Dear subscribers: for the past few weeks I’ve been agonizing over how to divide up my writing between my forthcoming book and this Substack, now that I have a book deal (yay!) allowing only 10% overlap between them. And as easy as it would be to keep indulging my annoyance at this (self-imposed and ultimately wonderful) problem, the truth is that it’s just the nudge I’ve been needing to experiment with new, more versatile ways of engaging my readers.
In that spirit, I hereby invite you to join me for the first-ever Building the Builders discussion thread. Worst case, you’ll connect with other thoughtful, ambitious builders around a topic that’s relevant to anyone trying to work effectively with others. Best case, you’ll have helped lay the earliest foundations for what will eventually become a new home for the most spirited, honest, emotionally invested, intellectually ambitious conversations on the internet.
The starting topic, which you’re welcome to riff on or stray from entirely, is the concept of “psychological safety”.
What emotions or associations does it bring up for you?
Where have you encountered it, and to what effect?
Do you think you’d get more or less of its intended benefit if it were re-branded from “psychological safety” to, say, “a shared commitment to bold truth-seeking”?
I’ll summarize my own emerging view in the 1st comment, but I’m mostly curious to hear from you all!
My own tentative take (which I could yet be talked out of): While I like and agree with basically all of Amy Edmondson's practical recommendations, I think conceptualizing them under the heading of "psychological safety" badly misses the mark. In my coaching work with founders, I've seen it go wrong for 2 main reasons:
1) It elevates the FEELING of safety over actual safety (else why the "psychological" qualifier?), which leads to softening or brushing aside of painful truths—ultimately putting everyone at greater rather than lesser existential risk.
2) “Safety” is too focused on downside rather than upside, in a context where capturing upside is the best motivation for taking interpersonal risks to begin with.
Some further context: According to Edmondson, “psychological safety” refers to a “felt permission for candor." This is something I'm 100% on board with, and that I relentlessly advocate for in my coaching work. Nary a day goes by that I don’t push one of my founder clients to consider what more they could be doing to roll out the red carpet for pushback and critical feedback from their team members. It’s good to have “hard conversations”, where everyone has emotional skin in the game, conflicting views get surfaced and debated, and painful feedback gets shared and non-defensively worked through. Such conversations are the stock and trade of every enduringly great organization. They are the building blocks out of which deep trust, understanding, and alignment get forged between team members.
But what I've observed in my coaching practice is that the concept “psychological safety“ blocks these things from happening at least as often as it enables them. In relatively good cases, it tends to soften and hedge feedback to a degree that makes it less candid. In worse cases, it’s weaponized against direct negative feedback as such, creating the very sorts of seething resentments and backstabbing office politics it purports to guard against.
Does this fit with what you all have seen? Am I missing some of the real benefits of the term? What would be an alternative term that captures what's right about "psychological safety", but without the conceptual baggage I'm on about (supposing I'm even right to be on about it)?
I agree. The term "psychological safety" focuses on the wrong thing.
"Obsession with Candor" better captures the relevant corporate virtue here than does "Psychological Safety". The former captures the idea of promoting unapologetic but respectful honesty no matter what one's rank is in the organizational hierarchy. It means encouraging everyone to be non-defensive in the face of unpleasant truths, even if such truths make one feel "unsafe".
I tend to dislike the phrase 'psychological safety' (PS) because (absent a clear precise definition in the original reference which I have not read), one has to grope for its meaning. In a sense, who can be against safety of any kind? Further how is PS different from physical safety? And so on. In effect, in analyzing PS, in my view, you have to spend far too much time sorting through what the creator of the phrase should have dealt with originally. I think 'a shared commitment to bold truth-seeking' would be a clear improvement but again is that what PS's creator meant? To state the obvious, life by its nature entails myriad risks so if one is ambitious, one will have to take all kinds of calculated risks including almost undoubtedly feeling psychologically unsafe.
Yes! In the workplace context, there’s less time for trust-building and a lower standard for “being open”. In my experience as a project manager in software development, I’ve observed that exquisite teamwork demands explicit agreement to a set of values (requirements) and multiple iterations to develop skillful collaboration that becomes progressively trustworthy.
