Why psychological safety in the workplace has become a business imperative
The importance of psychological safety has moved increasingly into the spotlight. As organisations have undergone rapid transformations post-Covid, hybrid working has empowered employees to prioritise their wellbeing and happiness, and to decide how, where and when they want to work, in order to best suit their unique needs.
In this episode of Truthsayers®️ Neurocast™️, we discuss some of the challenges organisations are facing as they navigate how they can ensure equity, safety and inclusion of a diverse workforce.
What does it take to create an environment that is psychologically safe?
Can an environment be psychologically safe, if it is not inclusive?
How can we measure psychological safety?
These questions and more will be answered by your host, Simon Stapleton, CEO Truthsayers, and special guests Paul Anderson Walsh, CEO of the Centre for Inclusive Leadership and Trevor Meboroh Collinson, MD of The Inclusionomics Company - a unique inclusion-centric people analytics platform that measures and benchmarks how inclusive organisations are, with its Neurotech® powered Inclusion Audit.
Listen closely to the podcast for your chance to take advantage of a limited special offer!
❇️ Find out more about Simon Stapleton
❇️ Find out more about Trevor Meboroh-Collinson
❇️ Find out more about Paul Anderson-Walsh
❇️ Find out more about The Inclusionomics Company
❇️ Follow The Inclusionomics Company on LinkedIn
Podcast Transcript
Simon Stapleton (SS)
Hi, I'm Simon Stapleton and welcome to the Neurocast. And I'm with two great friends of mine today. Trevor from The Inclusionomics company and Paul from the Centre for Inclusive Leadership. How you doing, guys?
Paul Anderson-Walsh (PAW)
Doing very well. Thank you.
SS
Yeah, very good. Yeah. Let's get a bit of an introduction from you both. Do you want to start us off, Trevor?
Trevor Meboroh-Collinson (TMC)
Sure thing, so I'm Trevor Meboroh-Collinson and I'm the managing director for The Inclusionomics Company, so I'm leading our new, innovative, inclusion-centric platform called Inclusionomics to the marketplace. And very happy to be here with Simon and Paul having a chat
PAW
I'm Paul Anderson-Walsh. I'm the Chief Executive of the Centre for Inclusive Leadership, one of the founders. And we obviously, as the name suggests, have a business that is all about how do you create inclusion within the workspace and the conversation between ourselves and Simon and Trevor, why we're such good friends is we think that a lot of that is very data centred. So it's great to be able to be on this and have a chat.
SS
Thanks guys, so we'll talk a bit more about the Inclusionomics Company shortly, because we also want to make an announcement about an event where we're at together. But I think what I'd start with saying is that it occurred to me recently that we talk a lot about psychological safety, as a key component of inclusion, and actually, we've never stood back and said, “Okay, what do we mean by that? And why are we measuring it? Why it's important?” So I thought, let's get ourselves together and put some shape to that.
SS
Trevor, just before we get on to the guts a bit, do you just want to very quickly tell us about the Inclusionomics Company?
TMC
Yeah, absolutely. So the Inclusionomics Company, as the name Inclusionomics might suggest is looking at inclusion in the workplace. So looking at the work lived experience of employees, but at the same time, it's also looking at this thing called human capital, and how organisations, senior leadership teams can get better return from their human capital. Now, in order to get better return from your human capital, you need to understand how your employees are feeling about certain things. And what the Inclusionomics does, through its flagship product, the Inclusion Audit, it allows an organisation to effectively forensically dissect and measure inclusion within the workplace. So if you understand what's driving the emotions, feelings of your employees, you might be able to then create an environment in which they can operate, thrive and be successful. We are basically an employee listening tool that does a very unique thing.
Psychological Safety and Inclusion: an inter-linked duo
SS
Thanks, Trevor. We've been working together for a few years now, and we've run a number of projects with clients globally and of different sizes, and often it does come back to this point on psychological safety, doesn't it? It's always a big thing for what we find out in the Inclusion Audit. And it's often one that has the greatest variance between different groups within a single client. I mean, thinking back to the audits we've done before, Paul, what are your reflections on particularly psychological safety and what you think that means within the context of an organisation?
