Think Different? You’re Welcome Here

The second point I loved about the Harvard Business Review article I wrote about last week is the critical role that psychological safety plays in any learning environment we find ourselves in — including at work.

Any engagement we have with a team or work group should be a learning experience. That’s why we’re putting our heads together — there’s something that we don’t know yet. If we leave a meeting without having learned something, I have to wonder why we bothered in the first place.

To fully realize the benefits that diverse thinking styles can bring to our teams, everyone has to feel safe. Safe to speak up, safe to offer a divergent opinion, safe to make a mistake or to not know something. Safe to learn. Because learning is risky. Trying new things is risky. Asking questions is risky. Good teamwork — and good learning — requires psychological safety. More than smarts, more than brilliant plans, more than any other single thing. Safety is the make-or-break.

There are costs to not being able or willing to do this. In their HBR article “The Two Traits of the Best Problem-Solving Teams,” authors Alison Reynolds and David Lewis write “When we fail to foster a high quality interaction, we lose out on the benefit of discourse between people who see things differently. The result is a lack of deep understanding, fewer creative options, diminished commitment to act, increased anxiety and resistance, and reduced morale and wellbeing.”

We miss opportunities for better ideas and solutions when we work only with people who think the same way we do. Worse, our discomfort with different thinking styles can leave us feeling threatened, and we can react in ways that negatively impact the whole team. That kind of chronic stress is not going to help your project.

You’ve probably been there, and you know: it can just get uncomfortable. A meeting can turn on a dime, and not in a good way, when this struggle is activated.The struggle plays out not only because we may work with people who aren’t aware of different thinking styles, but also because when growth mindsets and fixed mindsets tangle, there’s tension. And we’re often unaware that this hot mess is going on — that’s the problem. When it happens, learning is over.

So how do people behave when there’s psychological safety? What can we do as individuals to create and protect the safe space we need to learn, collaborate, be creative, and solve problems?

• Recognize and appreciate the different thinking styles that others bring.

• Listen actively. Teamwork and team learning shouldn’t be a competitive activity where all we can think about is the next thing we want to say. Listen. Seriously: what would it be like if we weren’t interrupting each other all the time?

• Model your own openness to new ideas. Ask questions. If someone asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to, remember that saying “I don’t know” isn’t an admission of failure — it’s what a learner does.

• Don’t judge ideas or place blame.

• Watch your body language. We’re all highly sensitive social creatures and we can’t not be aware of nonverbal cues. No sighing. No eye rolling. No grimacing.

• Understand that making mistakes only means that you’re challenging yourselves. That’s a good thing.

• Consider a team charter that spells out safety expectations explicitly. We can’t change what we’re not aware of.

What are some other approaches you use to create a safe environment for learning?

To me, bottom line, this is a leadership issue. And we’re all leaders. Safety first! Great ideas await.