Insights from Applied Neuroscience for Psychological Safety in the Workplace
I recently met with Business Brain Science speaker Brynn Winegard and we were talking about peak performance at work. Dr. Brynn is one of our most impactful speakers on peak performance and using brain science to set you up for success. We’re hearing more about the value of psychological safety in the workplace, so we asked Dr. Brynn about it. Here’s her insights into applied neuroscience for psychological safety in the workplace.
–Theresa Beenken, CEO, National Speakers Bureau
An #NSBOriginal Article
By Dr. Brynn Winegard
Psychological safety in the workplace is hot topic buzz word right now, as it should be. No matter who you are or where you work, every person wants to feel as though they are supported and safe to be themselves, share their thoughts and ideas, give their full perspectives, take reasonable risks, and respectfully disagree, without feeling as though they will face negative consequences, backlash, ridicule, or belittlement.
In my work, I research and talk about the applied neuroscience of how professionals can feel more motivated, get more done, be happier at work, all while striking better balance for sustainable workplace wellbeing. Psychological safety at work is part of this: research shows that workers who feel more psychological safety in their work environments also typically demonstrate and score higher on metrics like creative thinking, expressed new ideas, innovation, productivity, output, satisfaction with their employer and employment context (so less turnover!), overall performance, workplace happiness, career satisfaction, and sustained motivation in their jobs. In other words, more psychological safety means much happier, healthier, more motivated, higher performing workers – and who doesn’t want that for their workplace?!
According to the research, key inventory metrics of psychological safety for workers is knowing and trusting their management or leadership enough that they feel like they can share their ideas, be vulnerable, speak up, disagree on occasion, and be themselves, all without negative repercussions, but in the interest of helping develop new ideas, more innovative products, better customer service, as examples.
Accordingly, leaders hoping to imbue the workplace culture with greater levels of psychological safety for their workers must be perceived as knowable, trustworthy, present, supportive, and cognitively available to them. These are challenging asks, but practical insights from applied neuroscience can help.
Indicate When You’ll be Physically Present
Remote and hybrid work is great for allowing flexibility in everyone’s work schedules, but the human brain (and specifically the mirror neuron system integrated with the emotional centers) works best in-person. As a leader, you can’t be around all the time, but you can set expectations about when you will be physically present, so your people can be sure to have face time with you. Technology still can’t replace the value of actual in-person, physical face time for establishing understanding, familiarity, liking, and trust between any two people.Consider Email as Documentation, Not Communication
Because the human brain struggles to infer tone over text-based communications, the default assumption, unless someone knows you very well or really likes you, is ‘worst case scenario’ – they don’t assume the best or give you the benefit of the doubt unless they really know, like, and trust you. All too often an email gets sent that gets misconstrued or is misunderstood, and sends everyone’s hackles rising. The human brain is designed to communicate face to face and in person, and much prefers media like a phone call, an in-person meeting, a quick chat, or even a softened Slack message. Research shows that email wear-out and ‘inbox fatigue’ are very real and blood pressure, stress, and cortisol levels increase with every new message to your inbox throughout your day. The world has everyone stressed these days, then add to that the very medium (email inbox) stresses them further, and then they must consider the content of the message – the chances for misunderstanding are rife! Instead, use email as documentation for meeting minutes or past conversations and watch the reception to your message be much more favorable!Do Something ‘Just for Fun’ Together
Dedicate some time to just hang out, chat, and spend time with your people, either inside or outside of normal work hours. The activity shouldn’t be such that it compromises your leadership presence or power distance, it just has to be a relaxed setting in which you can actually chat about things without a rigid agenda and have less formalized conversations. When you engage on joint, entertaining tasks (think escape rooms, sporting events, entering a ‘fun run’ as a team, being a ‘habitat to humanity’ group, raising money for a cause or charity, helping a soup kitchen as a team, etc.) you engage the social processing networks in the brain – which has been shown to be involved in 80% of non-conscious neural networks. When these networks are activated, you increase their psychological sense of ‘play’, which increases overall comradery, in turn increases familiarity with you, then liking of you, and ultimately trust in you (causal linkages in the emotional centers of the brain). People who feel they ‘have friends at work’ are shown to have higher levels of psychological safety, productivity, creativity, and job satisfaction, with simultaneously lower levels of turnover, work-related stress, and employer dissatisfaction.
We hope these practical insights from applied neuroscience will help you increase psychological safety of your people and in your workplace, toward better motivation, productivity, peak performance and sustained business outcomes in the years to come.
-Dr. Brynn Winegard
About The Author
Dr. Brynn Winegard | Expert on Business Brain Science
More psychological safety means much happier, healthier, more motivated, higher performing workers – and who doesn’t want that for their workplace?!
Dr. Brynn speaks to the applied neuroscience of how professionals can feel more motivated, get more done, be happier at work, all while striking better balance for sustainable workplace wellbeing. Psychological safety at work is part of this: research shows that workers who feel more psychological safety in their work environments also typically demonstrate and score higher on metrics like creative thinking, expressed new ideas, innovation, productivity, output, satisfaction with their employer and employment context (so less turnover!) ,overall performance, workplace happiness, career satisfaction, and sustained motivation in their jobs.