PAW
Yeah, it's a great question actually. I suppose that, Simon, we should say, for the folks who are listening that psychological safety is one of our dimensions with inside of our definition of inclusion. So when we think about inclusion, we think about a series of elements or components, if you like, that all have this sort of cumulative and stacking effect. So, we think about the idea of respect, of valued, of being trusted, being psychologically safe, of belonging, and so forth. And this component of psychological safety is a really important one. Because ultimately, the idea means that if I feel psychologically safe, it means that I have and we have this shared belief that it's okay to take relational risks on this team, it's alright for me to express my ideas with you. The key idea here – and the author of this is Dr. Amy Edmondson, as most people will know - but we would suggest to you that if you don't have inclusion safety, then you're not going to have psychological safety; those ideas come together. To be safe, literally means to feel included; if you like, it means I feel part of the whole. And by definition to feel unsafe means, I feel excluded, it means I feel apart from the whole.
TMC
Paul mentioned Amy Edmondson, who's a professor at Harvard, and I think she was the first person to coin the phrase 'psychological safety'. In fact, I’ve got a quote from her where she said,
"In a psychologically safe environment, people feel comfortable expressing their opinions and ideas, taking risks, making mistakes without fear of judgement"
- Prof. Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School.
So if that's a definition, it might be worthwhile just also pinpointing what are examples of a position that an employee might find themselves in in the workplace where they're psychologically unsafe? You know: fear of speaking up, micro-management, blame culture, lack of feedback or even more severe than that, you know, bullying and harassment. Well, establishing and measuring and maintaining psychological safety in the workplace, is really difficult. It's not easy to do, because a lot of it is subjective; it's how people - Paul mentioned it - how people feel.
PAW
One of the things that we've noticed, that you and I have talked about when we've done the interpretations on these on these audits, is there's a fascinating correlation between people that self-identify by saying 'prefer not to say', and their psychological safety scores, and we see that every time. So we see, if somebody says, I don't know, sexual orientation, or whatever it might else it might be, and they say, “prefer not to say”, I can almost guarantee you that their psych safety score is going to be lower than it is for people that are prepared to identify. And that's important, isn't it? Because that's just saying to you, “Do you know what? This environment doesn't really feel safe enough for me to show up as I am” and Simon, what's amazing about that is our audits are anonymized. But even though they're anonymized, people still prefer that to say, which is interesting, right?
SS
Yeah and I think there's also a kind of conditioning element to that, that somebody has been probably in an environment where they felt a lack of psychological safety for so long, that they're so conditioned to think that way of withholding any bit of information which expresses a vulnerability. You must see this all the time Paul.
PAW
We do. And the word 'vulnerability' is a very interesting word to use, it's a really nice way of thinking about it. I think what we tend to see, what it presents to us, is it presents to us as a perceived stigma. So, what I perceive is that it will be stigmatised for me to self-identify as being of colour or of sexual orientation, or whatever else it might be. And, because I see it stigmatising, I'm not prepared to be sufficiently vulnerable about who I am in this space, because I don't know if you're going to treat that kind of information with the kind of care and respect and compassion and understanding that it requires.
Why is it so Difficult to Measure Psychological Safety?
SS
Well, that's a real nice segue, I think, actually, onto something I wanted us to talk through and around why it's been difficult to measure psychological safety - I mean obviously up until now, when we introduced our tool to the market where you can do that now - but, it's this kind of thing where an environment lacks psychological safety, there isn't the courage, or there isn't the willingness to be vulnerable, to share even the information that tells you there's a problem in the first place. So it becomes self-perpetuating, that kind of environment.
