This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Gian Power, Founder and CEO of TLC Lions. Our topic of discussion was psychological safety, a term first coined by Amy Edmundson, and the important role it plays in creating inclusion and belonging.
During the podcast we explore what psychological safety is; what happens when you don’t have it; the powerful role of storytelling in creating psychological safety and how we can encourage everyone to open up more to create greater inclusion.
There are of course many other benefits of psychological safety, beyond inclusion, which are just as important – better innovation through employees not being afraid to fail and thereby creating higher performing teams. For further reading on psychological safety, author Timothy Clark articulates 4 stages of psychological safety and associated benefits really clearly.
The three key elements of our discussion were:
- Everyone has a story, remember to share yours – it can make a huge difference in creating a psychologically safe space for people to open up;
- How a story is received is just as important, so we need to remind ourselves to listen to understand, rather than to respond (as mentioned in a previous blog);
- Creating safe spaces through storytelling, for people to share and be human.
Creating psychological safety is a thread that runs right across the inclusionary behaviours such as ‘being curious’, ‘sharing’ and ‘listening’.
Ultimately, that’s what we all want as humans – to connect and belong.
Inclusion Now 