I'll be the first to stray a little from the term "psychological safety" to share a related contemplation that keeps coming up for me regarding encouragement vs critical feedaback. :)
It's the idea that encouragement is equally, if not more valuable than critical feedback in "startupland". I think encouraging a founder (or anyone for that matter) is a more productive input on their entrepreneurial path than critical feedback is. More dreams die as a result of lack of self esteem. While the validation of any idea should come from reality itself, social validation can be a source of powerful motivation to keep going. It's possible that my view of this is a total projection of my own negative experiences of strangers taking my business as an intellectual exercise to pick apart when I needed it least. But, I think there's something deeper to it that reflect's my own way of seeing the best in people, and highlighting that above all.
Dr. Gena seems to be leaning toward ambition and “taking interpersonal risks” to vault over reservations around trust. In my long years of experience in intimate relationships, the profoundly deep sense of intimacy I’ve experienced — even oneness in sexual intimacy — came from total acceptance of each other without reserving self-protections — as Byron Katie says, loving what-is.
That kind of trust has, for me and my current partner, resulted from an absence of agenda — an intention to discover what-is rather than to try to bypass instinctive reservations. It takes patience to be organic.
To get to that level of trust has meant encountering our long-conditioned trigger points — the ones that put us in a state of hyper-alertness for threats to our safety — and learning to accept those reactions as part of our journey together, as part of our unique chemistry as a couple. I’m talking about a chemistry and desire to connect with each other that defies belief.
So how about “organic trust”?
To some people, “truth-seeking” may imply covert interrogation or “radical honesty”. If truth-seeking includes honoring sensibilities and taking as much time as it takes to win the other person’s trust through “nonviolent” curiosity about oneself as well as about the other person.
Ooo, yes - I've also been thinking about the crucial role of trust in all of these dynamics, and I love "bold trust seeking" as a way to capture it!
What's actually needed in a workplace context is for everyone on the team to trust each other to 1) be operating in good faith, with a genuine shared intent to figure out what's true or what's best for the team as a whole, and 2) have decent enough judgment and intellectual chops that their thought process does in fact yield valuable insight at least some of the time, enough to be worth inviting them to "speak up" and freely share what's on their mind even when they seem to be way off-track (and might actually be). This kind of trust is everyone's responsibility to build and maintain (and, when necessary, work to restore). I think this loosely maps on to what you said about "honoring sensibilities and taking as much time as it take" (so long as you still see mutual value—be it the value of profound intimacy and connection, or of being able to build something great together—in doing so).
Do you offer criteria for detecting conflicting interests and deficits in collaborative-communication skills?
I rely on the principles and practices of nonviolent communication (which I call “collaborative conversation”).
I’m building an app that uses algorithms trained in “generative emotional intelligence” to support evolution in self-awareness and emotional intelligence skills with practice. Its current focus is on significant-other relationships. I want to create expert-system content for application in work settings and relationships.
Dr. Gena, would you consider a collaboration with me and my small team of experts in GenEI to adapt the app to work settings and relationships?
If this sounds like something interesting to discuss, please call or text me at 206-818-2558 or e-mail me at Daniel.Webb@ReturnToLove.app.
I'm not sure if this has been touched on already, but the term "safety" in social contexts usually implies a dichotomy between it and freedom. I think I agree that a commitment to pursuing the truth is the best way to promote a marketplace of ideas which facilitates upward mobility.
I haven't read the NYT article and only briefly looked at the author's website, but my impression is not so good. It sounds like a derivative of servant leadership, which seems to be wildly popular but intentionally transfers decision making authority to people who haven't earned it. I suspect both intend to give equal merit to all ideas and that will discourage people that have principled ideas.
Psychological Safety, the label adds a spotlight that almost makes it a forced cultural shift in the organisation.
However, safety that is understood to be present through actionable ways without the labels makes it an easier digest to let loose and voice out your ideas, agreements or disagreements.
Personally, I think, the word attributes to something personal and if felt that way translates into the larger organisations climate
I've not experienced it as an employee, but from what I've noticed from managers or senior professionals letting employees know that they can speak up, it doesn't work that way because unless understood by the employees internally it's usually just considered to be one of those fancy organisational talks. 😅
And if it's exercised, most cases it backfires because the managers themselves aren't open to the change or its used as a way to point out a negative in the employee "we are open to feedback but you aren't exercising it"
And this disparity in what the organisation wants to stand for and where it is really is becomes evident.