PAW
Well, it's exactly the point, and round and around we go. And what we say all the time, when we're talking to prospective clients, and that is to say this: "there's a difference between what I feel and what I feel I can say". And Trevor can tell you about corporate environments where you make moderated decisions about what you're going to declare or not for exactly the reasons you’ve just suggested. So it's a massive issue this. It’s a massive issue. And I do wonder, as we continue to do our work with clients, one of the things I think it's really helpful, is this whole thought about saying, you know, is the culture that you say you've got, the one you've actually got? And that's I think, the difficulty, isn't it? Everybody says "there's nothing to see here". So imagine coming to me, and I don't feel psychologically safe with you, and your question to me is, "Paul how do you feel? Do you feel safe working here?" What am I gonna say? "er no, I don't feel safe working here!" By definition I'm not gonna give you the right answer to that question. And I think there's a lot of what I describe as 'pretty-womanising' going on in organisations, which is that people are asking you questions, and your answer is not what the answer is, your answer is, what do I think you want the answer to be?
SS
Well it's typical 'Emperor's New Clothes', isn't it? And we see that right across the whole landscape, not just in business, but on the social side, that there's a very much an element of need to be speaking or answering what's expected of you rather than actually how you truly feel underneath. Trying to make decisions as a leader in an organisation based on a repainting of the truth to something more palatable, or socially acceptable, doesn't actually help you deal with the issues underneath. And that probably is a good time to bring in Trevor on the Inclusion Audit that we're doing on TIC, because we're trying to tackle that problem by taking a big data approach to this and trying to understand it, not just at a client by client level, but also across whole industries and across intersectional landscapes, that kind of thing.
The Inclusion Audit from The Inclusionomics Company
TMC
So what we're doing is something quite ground-breaking with the Inclusion Audit, where we're using a neuroscientific approach. Paul's already mentioned the idea of, "Well, if I'm presented with a question around psychological safety, I need to think about how I'm going to respond to that, depending on who's asking me". So what you're getting from someone, you're getting very much a conscious response edited, rationalised, and it may not be authentic, it actually may be completely the opposite of authentic, it might be a fabrication. So what we do is we are able to kind of circumvent that conscious response and go to the nonconscious, where we're getting the gut reactions, that kind of truly emotional feelings from individuals about a series of propositions or ‘primes’, as we call it, and those prime's revolve around inclusion. So it's unique in that it's nonconscious responses and it really gets around in where people kind of edit and rationalise their responses. So we think it's unique, and it's kind of presenting or surfacing some very interesting aspects about how people feel on this particular subject.
SS
And I think it's also fair to say that both those data sources are valid. So we're not saying just because somebody edits, it's wrong, it's just a different perspective, that the rational viewpoint, and the irrational can often be the same, but often they can be very different. And it's that where the cognitive dissonance comes in, that I might have a very different, deep-seated feeling than how I rationalise it, and actually both those data points is very helpful from understanding what needs to be put in place to support people on a particular subject. So that the difference - that discomfort - that you might feel between holding two different thoughts or feelings, is also really important from a decision-making perspective. And we obviously elevate all that into a cross-organisational view of what those deltas might be.
Alternative methods for measuring inclusion
SS
I also just want to talk about some of the alternatives that people use for measuring psychological safety things that and perhaps why what we're doing on the Inclusion Audit is different and, you know, hopefully we consider it as far better. So if you took, say, focus groups and engagement surveys, the traditional types, where do they fail? Trevor, what's your view on that?
TMC
Well, I mean, I don't see it so much as a failure, I think it’s kind of, the engagement survey or the traditional survey approach, whether it's a focus group and interview, or a pulse survey was the 1.0 and it's been very useful up until this point. However, with you know, with people analytics (which is where we see our product or our platform Inclusionomics sitting) people are very keen to kind of understand how to improve business outcomes. So, we're now giving them a 2.0 approach to their employee listening, that gives them this neuroscientific aspect and it should be pointed out this neuroscience that I'm talking about is not some new-fangled fad, this is very much a well-established model that has had, you know, numerous academic peer reviews on. Typically, I think it was used in brand marketing, why do people buy a particular kind of beans versus another kind of cans of beans and we've taken that and pivoted it into the inclusion space. So I don't see it as a failure per se, I think it's that we're enhancing the organization's tools; we're giving them a new set of tools to look at their employees and the actions they take or don't take, using the Inclusion Audit.
