The Psychological Safety Journey
This year, Wellbeing Works will be exhibiting and presenting on Psychological Safety at the Health and Wellbeing at Work conference.
We’ll be publishing two blog articles prior to the event that cover the four stages of the Psychological Safety Journey.
The topic of this blog articles is the first two stages of the Psychological Safety Journey:
- What does Psychological Safety mean for you?
- Thinking differently
Step One: What does Psychological Safety mean for you?
To be psychologically safe, managers need first to understand how to look after their own psychological health. They can then be a role model for others.
Managers need to recognise what Psychological Safety is, the scale of the issue within their organisation, sources of the problems that exist and their direct relevance – both in terms of the impact on them, their colleagues and the service or product they deliver.
Using questionnaires such as our clever wellbeing predictive tool (Wbi) allows you to see the extent of any psycho-social factors that could be impacting your employees’ Psychological Safety. Data is also available on the number of staff who are struggling to cope with work volume, pace, change or who have difficulty concentrating or focusing, or who do not feel valued by their manager. The tool can highlight the risk and costs of future absence or disengagement levels.
Step Two: Thinking Differently
How we think is one of the most powerful influencers upon our lives and our psychological health.
Just as you can adopt different styles of driving or interviewing, you can adopt difference styles of thinking.
Learning about the opportunities and techniques can be hugely beneficial for managers and their teams. It changes the way managers operate. It creates a better environment for all.
Examples of thinking styles include:
- styles of focus
- emotional brain control
- ‘compare and despair’
- mountains or molehills
