Psychological safety is route for the workplace culture of the future

For a team to function effectively, they must be able to speak candidly together, said Bruce Daisley, Author, One of the World’s Most Influential Voices on Fixing Workplace Culture and Former VP, Twitter during his keynote speech at HRSE 2022.

Daisley spoke about the importance of not killing psychological safety but enhancing it. He explained that stressing workers by asking them to get the job done versus getting fired puts them in a difficult situation. “How can I achieve that if I don’t have time to do it?”

“Killing psychological safety often has unintended consequences,” he added. “If we are in a room and you know your opinion is going to be listened to and  your opinion matters you will express it and this matters because it contributes to collective intelligence,” he said.

“To create collective intelligence we have to have really strong psychological safety in place,” he added.

Daisley spoke about the significance of creating a learning model by contributing to each other’s development. He outlined four ways to thrive at work in a physical environment by understanding how to: think, team, develop and collaborate.

“What is the reason that we need to  be  in the office? What is the reason we need to be around each  other,” asked Daisley.

Daisley said that the main reason to be in the office is due to the network effect, by being around each other, the resources available are increased exponentially.

“We need to create a strong  sense of we,” he  added. Daisley gave the example of Elon Musk take over of twitter, explaining that instead of placing himself by the heart of the culture. He created a division by not showing that he is part of the culture. It became me [Elon] vs we [Employees].

“He united the employees against him instead of uniting the employees with him,” added Daisley.

Daisley said that the work from home module has been attributed to  employee satisfaction due to saving  on commute, getting ready to go to work and flexible hours and other different reasons.

He said that the office is a tool to create a productive workforce; explaining that you should be more concerned with having a productive workforce.

According to Daisley, the significance of  the office remains in giving each other resources but also a reminder of how people can develop as people talk to each other so it has an impact on  the learning of employees, creating a psychological safety which then creates the collective intelligence.