Understanding the Psychological Safety Landscape: The Business Benefits
SS
Perhaps a question that might be on some listeners lips is okay, you understand what people feel and it might be different than what they're thinking. So what? you know, okay you might help people through a tough time, you know, through an emotional challenge, but so what? What are the business benefits of understanding the psychological safety landscape, and indeed the rest of the dimensions in Inclusion Audit?
PAW
Sure, I mean, from a consulting point of view, it's gold dust to us Simon, because what we don't want to do - and I think this happens too often in diversity and inclusion practitioning - is that we treat the whole instead of treating the part, right? So what we know because of the way we do the data is that we 'salami slice' our data, and we do it in a very thoughtful way. So, for example, I might discover because of the Audit, I might discover that there is a particular problem of psychological safety, that let's say, for argument's sake, is a much more acute problem in location A than it is in location B. So if I redo a remediation, that's impacting locations A and B the same, it's really a) it's not an intelligent thing to do. But also location B is thinking, "why are we having this conversation?" where it's actually not what I need to do, what I need to is to focus the conversation and target the pain point and deal with the pain point. So I think the first thing to say is that by being forensic about it, it means that we can actually make the cut where the problem is, right, that's the first thing to say. So that's, that's hugely important. And also, it helps us narrate the organisation's story better. So for example, I can think of a number of cases where I can give you illustrations of where we've seen a problem showing up in one part of the organisation, but not showing up anywhere else. And so not only can we treat that particular problem where it needs to be treated - so we're not treating the whole we're treating the episode - but we're also helping to understand what's causing it. And that root cause becomes useful to the organisation because it might be, for example, it might be a particular function is going through a part of a change process that's causing more disturbance; it might be that there's a more immature management team that are in that part of the business; it might be that the organisation has done an acquisition and the graft hasn't taken properly. It might be there's some disturbance within a particular product line. And so I think, what you don't want to do is Simon is to take us back to school days is: in the old days when I was at school, I always remember that if the boy didn't put his hand up, who was mucking about the whole class got kept in after school. And what you don't want to do is, you don't want to keep the whole business in after school, you want to make sure you get the detention to the kid that was mucking about.
And I think that is important though, because and I'll tell you why that becomes super important when you're starting to deal with issues around inclusion, because so much of it has been done in such a kind of remedial way, that people really are getting uncomfortable with this conversation because they don't understand why they're having it. So it's much better to be very tailored in your response.
TMC
Also on the 'so what?', following on from what Paul was just saying there, we're in an environment now, I mean, particularly prevalent in certain industries, where the competition for talent is really strong. Sometimes it's economically driven - they can earn more money - but sometimes it's because the environment that they're in, is not allowing them to thrive; they don't feel they belong, etc. - some of the dimensions Paul mentioned. But you can do an engagement survey and the engagement survey, because of its nature, being one where people rationalise and it may give you an authentic view, but you may rely on that engagement survey, but at the same time, be wondering why you've got certain metrics, like staff turnover still being high when you think everything is good, per se, as far as the engagement survey. Or why have we got, you know, high absenteeism rates? Why have we got more people using Employee Assistance programmes? So some of these corrosive things. This is where the inclusion audit just gives you a differentiated and an additional lens on that problem, which may be in stark contrast to what your engagement survey had given you. And let's not forget the inclusion audit is not just for pinpointing points of exclusion - that's a key area of ability with it - but the other thing is to pinpoint areas where there is exemplar behaviour, where you can say we need to be promoting more of that throughout the organisation.
