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Fostering psychological safety in research environments [solo]
Episode 5 • 30th October 2024 • Changing Academic Life • Geraldine Fitzpatrick
00:00:00 00:33:48

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Continuing the theme of great research environments, I explore how to contribute to creating great research cultures with a focus on the concept of psychological safety. I contrast the prize winning example we heard about in the last episode with examples of experiences with poor research environments. This leads to a discussion of the value of psychological safety as defined by Amy Edmondson, and others for enabling creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Psychological safety is about creating conditions where people feel safe speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns and mistakes and that foster a learning culture. I discuss practical strategies for leaders through their everyday interactions for fostering such an environment and enabling innovation, collaboration and personal growth and wellbeing. And I finish up with an invitation for all of us to reflect on our role in cultivating a supportive and inclusive academic culture.

00:00 Intro

00:29 Introduction to Creating Great Research Cultures

00:52 Recap of Prize-Winning Research Environment

02:38 Understanding Psychological Safety

03:40 Examples of Poor Research Environments

10:37 Defining Psychological Safety

12:21 Historical Context of Psychological Safety

15:42 Research on Psychological Safety

21:31 Psychological safety as key factor in Google's great teams

23:03 Leadership and Psychological Safety

24:15 Role Modeling and Self-Awareness

26:46 Fostering Belonging, Inclusion and Learning

29:18 Co-Creating Research Culture through our Actions

31:20 Conclusion and Reflection

Related links:

Previous podcast episode with Line, Nicklas, and Nina on Danis Young Academy prize research environments

Amy Edmondson web page

Amy C. Edmondson and Shike Lei, Psychological Safety: The History, Renaissance, and Future of an Interpersonal Construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior. Vol 1:23-43, 2014. 

Amy C. Edmondson. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley. 2019.

Pat Thomson, Blog article - Felling like an imposter?

Pat Thomson, feeling like an imposter?

Google’s Project Aristotle

Royal Society, Research Culture Embedding inclusive excellence: Insights on the future culture of research. (Tom Welton quote on culture p6)



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Transcripts

Geri:

Welcome to Changing Academic Life.

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I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this is

a podcast series where academics and

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others share their stories, provide

ideas and provoke discussions about what

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we can do individually and collectively

to change academic life for the better.

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In today's solo episode, I want to

invite us all to reflect on what are

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the ways that we can each contribute

to creating great research cultures.

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And in particular, I'm going to focus

on this concept of psychological

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safety as a key requirement for

creating research cultures that foster

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good science and good wellbeing.

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As a reminder in the last

episode, we celebrated a prize

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winning research environment.

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We heard from Line and Nicklas

who nominated their department

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for the prize that was awarded

by the Danish Young Academy.

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And we heard from Nina from the academy.

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Who reflected on the patterns

that the committee saw across

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the nominations for what makes

for a great research environment.

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So just as a recap, let's hear from Nina.

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Nina: The most common thing is that

people describe that they have a sense of

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belonging to their research environment.

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That's the most important factor.

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To create that sense.

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So, um, So that includes having a common

purpose or a common identity, a defined

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mission that people can jump onto.

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And also, ways of promoting diversity

and ensuring that people can be their

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true selves, they feel comfortable as

the person they are, it's having a

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shared set of values that people can

agree to having clear expectations.

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So people know what, what is expected.

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It's having a way to foster

and value creativity.

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Setting up structures where people have

time to explore creative ideas and

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discussing new ideas in an environment

where they're not afraid to express

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those ideas and they can get constructive

feedback . As Line and Nicklas also

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said that it builds on initiatives

from the top and from the bottom.

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So everybody contributes in

their own way to this environment.

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Geri: As Line and Nicklas

also said this connects to the

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concept of psychological safety.

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I asked them, what did they

mean by psychological safety.

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Nicklas: Yeah, it's, it's that you're feel

safe in the environment you're a part of.

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That you you'll safe enough to make

mistakes doing the process you're

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in that you don't have to do it

the correct way every single time.

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And then feel the support both when

you're succeeding with things, but

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also when you're not succeeding.

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So you feel like, yeah, you feel safe

in, in things when you're doing things.

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Geri: This concept of psychological

safety and its association with, with

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notions of belonging and inclusion.

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Is so critically important

to creating great research

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cultures, research environments.

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And before I go on to describe

psychological safety in

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a little bit more detail.

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It's probably worth reflecting on what

might be the research environments

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that could win the Razzie awards.

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The, uh, anti great

research environment wards.

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And towards this, I can reflect

on examples that I've heard from

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different people that I've talked

with or, experiences that I've heard

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people share workshops that we've run.

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And also experiences that I've had myself.

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Though, I won't make clear in

the following examples, which

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are mine and which are others, or

which institutions are involved.

