Why psychological safety matters
I’ve never met a publishing person who doesn’t have enough to do. We’re an old industry that’s had any slack or spare knocked out of us long ago. But something different seems to be afoot in our world these days, a sense that the usual busyness has tipped over into something altogether more worrying.
This general sense of unease and overwhelm is manifesting itself in all sorts of ways, not least in an ongoing series of Bookseller surveys and blogs. Why aren’t debut authors better supported? Why are people in editorial/marketing/publicity/you name it feeling frustrated and powerless in the face of so many authors/proposals/books/you name it? Would going freelance help? Or should I just quit? It all sounds like a big wake up call not just for individuals who are struggling but their employers, who may well find themselves losing talent they can ill afford to lose.
One of the most eloquent contributors to these debates has been open about her own decision to leave corporate publishing. Thinking about what’s going on, I find myself returning to a piece she wrote a couple of months ago in which she talks about the importance of psychologically safe working conditions - and their opposite: the psychological danger caused by, among other things, bullying and unreasonable workloads. And the answer? Not a mass exodus, but better employment.
And that brings us back to the crucial importance of working environments that are psychologically safe.
Harvard Professor, Amy Edmondson, has spent many years investigating what this idea means. For Edmondson, psychological safety is the “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.”
Her starting point is that all of us are subject to what she calls “subtle interpersonal risks” at work. At any moment, we might fear being perceived as incompetent, ignorant or intrusive if we do things like ask questions, admit mistakes, come up with ideas or point out flaws in plans. It’s this desire to manage the impression we give that makes us risk averse and stops us from speaking up – and that psychological safety is designed to mitigate.
Anyone who has spent time in an average publishing meeting (acquisitions, anyone?) might feel that we’re not always doing a great job with that mitigation. And that’s a problem. The more time we spend managing impressions or navigating what’s expected or acceptable, the less time we have to collaborate, create and innovate: what publishing’s all about. Not to mention how exhausting all that navigating can be.
For Edmondson, everyone at work has a responsibility to help create safe environments where everyone feels able to contribute. But she also believes that leaders and managers have a special role to play in setting the right tone. It’s not enough to say that you’ve bought into psychological safety as a good thing, that you’re accessible and have an open-door policy; you have to actively create the right conditions for it to flourish.
And handily, Edmondson outlines a three-stage toolkit for how they can do just that. You might briefly check your own practice by answering these questions.
Setting the stage
Are people clear about what they’re supposed to do? Do you set the right expectations around failure as a learning opportunity? Do you encourage people to be curious? Is your purpose clear: what’s at stake and why does it matter?
Inviting participation
Do you make it clear that, as the boss, you don’t have all the answers? Do you ask good questions? How actively do you solicit contributions from everyone? Have you created safe spaces that encourage input?
Responding productively
Do you listen thoughtfully, rather than just waiting to respond? Do you reward candour? Have you done enough to destigmatise failure? How do you react when someone comes to you with bad news?
If we really want better employment in publishing, we have pay much more attention to the working cultures we’re creating or maintaining. To face up to uncertainty and change, we need our people firing on all cylinders, confident and enabled to contribute, question and share, even at the risk of sometimes not quite hitting the mark. And that needs a healthy dose of psychological safety.
If nothing else, kickstart your safety journey by reading (or re-reading) Amy Edmondson’s tour de force, The Fearless Organisation. Your overwhelmed and frustrated colleagues will thank you for it.