PAW
Can I just build on that for a second, if you don't mind, because one of the other things that we've noticed, Simon, you and I have talked about this at length, is that people tend to kind of underreport what they're positive about, right? Yeah. So sometimes you find really good things happening within the organisation. But because I'm smart enough to know that when you ask me the question about as you rather elegantly, always call it 'pay and rations', I'm not going to say - what am I going to say about that? - I'm not going to say "yes, it’s great", I'm always gonna say, "it's not as much as it needs to be, it could be more".
The Benefits of Benchmarking Inclusion
SS
What's always interesting is we always get asked to measure a business where they are against their competitors. And at first, I always thought, why does that matter? You know, what, doesn't matter how good you are compared to your competitors? It matters how good you are, full stop. But actually, you know, what we're constantly asked for that point. And it was revealing for me, I started to get why that's important, because as a leader, it's important to know, firstly, where you competition are, going back to Trevor's point, you want to be taking from your competition, the talent. And if you score higher, then you got a chance at that. Equally we know that's the way the real world works to that people like to understand where they are against their peers. Now with The Inclusionomics Company, we are introducing benchmarking and indexing data that goes with it, so a client of that Audit can see where they are, they stack up against the global index and obviously, as we build out the data where they are within their industry, or sector.
TMC
yeah, I think it's spot on Simon, we're in a world, we're in an environment, where organisations are having to respond to a number of external factors. And one very important one is their institutional investors. Institutions want them to disclose more information about themselves. What's your carbon footprint? What's your ESG score? What are your green revenues? what's your gender balance in your board? And up until this point, it's been quite difficult, in fact very difficult for an institutional investor or even a research organisation to look in on a given company and say, "Hey, how are you taking care of your employees? Are you practising good human capital practices or not?" The Inclusion Audit, with its inclusion score for the organisation, and what Simon's just explained about potentially being able to aggregate organisations and come up with a sector or industry score, is going to give such external parties - third parties - that kind of lens. So I think it's really important. It's this company disclosure, whether it's driven by regulators, or whether it's driven by investors is not going away. And so we're at a very, very interesting juncture here. And I think what we've got in the inclusion audit, will give clients not only the ability to see how they are internally, but to be able to present that to the external world and say, we are we're an organisation doing good by our employees.
SS
I think that really articulates the core value proposition of what we are offering there with TIC. The Audit can’t be faked, you can’t modify your answers or edit them strategically; as a participant you’re not able to influence it by bias. And what that means is, the answer is how you really feel – obviously anonymised and privacy is assured – but it’s the truth. And that’s the USP really, what we can offer with TIC: an unvarnished view of inclusion and other things that when reported from an ESG perspective, we know that that’s actually the true state of affairs.
PAW
Just to say, underlining the point that Trevor made about this, which I think is so important; you’re right to say Trevor, that this indexing idea isn't going away and you know very well - we've been talking about this as a group haven’t we? - that the ESG agenda is going to become such a standard and we are pretty clear in our minds, aren’t we? that inclusion is part of that agenda; it’s is a very locked in part of that agenda. And one of the things I can tell you we're seeing more and more and more of, is the conversation that essentially says “do you know what? we're not interested in either buying or selling your goods and services unless we know that you're in this service of ‘Good’. If you're in the presence of ‘Service and Good’ then we want in.”
Why you can’t use Diversity as a Measure of Inclusion
SS
Well, you know Paul, one thing we have learnt over the few years have been doing this and the data bears out and it's fascinating and actually I’m just gonna drop in something - and I think it's probably for another podcast, you know, so like and subscribe and make sure you follow us - that is… (and this might be a contentious point for some people) That the less diverse - ethnically, or actually any measure – the less diverse an organisation, the more inclusive the score is - as a starting point; at the start of that journey. Which is always fascinating that actually, if you're using diversity as a proxy for inclusion, you’re getting it all completely wrong.