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So.

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Imagine you're in an environment

where you're in a meeting.

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And this could be a faculty meeting or

a group meeting or a project meeting.

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Maybe you're in a tenured position.

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But you're fairly new to the place.

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And you put your hand up to make

a contribution and the person

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who's in charge of that meeting

every time you try to speak, they

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deliberately or so it seems to you.

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They turn around in their

chair to face away from you.

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And may get distracted on their phone or

choose that moment to go to the bathroom.

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And you're sitting there feeling really

red in the face and embarrassed because

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this is conveying a message, not just

to you, but also to your colleagues.

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That your contributions are not just not

heard, but also not valued in any way.

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And that you are not valued.

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So how likely are you going to be

to speak up again at a next meeting?

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Or even attend in the first place

to put yourself in that situation.

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Or imagine another situation where you've

just presented something that you've

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been working on . And, you know, it's

work in progress and you really want to

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hear some good feedback and have some

good discussions about the work so that

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you can help develop it collectively.

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But even while you're presenting

the work, you can see the senior

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professor of the group raising their

eyebrows and shaking their head.

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And instead of discussing your work,

it ends up being roundly critiqued and

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criticized in the harshest of terms.

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And even taken to a personal level,

telling you in front of everyone, that

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you've no idea what you're doing and it's

just rubbish and you should start again.

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Or imagine a situation where you

take a different methodological or

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epistemological approach to your work.

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And whenever you try to discuss

it, it's just laughed off as there

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you go again, trying to push Y.

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And there are conspiratorial

smiles all around the table.

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And with that quick dismissal,

everyone moves on to discuss their

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own work and their own approaches.

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And if you're a young PhD student

or an early career researcher

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and feeling insecure in any way.

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Then in both of these previous situations,

you're not going to be wanting to

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bring up your work again to this group.

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You're going to be really reluctant

to seek any feedback in future.

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Or present a different way of doing

things, present a different point of

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view to what is the dominant model.

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Or imagine that you're sitting in your

office and coming down the corridor are

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sounds of people yelling at each other.

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Not conversing, not communicating,

not discussing, just yelling.

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A really tense, angry, toxic environment.

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Not good.

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Imagine having someone

say to you, unsolicited.

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That so-and-so doesn't like you.

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And this could be a so-and-so who's

in a position of power and this

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really comes as a surprise to you.

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You've no idea what might be the issue.

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You thought you had a

fine relationship though?

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You didn't interact with them very much.

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And so you're not just wondering about

the relationship with this person, but

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the fact that you've been told this means

that you're left wondering, What are

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people saying about me behind my back?

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And what else don't I know.

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And who else has different perceptions

of relationships than what I have.

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Imagine you're being critiqued

because you want to go home

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at 6:00 PM to see your family.

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And that's even still late.

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And you don't want to participate

in the competition to see

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who can work more hours.

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But there's attention drawn to it and

you get the sarcastic remark of Oh.

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Are you heading off already?

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Imagine being in one of those situations

where you never know which version of

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your line manager, leader, supervisor,

professor, you're going to get.

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Is it going to be the nice

one or is it going to be the

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stressed out and cranky one?

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Or where you feel almost gaslighted,

where you've been working on something

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that you believe is what you've agreed.

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And then when you turn up again to share

that there's a dispute about whether

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that was agreed or not, or whether they'd

actually asked you to do something else.

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And then of course, we also hear

many stories of discrimination

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and harassment in the workplace.

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And I've heard this in terms

of gender and ethnicity.

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And along other more subtle dimensions.

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So you can imagine again, feeling really

marginalized and like you don't belong.

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You're maybe you're someone who

doesn't drink at all yet all of the

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social gatherings in the group involve

significant amounts of alcohol,

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where you're just not comfortable.

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Or where you're the only woman in a group.

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And everyone immediately turns to you and

expects you to make the cake to celebrate

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someone's birthday or to take the notes.

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And I'm sure you could come up with

loads of other examples where you just

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haven't felt at home in the environment.

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Where you haven't felt comfortable,

felt like you belonged.

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Where you haven't felt free to

offer an opinion or a point of view,

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or to just stand up for yourself.

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And I don't know about you, but

my reaction in these situations

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is to withdraw and to hide.

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And what I'll often choose to

do is to redirect my efforts to

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other communities outside of my

research group or my faculty.

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Where I can feel like I'm more

accepted and where I can feel like

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I belong, because why would I put my

head on the block again only to get

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knocked down or hurt in some way.

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And that's what psychological

safety is about.

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How do we create environments where

these sorts of scenarios don't happen?

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Where people genuinely feel free to

show up fully human fully themselves.

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Where they don't have to change to fit in.

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But where there is space made

for everyone to be able to find

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their place, to find their voice.

