‹ GERİ

Are you psychologically safe at your workplace?

“Workplaces should be engines where new ideas are rapidly exchanged and tested, but great

conversations and teamwork won’t thrive when you’re not feeling supported and psychologically safe”.

The author of these words is Daniel Krivens, an award winning designer, who also stated once:

“Steve Jobs taught me that before employees can be creative, they have to feel psychologically safe”.*

 

According to Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, who coined the term:

“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes”.**

 

In a psychologically safe working environment people do not worry about possible negative

consequences of questioning management decisions or expressing different opinions, ideas,

and suggestions. “Safety first” is the well-known motto seen on the entrance of many industrial

sites as well as company offices. It refers however to occupational safety not to psychological.

 

Transparency, respecting different perceptions, and encouraging employees to speak up are often

articulated basic principles of people development and internal communication in corporations.

In reality however it is not so easy to create psychologically safe working environment unless it is

driven by the top management in a sincere manner.  

 

The social culture in the country appears as the first and strongest barrier to create a psychologically

safe working environment. For instance, showing respect to elderly people with higher rank and status

is a very basic social rule in many Middle- and Far Eastern countries which applies to workplaces as well.

This fact must make very difficult to speak up for young people in such organizations even they would be

asked for opinion; needles to mention “to challenge supervisors”. It sure doesn’t mean that the situation in

the western culture is completely opposite although the western education system more encourages

individuals to speak up and challenge the status.

 

The second barrier is the organizational structure. Vertically structured organizations with strict hierarchy

mostly tend not to encourage psychological safety at the working environment even though they would

initiate regular info sharing meetings, internal satisfaction surveys, social meetings with top management etc.

 

A third layer of challenge in creating psychologically safe working environment is the management style of

team leaders i.e. team building, driving and communication skills of line managers. The famous quote

“employees leave managers not companies” sounds quite logical in this context. 

 

Let’s read through how Daniel Krivens was inspired by Steve Jobs regarding psychological safety in a

working environment:

“I was once in a meeting with Steve Jobs where he admitted his fallibility. I was involved in the design of the

common dining area at the Pixar atrium at the time, and it was an awesome trust-building moment for the team.

We were discussing the look of the exposed steel beams and how they should relate to the overall design.

Suddenly, Jobs stood up and started pacing around the front of the room, questioning the founding aesthetic

direction he had set not just for the steel, but for the whole building. He asked us, ‘Is this aesthetic we’ve

chosen the right story we want to tell?’

 

Jobs took time to re-examine his rational and, in doing so, set an example of how it’s okay to share doubt,

even if it makes us look imperfect. Sharing that moment of vulnerability modeled what successful teamwork

really felt like; strength is being able to reveal one’s vulnerability so we can all work better together”.***

 

The first sentence in the paragraph above that I marked in bold is the exact answer to the question how to

create a psychologically safe working environment driven by the top management in a sincere manner, isn’t it?  

 

(*)   Quartz: www.qz.com - https://qz.com/1012693/steve-jobs-taught-me-that-before-employees-can-be-creative-

they-have-to-feel-psychologically-safe/

 

(**)   Edmondson, Amy (1 June 1999). "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams"(PDF).

Administrative Science Quarterly. 44 (2): 350–383. doi:10.2307/2666999.

 

(***)   Quartz: www.qz.com - https://qz.com/1012693/steve-jobs-taught-me-that-before-employees-can-be-creative-

they-have-to-feel-psychologically-safe/

‹ GERİ

Are you psychologically safe at your workplace?

“Workplaces should be engines where new ideas are rapidly exchanged and tested, but great

conversations and teamwork won’t thrive when you’re not feeling supported and psychologically safe”.

The author of these words is Daniel Krivens, an award winning designer, who also stated once:

“Steve Jobs taught me that before employees can be creative, they have to feel psychologically safe”.*

 

According to Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, who coined the term:

“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes”.**

 

In a psychologically safe working environment people do not worry about possible negative

consequences of questioning management decisions or expressing different opinions, ideas,

and suggestions. “Safety first” is the well-known motto seen on the entrance of many industrial

sites as well as company offices. It refers however to occupational safety not to psychological.

 

Transparency, respecting different perceptions, and encouraging employees to speak up are often

articulated basic principles of people development and internal communication in corporations.

In reality however it is not so easy to create psychologically safe working environment unless it is

driven by the top management in a sincere manner.  

 

The social culture in the country appears as the first and strongest barrier to create a psychologically

safe working environment. For instance, showing respect to elderly people with higher rank and status

is a very basic social rule in many Middle- and Far Eastern countries which applies to workplaces as well.

This fact must make very difficult to speak up for young people in such organizations even they would be

asked for opinion; needles to mention “to challenge supervisors”. It sure doesn’t mean that the situation in

the western culture is completely opposite although the western education system more encourages

individuals to speak up and challenge the status.

 

The second barrier is the organizational structure. Vertically structured organizations with strict hierarchy

mostly tend not to encourage psychological safety at the working environment even though they would

initiate regular info sharing meetings, internal satisfaction surveys, social meetings with top management etc.

 

A third layer of challenge in creating psychologically safe working environment is the management style of

team leaders i.e. team building, driving and communication skills of line managers. The famous quote

“employees leave managers not companies” sounds quite logical in this context. 

 

Let’s read through how Daniel Krivens was inspired by Steve Jobs regarding psychological safety in a

working environment:

“I was once in a meeting with Steve Jobs where he admitted his fallibility. I was involved in the design of the

common dining area at the Pixar atrium at the time, and it was an awesome trust-building moment for the team.

We were discussing the look of the exposed steel beams and how they should relate to the overall design.

Suddenly, Jobs stood up and started pacing around the front of the room, questioning the founding aesthetic

direction he had set not just for the steel, but for the whole building. He asked us, ‘Is this aesthetic we’ve

chosen the right story we want to tell?’

 

Jobs took time to re-examine his rational and, in doing so, set an example of how it’s okay to share doubt,

even if it makes us look imperfect. Sharing that moment of vulnerability modeled what successful teamwork

really felt like; strength is being able to reveal one’s vulnerability so we can all work better together”.***

 

The first sentence in the paragraph above that I marked in bold is the exact answer to the question how to

create a psychologically safe working environment driven by the top management in a sincere manner, isn’t it?  

 

(*)   Quartz: www.qz.com - https://qz.com/1012693/steve-jobs-taught-me-that-before-employees-can-be-creative-

they-have-to-feel-psychologically-safe/

 

(**)   Edmondson, Amy (1 June 1999). "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams"(PDF).

Administrative Science Quarterly. 44 (2): 350–383. doi:10.2307/2666999.

 

(***)   Quartz: www.qz.com - https://qz.com/1012693/steve-jobs-taught-me-that-before-employees-can-be-creative-

they-have-to-feel-psychologically-safe/