Thanks to Project Aristotle run by Google, the concept of psychological safety at work has risen to prominence over the last decade. Studying 180 teams using 35 different statistical models, Google found that it was not intelligence, nor dependability, nor visionary leadership that made teams successful.
It was psychological safety.
But what is this enigmatic quality of psychological safety? Psychological safety is defined as the belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation. It is often measured by asking employees questions such as ‘I feel safe to take a risk on this team,’ or ‘I am able to share my perspective without judgement.’
But it has become increasingly clear to me that psychological safety is not enough.
In Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides, Geoffrey L. Cohen describes a story where a black woman employed at a university shared that she was going to resign because she felt she didn’t belong. When asked to record incidents that made her feel like she did or did not belong over the course of a month, she recorded… nothing.
The thing is, she could have taken risks, or shared her perspective without any judgement. In terms of psychological safety, she checked all the boxes.
But her ability to be effective was severely inhibited. It wasn’t that her peers or team were judging her; it was that, even if she did share her perspective, she would have been met with indifference. Indifference can be one of the most insidious of behaviours. There’s nothing you can actively point to that reveals any specific difficulty, yet the pain of disconnection is real and over time ends up wearing away at your psyche. She described it perfectly saying,
“It’s just … cold.”
As we strive to build more diverse teams, we will have fewer shared lived experiences with those that we work with. Diversity is a great thing, but it also means there is increased risk of us not being able to easily connect with others – we can’t just grab a beer with everyone and shoot the breeze about our favourite sports teams.
That’s why it’s not enough to just strive for psychological safety. Those on the fringes already feel a sense of alienation that prevent them from speaking up.
It’s not just a question of whether someone can speak up without fear or judgement, it’s also a question of whether they will.
Rather than psychological safety, we need to be more intentional about celebrating differences. We need to cultivate psychological elevation.
I consider psychological elevation to be the appreciation of individuals bringing unique and diverse perspectives to the table.
We can create psychological elevation through three practices: celebrating differences, measuring psychological elevation, and staying aware.
Cultivating psychological elevation
Celebrating differences
Celebrating differences is about recognizing the value that someone’s unique perspective brings to the table and showing appreciation when they speak up. It’s also about appreciating the challenge, and often heightened risk (whether of judgement i.e. psychological safety, or just of alienation), sharing brings when they are the only one in the room with that perspective.
Frances Frei, Diversity & Inclusion professor at Harvard Business School describes this as singing praise for differences, not similarities. So rather meeting a different perspective with apathy, puzzlement, or indifference, you can say something like,
“Holy cow, that’s completely different than whatever I would have thought. I am so glad you’re here.”
Measuring psychological elevation
Similar to psychological safety, psychological elevation needs to be measured by employee sentiment surveys. But rather than centering around negative qualities such as ‘I can share my perspective without risk or judgement’, we should focus on capturing whether employees are appreciated for and/or eager to share their perspectives.
Examples of this could include ‘my unique perspective is appreciated and valued by my team,’ or ‘I am excited to share my perspective even when it differs from the norm.’
Staying aware
Of course when we are celebrating and appreciating every perspective from every person, the very real question comes up about when does it end so we can actually sit down and get some work done? In the practical setting of work, we can’t be constantly in discussion to ensure we get every last morsel of opinion from everyone in the room.
The key here is awareness.
There’s no one easy line that can be drawn where it’s clear when we need to be psychologically elevating people. But we can be cognisant of those who are more likely to feel like outsiders, such as those who come from underrepresented backgrounds. Those individuals would be less likely to feel comfortable sharing, and their perspectives would be more likely to be singular when they do share, but that’s why it’s so important we ensure we hear those voices.
We need to celebrate the rich array of perspectives on our teams by cultivating psychological elevation. Only then will we be able to have truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams and ensure the success of our organisations.