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It means people being able to challenge

the status quo to express opinions or

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preferences without fear of ridicule.

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And instead where those

opinions and preferences are

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engaged with, with curiosity.

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It means people feeling seen and heard.

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Where their ideas are valued.

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And it doesn't always mean

you have to be in agreement,

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but it feels okay to speak up and to

make contributions and we can explore

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and understand our differences.

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And it means the embracing

the fact that we're all human.

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We all make mistakes.

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And we're able to own up to them without

fear of being critiqued or judged.

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Or without being shamed.

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And not just that, but that

where the, the sharing of this

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is embraced and celebrated.

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And we then can participate in a

shared learning journey about what

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we can take from this for next time.

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Psychological safety is just such a

critical factor for our research cultures.

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So, where does the term come from?

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We can trace it back to Carl Rogers in

:

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brought into management studies work in

the:

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And they talked about it in terms of

reducing interpersonal risk and where

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people feel accepted and worthwhile.

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And then in 1990, William Kahn also

talked about psychological safety

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to describe conditions that were

influencing personal engagement at work.

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And talked about it in terms of being

able to show up and be yourself without

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fear of negative consequences to your

self image or your status or career.

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However, the more recent resurgence of

interest in psychological safety can be

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attributed to Harvard business school.

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Professor Amy Edmondson.

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Amy drew on this concept for her 1999 PhD

thesis, to explain why the best performing

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clinical teams in a hospital were not

the ones who made the fewest mistakes as

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they had hypothesized, but they were in

fact, the ones who've made more mistakes.

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But what distinguish them was that they

felt safe enough to own up to and talk

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about and learn from these mistakes.

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Amy defined psychological safety is a

belief that "one will not be punished

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or humiliated for speaking up with

ideas, questions, concerns, or mistake.

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And that the team is safe for

personal interpersonal risk taking".

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And she's written about this in a 2019

book called 'The fearless organization.

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Creating psychological safety

in the workplace for learning

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innovation and growth'.

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And I'd highly recommend that book.

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And it's interesting in that

title where she talks about

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learning innovation and growth.

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Because that really captures why

psychological safety is so important.

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And how relevant.

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Our learning innovation and growth

are for our research environments.

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On her webpage.

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Amy also talks about psychological

safety being what is needed to clear

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blockages that will block innovation,

collaboration, and risk taking.

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And again, that sort of terminology

of innovation, collaboration, and

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risk-taking could be very much the

terminology that we would use as basic

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definitions of what science is about.

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We embrace many of today's problems

and try to address them and

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solve them through innovation,

collaboration, and risk taking.

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Where we really need everyone to

contribute in order to make a difference.

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We need people to be able to speak up.

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We need people to be able to take risks

and to ask challenging research questions

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and to live with uncertainty and deal

with trying different paths and see

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things not working and trying again.

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It's for these reasons that I really

see it as a critical concept for

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research and research environments.

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So with co-author Zhike Lei.

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I'm not sure if I

pronounce that correctly.

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Amy wrote an interesting paper that was

published in:

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of research that had been conducted on

psychological safety up to that point.

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And I'll put a link to

the paper on the webpage.

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And in that paper, they identified a

number of what they call consistent

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relationships across the studies.

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So just listen to these and think

about them through the lens of

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doing innovative research in a

interdisciplinary collaborative teams.

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So, first of all, they identified that

there's a significant relationship between

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psychological safety and performance.

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And they talk about this relationship

between psychological safety and effective

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performance as being particularly

relevant, where there is uncertainty

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and a need for either creativity or

collaboration to accomplish that work.

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So psychological safety enables us to

deal with the uncertainty and own up to

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all of the risks that's involved in that.

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And isn't that the definition of

research, engaging with uncertainty

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in order to make new contributions,

to knowledge and to society.

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And the collaboration aspect too enables

us to deal with the importance of

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needing lots of different contributions.

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And working out how to best mobilize

those contributions and negotiate all the

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challenges that arise from recognizing

that collaboration involves difference,

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different opinions, different points

of view, different personalities.

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And how we negotiate,

navigate those differences.

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And the importance of us all being free to

speak up and offer our opinions and so on.

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So the second theme that they talk

about is in relation to learning.

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And again, what is research, if

not an ongoing learning journey?

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So to quote directly from their article.

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"Much learning in today's

organization takes place in the

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interpersonal interactions between

highly interdependent members.

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And learning behaviors can be

limited by individual concerns about

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interpersonal risks or consequences,

including a fear of not achieving one's

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goals and learning anxiety created

by feelings of incompetence that in

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that occurred during the learning".

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End of quote.

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And here I'm reminded from this lovely

quote from Pat Thompson, a researcher

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from Nottingham university who talks

about us as academics, needing to get

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comfortable being learners on the path

to becoming professional not knowers.

