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Psychological Safety through Cultural Lens
Psychological Safety through Cultural Lens

September 10, 2024

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“Speak up with what you have in mind, your point of view matters.”How often have you heard managers say this to their teams?

Psychological safety, a term coined by Prof Amy Edmondson, is the belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation. Its fundamental to high quality decision making, greater innovation, healthier inter-personal relationships. In today’s fiercely competitive environment, where inclusion is a hidden super-power, organizations are increasingly using concepts such as empathy, emotional intelligence, psychological safety. Simple as it may appear, Amy’s work has also shown how hard it is to establish and maintain psychological safety even in organizations that have an inclusive culture.

What does ‘speak up’ mean to you? Are you able to speak without fear of retribution? One of the biggest influencing factors is the cultural context. Preferred work styles, relationships with managers, level in hierarchy, years of work experience have a bearing on if, when and how you choose to express your viewpoints.

Those who lead multi-cultural teams and in global context need to re-calibrate their approach to creating psychological safe workplace depending on the circumstances. Self-reflect and ask yourself these questions:

  1. Open communication channels: How comfortable would you be if someone challenged the status quo or had a completely different point of view from yours?Are status differences among participants an obstacle to the free expression of ideas?
    In cultures that encourage open dialogue, employees feel free to express their thoughts without fear of retribution. However, the same approach would not work in status-oriented societies such as Japan, India, across Asia. Employeeshesitate to challenge authority figures, fearing negative consequences. Fear of ‘losing face’ holds back both leaders and team members from open communication. Responsibly use your privilege of role to create open communication channels.
  2. Being vulnerable about your mistakes: How do you manage a team member who makes a mistake?In some cultures, saving face is crucial.Individuals may avoid admitting mistakes for fear of repercussions. Giving grace that the individual did not intentionally make the mistake and providing objective and actionable feedback to course correct, builds confidence, and helps reduce mistakes in the future. It is an incredible opportunity to show your vulnerability and acknowledge your learning from mistakes. Moments of truth that show your humanness and helps create that psychological safety. However, one should not misinterpretthis as normalizing mediocre performanceor a compelling need to benice to each other all the time.
  3. Problem solving and Decision- making process: Who is most involved in decision making in your team?Organizational and national cultures that tend to follow a command-and-control ethos, often result in disengaged people, limited innovation, in-group thinking and slowness to respond to crisis. Employees may also have over dependence on manager with limited accountability. Hybrid approach built on Spotify‘s agile model of freedom in a framework, allows for autonomy within broadly defined guardrails. This breaks the limited in-group thinking and provides safe space for diverse perspectives.

While it may take more time and effort to embrace work-style differences and cultural nuances within your workplace, it will benefit your whole staff to respect the preferences of everyone.
Erin Meyer in her work The Culture Mapprovides vital insights, rich anecdotes and real-life stories on working effectively and sensitively with one’s counterparts in the global marketplace. In Cognizant, as part of our Conscious Inclusion trainings, all associates are provided tools and techniques to improve psychological safety in teams.

Cultural practices are multifaceted, and their impact on psychological safety is complex.As leaders, understanding these dynamics helps create inclusive environments where everyone feels safe to contribute and thrive.

 

Author: Sreedevi Palit, India Leader Diversity &Inclusion, Cognizant


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