My own tentative take (which I could yet be talked out of): While I like and agree with basically all of Amy Edmondson's practical recommendations, I think conceptualizing them under the heading of "psychological safety" badly misses the mark. In my coaching work with founders, I've seen it go wrong for 2 main reasons:
1) It elevates the FEELING of safety over actual safety (else why the "psychological" qualifier?), which leads to softening or brushing aside of painful truths—ultimately putting everyone at greater rather than lesser existential risk.
2) “Safety” is too focused on downside rather than upside, in a context where capturing upside is the best motivation for taking interpersonal risks to begin with.
Some further context: According to Edmondson, “psychological safety” refers to a “felt permission for candor." This is something I'm 100% on board with, and that I relentlessly advocate for in my coaching work. Nary a day goes by that I don’t push one of my founder clients to consider what more they could be doing to roll out the red carpet for pushback and critical feedback from their team members. It’s good to have “hard conversations”, where everyone has emotional skin in the game, conflicting views get surfaced and debated, and painful feedback gets shared and non-defensively worked through. Such conversations are the stock and trade of every enduringly great organization. They are the building blocks out of which deep trust, understanding, and alignment get forged between team members.
But what I've observed in my coaching practice is that the concept “psychological safety“ blocks these things from happening at least as often as it enables them. In relatively good cases, it tends to soften and hedge feedback to a degree that makes it less candid. In worse cases, it’s weaponized against direct negative feedback as such, creating the very sorts of seething resentments and backstabbing office politics it purports to guard against.
Does this fit with what you all have seen? Am I missing some of the real benefits of the term? What would be an alternative term that captures what's right about "psychological safety", but without the conceptual baggage I'm on about (supposing I'm even right to be on about it)?
I agree. The term "psychological safety" focuses on the wrong thing.
"Obsession with Candor" better captures the relevant corporate virtue here than does "Psychological Safety". The former captures the idea of promoting unapologetic but respectful honesty no matter what one's rank is in the organizational hierarchy. It means encouraging everyone to be non-defensive in the face of unpleasant truths, even if such truths make one feel "unsafe".
I tend to dislike the phrase 'psychological safety' (PS) because (absent a clear precise definition in the original reference which I have not read), one has to grope for its meaning. In a sense, who can be against safety of any kind? Further how is PS different from physical safety? And so on. In effect, in analyzing PS, in my view, you have to spend far too much time sorting through what the creator of the phrase should have dealt with originally. I think 'a shared commitment to bold truth-seeking' would be a clear improvement but again is that what PS's creator meant? To state the obvious, life by its nature entails myriad risks so if one is ambitious, one will have to take all kinds of calculated risks including almost undoubtedly feeling psychologically unsafe.
Yes! In the workplace context, there’s less time for trust-building and a lower standard for “being open”. In my experience as a project manager in software development, I’ve observed that exquisite teamwork demands explicit agreement to a set of values (requirements) and multiple iterations to develop skillful collaboration that becomes progressively trustworthy.
And no clothing must be removed, so there’s that.
I'll be the first to stray a little from the term "psychological safety" to share a related contemplation that keeps coming up for me regarding encouragement vs critical feedaback. :)
It's the idea that encouragement is equally, if not more valuable than critical feedback in "startupland". I think encouraging a founder (or anyone for that matter) is a more productive input on their entrepreneurial path than critical feedback is. More dreams die as a result of lack of self esteem. While the validation of any idea should come from reality itself, social validation can be a source of powerful motivation to keep going. It's possible that my view of this is a total projection of my own negative experiences of strangers taking my business as an intellectual exercise to pick apart when I needed it least. But, I think there's something deeper to it that reflect's my own way of seeing the best in people, and highlighting that above all.
