Psychological safety can be beneficial (to a point) — here’s where it gets dangerous

We are constantly striving to enhance our comfort and safety. This drive for improvement has fueled innovation since the early days of tool usage. While we aspire for these ideals, achieving absolute and continuous comfort is not in our nature.

In The Fearless Organization, Amy Edmondson discusses teams that embrace taking risks, admitting mistakes, and asking questions without fear of backlash. These concepts are widely accepted today. In Fail Fast, Fail Often, Babineaux and Krumboltz explore organizations where action-oriented individuals are encouraged to experiment and view failure as a valuable learning opportunity. While these ideas are endorsed, their implementation may vary.

However, when we observe these principles in practice within corporate culture, we often see a different reality. Over time, terms like “psychological safety” and “fail fast” have become clichés in management, leading employees to hesitate in taking risks or speaking up. Psychological safety has been redefined as a state of comfort devoid of stress, responsibility, and risk, where safety equates to being at ease. Witnessing colleagues face repercussions for failures, employees shift the burden of risk onto product owners and stakeholders.

Disconnecting Tech Workers from Decision-Making

There is a certain comfort in simply following someone else’s instructions without bearing the weight of change or personal accountability. Operating within the confines of externally orchestrated two-week sprint cycles offers a sense of security. If tasks are not completed on time, it can be attributed to underestimation. If a strategy fails, blame can be placed on the one giving orders. By obediently following instructions, individuals can distance themselves from any potential repercussions.

For many organizations, this skewed notion of psychological safety is the unspoken objective. Processes and structures are tailored to minimize the involvement of technology workers in decision-making. Once onboarded, practitioners are often viewed as interchangeable entities. In return, they comply, enticed by the chance to evade the more stressful aspects of their profession.

This mindset has reduced practitioners and technology functions to mere order-takers, relinquishing ownership and problem-solving responsibilities in favor of execution alone. In the pursuit of comfort and safety, we have sacrificed our sense of ownership in our work.

For both a thriving practice and individual success, a different form of psychological safety is imperative. We must foster environments where safety is not achieved by shifting risk but by facing challenges with support. A psychologically safe team must feel empowered to voice their opinions.

According to Edmondson, “psychological safety in the workplace is the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.”

In essence, safety should revolve around the ability to take risks, not the avoidance of stress.

Fostering a Culture of Tolerance for Mistakes

As leaders, it is our responsibility to cultivate a culture where mistakes are accepted and opportunities for learning from failures are embraced. We should encourage risk-taking among our team members, urging them to share their ideas and concerns openly. However, the focus should not solely be on increasing the number of failures but on evaluating our success based on the value we bring.

We possess valuable insights. Collaborative scoping and design processes lead to superior products and services compared to those developed in isolation by business stakeholders. Just as factories evolved from water wheel-powered systems to electricity-driven operations, adopting new perspectives can drive significant improvements. It is essential to challenge the status quo and actively participate in decision-making processes to unleash our full potential.

Encouraging discomfort does not undermine psychological safety; it underscores the need for thorough planning and human-centered approaches. Technology work presents challenges, and it is crucial to be transparent about risks and continually align our efforts with creating value. Embracing the accountability and healthy stress of owning technology within our organizations not only enhances professional success but also fosters personal fulfillment.

Jeremy Adamson is an independent data and analytics consultant, a corporate strategy instructor at the University of New Brunswick, and the author of “Geeks with Empathy” and “Minding the Machines.”