Innovation is recognized as the zenith of success for companies. Oft heard phrases such as “innovate or die” (HBR) and “survival of the most innovative” (SmartStorming) are top of articles. Innovation, however, can often seem like a Sisyphean task — a boulder of progress pushed to the apex only to lose steam and revert to the status quo, or to a half-realized version of its original intent. It’s not a secret that most innovation projects will ultimately end unsuccessfully (HBR), whether due to strategic or monetary misalignment, or equally likely, due to a lack of cultural or interpersonal buy-in. A key component of this absent cultural buy-in stems from an environment in which change is dictated top-down and employees lack the security to express uncertainty or suggest alternate courses. In short, innovation can be encouraged by cultivating psychological safety in the workplace.
The crucial role of psychological safety at work
At its core, psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. To have psychological safety in the workplace is to have team members believe that they can take risks without being shamed by other team members, especially their managers. This safety has deep implications for team functioning and has been identified as the top success factor in a team’s effectiveness (Corporate Rebels). Psychological safety can largely be reduced to a balance between respect (the trust, esteem, and regard one feels in the workplace) and permission (one’s capacity to influence and act within a team). When employees feel psychologically safe in the workplace, a ground floor is set for innovation to occur.
The reality of psychological safety at work
Contrast this with the reality of the business place: less than a third of respondents in the US and UK agreed they “feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doings” and just 30% of respondents in the US that agreed their company “openly share information, knowledge, and ideas with each other” (Gallup). Often reinforcing these poor response rates and lack of underlying trust is what I will term the “stickiness” of traditional business functions — in which junior employees are instructed to “stick to your lane”, “stick to your job”, or “stick in your level” — that undermine feelings of psychological safety and reinforce hierarchical structures that poison innovative activities. Hierarchical structures stand diametrically opposed to systems of psychological safety because they inherently value an individual’s opinions and ideas over other team members. Moving away from hierarchical structures helps build workplace psychological safety and enables the democratization of innovation — the understanding that innovation and inspiration can come from anywhere.
Building foundations for innovation
Investing in the structures of psychological safety creates the foundations for innovation. When employees feel trusted they will feel more connected to their work and more equipped to take risks, setting the stage for them to generate their best ideas. For as much as the imperative for businesses is to be more innovative — if they are not creating the right conditions for psychological safety in the workplace, innovations are more likely to fail. Equally, if not more important than the idea itself is investing in the environment needed for success. Investing in psychological safety is like fertilizing the soil of creativity — building the environment to enable innovation and seeing changes blossom out.
The imperative for modern business
Innovation has arguably never been more important than it is in modern business (HBR) in which customers demand ever more improvements and products proliferate by the second. Businesses need to innovate in order to stay competitive, and they need to create the right environment to generate those innovations. A lack of innovation is often not a challenge of creativity but rather a challenge of psychology. When companies invest in psychological safety they are investing in their people, and creating the environment needed for future success.
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