- What prompted my thinking on this was was a story Jordan Peterson told about talking to a fellow thought partner on research projects. "He was 100% committed to the fostering of his students' flourishing." "Enthusiasm is a form of incentive and reward and keeps the conversation flourishing." "Enthusiasm triggers dopamine and there triggers that psychological system to grow." Timestamped here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0CdZPa267XkAdIV0Lxy11S?si=qlv32qDpQyK8ys5SZdUHgA&t=5119&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A1Zw2DKjelPnuEYpydFlhgN
Dr. Gena seems to be leaning toward ambition and “taking interpersonal risks” to vault over reservations around trust. In my long years of experience in intimate relationships, the profoundly deep sense of intimacy I’ve experienced — even oneness in sexual intimacy — came from total acceptance of each other without reserving self-protections — as Byron Katie says, loving what-is.
That kind of trust has, for me and my current partner, resulted from an absence of agenda — an intention to discover what-is rather than to try to bypass instinctive reservations. It takes patience to be organic.
To get to that level of trust has meant encountering our long-conditioned trigger points — the ones that put us in a state of hyper-alertness for threats to our safety — and learning to accept those reactions as part of our journey together, as part of our unique chemistry as a couple. I’m talking about a chemistry and desire to connect with each other that defies belief.
So how about “organic trust”?
To some people, “truth-seeking” may imply covert interrogation or “radical honesty”. If truth-seeking includes honoring sensibilities and taking as much time as it takes to win the other person’s trust through “nonviolent” curiosity about oneself as well as about the other person.
So how about bold “trust seeking”?
Ooo, yes - I've also been thinking about the crucial role of trust in all of these dynamics, and I love "bold trust seeking" as a way to capture it!
What's actually needed in a workplace context is for everyone on the team to trust each other to 1) be operating in good faith, with a genuine shared intent to figure out what's true or what's best for the team as a whole, and 2) have decent enough judgment and intellectual chops that their thought process does in fact yield valuable insight at least some of the time, enough to be worth inviting them to "speak up" and freely share what's on their mind even when they seem to be way off-track (and might actually be). This kind of trust is everyone's responsibility to build and maintain (and, when necessary, work to restore). I think this loosely maps on to what you said about "honoring sensibilities and taking as much time as it take" (so long as you still see mutual value—be it the value of profound intimacy and connection, or of being able to build something great together—in doing so).
Do you offer criteria for detecting conflicting interests and deficits in collaborative-communication skills?
I rely on the principles and practices of nonviolent communication (which I call “collaborative conversation”).
I’m building an app that uses algorithms trained in “generative emotional intelligence” to support evolution in self-awareness and emotional intelligence skills with practice. Its current focus is on significant-other relationships. I want to create expert-system content for application in work settings and relationships.
Dr. Gena, would you consider a collaboration with me and my small team of experts in GenEI to adapt the app to work settings and relationships?
If this sounds like something interesting to discuss, please call or text me at 206-818-2558 or e-mail me at Daniel.Webb@ReturnToLove.app.
I'm not sure if this has been touched on already, but the term "safety" in social contexts usually implies a dichotomy between it and freedom. I think I agree that a commitment to pursuing the truth is the best way to promote a marketplace of ideas which facilitates upward mobility.
I haven't read the NYT article and only briefly looked at the author's website, but my impression is not so good. It sounds like a derivative of servant leadership, which seems to be wildly popular but intentionally transfers decision making authority to people who haven't earned it. I suspect both intend to give equal merit to all ideas and that will discourage people that have principled ideas.
Psychological Safety, the label adds a spotlight that almost makes it a forced cultural shift in the organisation.
However, safety that is understood to be present through actionable ways without the labels makes it an easier digest to let loose and voice out your ideas, agreements or disagreements.
Personally, I think, the word attributes to something personal and if felt that way translates into the larger organisations climate
I've not experienced it as an employee, but from what I've noticed from managers or senior professionals letting employees know that they can speak up, it doesn't work that way because unless understood by the employees internally it's usually just considered to be one of those fancy organisational talks. 😅
And if it's exercised, most cases it backfires because the managers themselves aren't open to the change or its used as a way to point out a negative in the employee "we are open to feedback but you aren't exercising it"
And this disparity in what the organisation wants to stand for and where it is really is becomes evident.
So, what you've said above is true. :)
This is a way to find the "negative Nancies", but how do you handle them ?