PAW
Yeah it's a great point and you should like and subscribe – cos anyone who’s prepared to say that on a podcast is a brave person! And it's a good call out Simon, because I think the point is this: There are lots of instances that I can show you - they could be for example, employee resource groups, networks - that are inclusive but are not diverse, right, because that's an equal and opposite problem. So, I think what we're wanting to say here is that, actually, it’s not that if you have a diverse organisation it will be inclusive. That's not correct. The actual truth of the matter is this: is if you sow the seed of inclusion into your organisation, you will bear the fruit of diversity
SS
What I also should say - I absolutely need to qualify this. By no means, was I suggesting a causal relationship there -
PAW
No it’s a great point
SS
- it's a correlation
PAW
Simon, I sit with boards that are rather heterogeneous most days of my life. And they sit and many of the things they say to me are “hmm but if everyone looks like us, we’ll all feel included.” And I say, “yeah, but of course what you have forgotten is that every one of you, who just look like you, are actually diverse.” And they go, “No we’re not, we’re all white middle class, middle aged men.” You say, “yeah but how many of you are there?” and they go “12” and I say, “well, are you all the same?”
SS
There's also the point on neurodiversity. It's the things you can't see. Might all be wearing identical clothing, but inside, they could be very different. Around particularly neurodiversity side. So it's not always the obvious and visible things that forms diversity
PAW
And noone's a single aspect of diversity as well. There's so many characteristics. But I think this notion about the invisible is very important, Simon, because often it is not the visible that grips us the most. Often it's the invisible that grips us the most. Our sense of anxiety, trauma that we might bring from somewhere, neurodiverse parts of our conversation. And what's very interesting about this is, an environment where I don't feel psychologically safe, if I have aspects of my identity that are concealable that I can cover that …I can mask then that makes it even more complicated because I'm looking at an environment and it doesn't look to me that is anything on the surface that's up. But you know as well as I know that the submerged part of us - the iceberg – is two-thirds of us we just not staying at all and this near scientific methodology that you created enables us to just access that and just be able to bring all that stuff to the surface, which is incredibly valuable. I mean, I've been involved in this space for a long time and to be able to quant measure sentiment Simon is just – it’s serious – it game changes it from a consulting point of view.
Everyone loves a freebie: Limited Time Offer!
SS
And so, I'm gonna ask Trevor a quick question now. So we, we've launched the Inclusionomics Company and the Inclusion Audit is something we're doing for customers today, but we are at an event in May, where people can come along and see us, and there's also a special offer on the table. Do you want to tell us about that?
TMC
A little sneak preview you mean? Yeah. So, for those interested, we will be attending, the Annual Learning Technology Conference in Excel. Excel is in London and that event is on the 3rd and 4th of May. It's probably Europe's showcase event for organisational learning and the technology that supports it and there are, could be up to 9000 attendees coming from 50 different countries, so we want to be there, platforming and presenting Inclusionomics. What Simon was highlighting is that we have a special offer for a limited number of prospects, we've got a Freemium version of our audit. Now this is a light version, but it will give an organisation that’s interested in getting some insight on inclusion, they will be able to get this Lite version of our inclusion audit for free. So please come and visit us on Stand, 3rd and 4th of May, London Excel at the Learning and Technology Conference.
SS
And all three of us will be on the stand there at some point, so they can come and say hello and introduce themselves. Would be really pleased to see everyone on the stand. What are you looking forward to Paul being at the Excel on that day?
Well, people can find out more today. Don’t have to wait until that event by going to Inclusionomics.co.uk so there's the website there. Also on the social channels, particularly there’s a lot of content on LinkedIn - like and follow the content on there. Just wanted to thank you both very much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure, and intellectually stimulating
PAW
Thank you for having us is being great.
SS
So, thanks very much chaps. Looking forward to seeing you in May at the show if not before
🌟Freemium special offer🌟
Sign up at the Learning Technologies Exhibition & Conference
London ExCel, 3rd-4th May
and visit The Inclusionomics Company (S1-S7 Stand: LP15)