Break throughs happen when employees feel safe to be candid
Your team should feel safe challenging the status quo – especially at work. During WellWithin Week, we are focusing on building a workplace culture where employees feel safe using their voice.
We want to bring innovation to everything we do, and it starts with leaders who are open to new ways approaching a situation. We refer to this as Challenger Safety.
Challenger safety, the highest stage of psychological safety, means an employee feels safe challenging the status quo. When someone has an idea that will disrupt “the way we’ve always done things,” they need the highest level of psychological safety – challenger safety – to feel protected enough to take the risk and share.
As leaders, give employees cover in the exchange so they will give candor. Why do we need this? Because challenger safety is the stage where most innovation occurs. If our employees do not feel safe, then they will never challenge the system and think creatively about new opportunities.
Ask yourself – on a scale of 1 – 10 (10 being the highest) how do you rate challenger safety on your teams?
Studies show that few teams achieve this level of psychological safety on average. And yet, it is the ultimate sign of leadership. The level of challenger safety on a team is the ultimate bell weather for the health of that team.
Balancing Friction
To create psychological safety that reaches challenger safety, a leader must simultaneously increase intellectual friction while decreasing social friction. This is the key to making it comfortable for team members to be vulnerable and bring new ideas forward. It’s a delicate balance and one that requires intentional focus.
We want to do this because humans can be sensitive, so we want to prevent social friction from getting so high it shuts down the intellectual friction needed to bring innovation. Psychological safety is the lubricating oil to foster collaboration and it is the leader’s job to model and protect intellectual friction.
Challenger Safety Checklist
Ask yourself these questions to continuously build a safe culture for your team.
- Do I allow others to challenge me?
- Do I give them license to dissent and disagree?
- Do I get defensive or take it personally when someone offers constructive feedback or suggests an alternate course of action?
- Am I calm under pressure?
- Can I tolerate an elevated level of candor?
- Can I debate issues on their merits in a stressful environment without resorting to personal criticism?
- Do I bring humility to my team interaction and lay down ego defense mechanisms?
- Do I keep intellectual friction up and social friction down?
- Am I open to questions from the team?
- When was the last time I was brave and challenged the status quo?
If your team never asks questions such as, “Why do we do it this way?” Or “What if we tried this?” Then your organization will always be stuck in the same patterns. Challenger safety provides respect and permission to disagree and challenge and that’s when break throughs happen. When a person thinks something needs to change, they need to feel comfortable to say so. A safe environment overcomes the pressure to conform and gives license to innovate and be creative.