BUILDING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY IN DAY-TO-DAY CONVERSATIONS

As innately social beings we actively seek to connect with others at work. Connection helps us to feel included, appreciated and respected, and supports us to have higher resilience as we face inevitable daily challenges. It is also essential for our productivity and professional and career development.
 

To connect and collaborate at work, we need psychological safety, and we all have an active role to play in creating psychological safety in every interaction we have in any given workday.

​

What is psychological safety, and what is it not?

Psychological safety is about creating an environment where individuals feel their opinions are valued, topics can be raised without fear of judgment, differences are respected, and mistakes can be owned and learned from.

 

It is not about being overly polite, avoiding conflict, or agreeing with everyone. It's also not about avoiding difficult conversations. Instead, it encourages open, constructive dialogue.
 

How can we help to build and maintain psychological safety in each and every conversation?

We can, as individuals, help to make every interaction we have at work, particularly those interactions where there is a significant difference in viewpoint, a tension, or a conflict, a psychologically safe one.

​

We Can Stay Present: In difficult conversations, pausing to acknowledge our emotions (and others' emotions) and threat response(s) (fight, flight or freeze), and then taking the time to breathe deeply can help us to remain calm, grounded, and engaged. This allows us to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively.
 

We Can Listen to Understand (Not just Listen to Respond): We can slow down and truly listen to understand the other person’s perspective, rather than planning our response while they’re speaking. This promotes empathy, trust, and stronger relationships.

​

We Can Shift from 'I' to 'We': We can frame conversations with a collective mindset. This encourages collaboration rather than a combative, ‘me versus you’ attitude. By focusing on shared goals, you can better navigate conflicts
and find mutually beneficial solutions.
 

Look at these ‘we’ (not ‘I’) approaches into a challenging conversation.

• How can we create and hold an environment of respect and empathy during this conversation?

• What is the situation like for you? How is it impacting you? What would you like to understand about the situation as I see it, and the impact it’s having on me?

• What assumptions or misunderstandings might we both have made that could have contributed to the conflict?

​​

All of the above support a collaborative approach that ‘goes hard on problems, soft on personalities’.
 

Make it a Learning Experience: We can acknowledge that everyone (including us) is constantly learning (and unlearning as the world changes), and mistakes are a natural part of that process. Reinforcing a learning mindset helps reduce defensiveness and increases openness to growth.

“To lead our most meaningful lives we need to lean into our own vulnerability - we are not defined by our mistakes, we are defined by what we learn from them”.

Call to Action
Reflect on your next interaction at work. How can you be more present? How can you shift the focus to 'we' rather than 'I'? What small step can you take to make the conversation psychologically safe for everyone involved?

​

Robyn Hill is an accredited mediator, a facilitator and coach of courageous, challenging or necessary conversation professional learning, and a facilitator of important meetings and conversations. She is also the Director of Courageous Conversations NZ.