

There are some who say that psychological safety isn’t political. We think it is. 

What does “political” mean? At its broadest level, politics determine the ways people in groups make decisions. This means politics are at play in everything we do and experience in our teams, workplaces, organisations, nations and society at large – nothing is out of scope for being political. 

To be blessed with the privilege to move through the world without having to think about politics probably means that politics, and the world, is working perfectly for you. This is not the case for many people in the real world… 

There’s the nurse who hides their error because they’ve observed others in their organisation lose their jobs under charges of “negligence” when they’ve admitted mistakes.

The lawyer who needs to go out of state for reproductive healthcare, but continues to try to work remotely for her legal firm throughout a difficult time because she’s afraid asking for the time off might impact her future opportunities in the company.

The autistic marketing manager who was called a “snowflake” last time they asked for workplace accommodations and now avoids asking for what they need, which means they can’t engage fully in the team’s work.

The immigrant worker in a tech team whose visa status is dependent upon their employment, who plays it safe with projects because they know any failure may have consequences for their livelihood.

The Sikh construction worker who feels marked out as “different” by their colleagues and has to consider whether their work is being perceived through the lens of judgement of their religion rather than their skill. 

The black team leader who is told to “soften her language” in meetings and wonders whether it’s worth speaking up at all.

The black man who wears non-prescription eyewear in order to appear less threatening to his predominantly white colleagues, because he’s found that his ideas and suggestions are treated more credibly when he wears them.

The headteacher who is trying to improve outcomes for children in their school in a deprived neighbourhood, who knows that the only way to keep their budget is to ensure the inspection team see and hear all the right things when they come visiting.

The trans person who already feels exposed and under threat, and avoids disagreeing in a committee meeting to avoid further conflict and potentially negative attention.

The software developer who uses a wheelchair, who has to endure a long commute to work because of a lack of accessible public transport, and wants to ask for flexible working but is afraid of judgement and repercussions if they do.

The Muslim accounts assistant who wants to ask for the time and somewhere to pray during the day but is afraid of their boss or colleagues criticising them for time away from their desk.

The indigenous project manager who feels stigmatised at work and has been overlooked for promotion on multiple occasions, so has given up on suggesting new ideas that would provide extra value to the company.

The new father who comes back to his engineering role three days after his baby was born despite feeling exhausted and completely distracted, because he’s concerned that his boss will think he’s not serious about his career if he asks for paternity leave above the statutory entitlement.

The woman of colour who keeps getting asked to speak on DEI panels about what a great job her company is doing on diversity, but would love to just say no and get on with her actual job as a data analyst.

Psychological safety is the shared belief that the group is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Although some of these examples might not have been exactly what the early researchers had in mind in studies on psychological safety, it’s clear that the politics of the group, the workplace and society have a profound influence on the perceived safety of interpersonal risk taking.

If we are working as practitioners in the real world, these are the sorts of things that come up. We cannot disregard these situations as being “not psychological safety” because they are too political. It’s not useful, nor, I believe, moral, to disregard someone’s reasons for not speaking up or taking interpersonal risks because they are “out of scope” for what we think a conversation about psychological safety should be about.  The workplace doesn’t exist outside of society; the challenges and risks that people face in society due to political choices affect them just as much in the workplace, sometimes more. 

A political choice to prosecute healthcare workers for mistakes, a political choice to provide new fathers with little or no statutory parental leave, a political choice to demonise overseas workers for accepting job opportunities, a political choice to remove access to reproductive healthcare, a political choice to reduce funding for struggling state schools, and many other choices directly affect us in the workplace, some much more than others. And yes, they also affect psychological safety. Political choices have impacts and repercussions for real people, in real ways. 

We might not be able to directly influence some of these issues and the challenges faced by people in the workplace, but we can, at a bare minimum, acknowledge them and give people the opportunity, time and space to talk about how they affect them in real, material ways. This is the first step. We can then think about ways that we can actually make the world of work a safer, more equitable and higher performing place for everyone, and put those ways into practice.

Some of those ways may involve getting “political”. 


Further Links:
Psychological Safety: Structure and Power
Psychological Safety, Diversity & Inclusion
Stuttering and Stammering
What Psychological Safety is Not
Psychological Safety and Privilege
Psychological Safety #32: Anti-Racism and Neurodiversity

A Psychological Safety Easter Egg!

An “Easter Egg” isn’t just an egg-shaped chocolate treat for Easter, it’s also the term used for a secret message or feature in a videogame, first created by Warren Robinett in 1980 in the game Adventure. Since then, it has since expanded to be used in movies, websites and other media. This year, we have our very own Easter Egg at psychsafety.com for you to find!

One clue to start off with:

Our search page might be the best place to begin. Search for the most obvious term to start… Good luck and happy Easter!

Psychological Safety in the World

Google’s Project Aristotle
Our fabulous placement student Bea has written this excellent comprehensive piece on Google’s Project Aristotle, the industry study that helped to bring psychological safety from the academic into the practice world. 

The Fetishisation of Feedback
I’ve frequently felt that, particularly in management and leadership realms, “feedback” is seen as some sort of holy grail and that it’s framed as the only, or at least the main, way that we can improve how we work. I love this piece by Jade Garratt on the Fetishisation of Feedback. “…we often assume that feedback is the key to helping others improve. Yet, sometimes what’s more effective isn’t a critique but showing a different way to do things, then allowing them a chance to reflect, assimilate what works for them, and disregard what doesn’t.“

Women are leaving firms that mandate a “Return to Office”
Nick Bloom’s research about RTO and office mandates suggests that up to half of all workers will quit, particularly women, if asked to return to the office five days a week. Thanks to Bruce Daisley for the share.

“Shields Down”
This is a great piece by Seth Godin about the idea of being “shields down” or “shields up”, in reference to whether you’re open to hearing of other opportunities whilst in a role. There’s a good discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of being in either state and Seth closes with this: “The boss should act as if everyone has shields down. Assume you need to re-earn engagement and loyalty every day by offering respect, significance and interesting opportunities.” Thanks Chris Baynham-Hughes for sharing this.

Effective communication during a code.
This is a brilliant Twitter thread from Ross Prager on how to communicate clearly and effectively in an emergency situation, in this case a cardiac arrest, but the advice Ross gives apply equally well to any number of critical contexts, and includes non-verbal communication too.

CRM and Power Relations in High Risk Teams
This paper, “Organizational Culture and Power in High-Risk Teams: A Qualitative Content Analysis of the Commercial Aviation Industry” by Elizabeth Joy Hartman investigates the dynamics of pilots and flight attendants within the commercial aviation sector. It explores how organisational culture and power relations influence the efficacy of Crew Resource Management (CRM). Hartman draws from 300 incident reports (150 from pilots and 150 from flight attendants) for the years 2015 to 2017 from NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System database. 

Scapegoating in cybersecurity.
The “fear of scapegoating is preventing some cyber incidents being reported” in the NHS, and preventing us from understanding how things go wrong in order to help avoid similar incidents in the future.

This week’s poem:

By Fady Joudah

Suddenly I

“in a blaze” died.

Suddenly time

quit lingering.

Suddenly you

can’t find my body,

can’t bury

what you can’t find.

My final poem,

I wrote years before

my hour arrived.

Suddenly my voice,

thought voiceless

because stateless,

gave voice

to a noisy world.

Suddenly “a kite.”

Suddenly I.