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I'm not sure if I've got

that totally correct.

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But don't you love that?

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We're always going to be learners and

we have to be just come comfortable

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with being professional not knowers.

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So that means that learning

is always about that gap, that

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uncomfortable gap between what we

know now and what we need to know.

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One of the common ways that we bridge

that gap is often through trying things

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out by trial and error that doesn't work.

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And reflecting on it and trying

something else or by making mistakes.

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And I think in that learning,

it's also about just being human

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and having good and bad days.

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And they go on to talk about how the

fact that "people are more likely

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to offer ideas, admit mistakes,

ask for help, or provide feedback

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if they feel safe to do so".

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Again, this is so important for being

able to come up with our best research

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solutions that have impact on society and

the challenges that we're trying to solve.

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And that's the very reason why we're

doing research in the first place.

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And the third strand that they're

identified across their studies is

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about people needing to feel prepared

to speak up to power in a way.

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So they, to quote them "Individuals who

experienced greater psychological safety

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are more likely to speak up at work.

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Upward communication can be a

vital force in helping contemporary

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organizations learn and succeed.

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By speaking up to those who occupy

positions to authorize actions,

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employees can help challenge the

status quo, identify problems or

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opportunities for improvement.

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And other ideas to improve

their organizations wellbeing".

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End quote.

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We can think that through for

many situations where it feels

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particularly risky to speak up to

some sort of power or authority.

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Especially if they seem to know much more

than what we know, or if they're really

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under stress and pushing, delivery on

the project, because they're concerned

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about producing results for the funding

agency or the next publication for

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their CV or for their promotion case.

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And so on.

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And it's this safe feeling

that you can speak up.

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That's going to be so important.

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If we're going to see a decrease

in the number of retracted papers,

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say due to methodological problems

that aren't being honestly reported.

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Or the fudging of results.

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You know, And often junior researchers

not feeling brave enough or safe enough to

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actually say there was a problem with the

particular performance of an experiment.

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So that was their three themes.

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And it's interesting that an internal

udy at Google that started in:

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and actually involved significant

amount of data studying 180 of their

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teams identified psychological safety

as the most important factor to explain

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what made the most successful teams.

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And this was in a project that

they called project Aristotle.

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So it wasn't about having the best

technical superstars in the team.

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And in fact, their top five factors

also reflect very much what Nina said

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about the patterns that they saw at

the academy across the nominations for

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what makes a good research environment.

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So those top factors that made for that

Google's most successful teams were 1.

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Psychological safety that people

felt safe to take risks and be

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vulnerable in front of each other.

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2.

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Dependability that people got things

done on time and to a high standard.

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3., that there was structure and clarity

around roles and plans and goals.

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And remember Nina talking

about clear expectations.

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4.

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About the work being meaningful.

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And personally important in some way.

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And 5.

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Impact feeling like their

work and contributions matter

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and help create change.

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Now I know that in a research environment,

we have a lot of structural problems that

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are implicated here in the pressures that

we might be experiencing that lead to a

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lack of psychological safety in some way.

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You know, our highly competitive

performance culture are very

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metrics driven environment.

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And I don't want to discount the work

to be done at this structural level.

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But I still think it's an 'and' situation

. It can have implications for all of us.

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So I'm just going to focus here for

the rest of this episode what I think

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of particularly the implications

for those of us who might be in some

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position of leadership or authority,

and this doesn't have to be a formally

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recognized big L type leadership position.

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It's any of us who have

interactions with others that may

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involve some power difference.

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So, whether you're a project leader

or a research group leader, or a

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supervisor advisor of students, As a

leader, I think we have a particular

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responsibility to set the tone.

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And to role model the sorts of

behaviors that we want to see.

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So I can go through a few things here.

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One is role modeling,

what it means to be real.

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In the workplace, like

showing up as ourselves.

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It means role modeling

when we've made a mistake.

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. . . And that means owning up to the fact

that we can have good and bad days.

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So we may get cranky.

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We may speak to someone in a

way that we're not happy about.

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We may engage in some non-verbal

behaviors that convey some sort

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of disapproval or critique.

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But I think we need to be big enough

to go and apologize and say that

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wasn't good enough rather than just

let it hang, because if we let it

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hang, that becomes a standard of

behavior that's acceptable around here.

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That we can have a bad day

and take it out on people.

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It means role modeling that

we don't know something.

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And that it's okay not to know everything

and to invite input and opinions

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and perspectives from other people.

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It means role modeling,

seeking feedback for ourselves.

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Genuinely interested in how we

can improve, even if it's hard.

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And showing that we are also

on a learning journey as well.

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And wanting to know how we can

be better, how we can do better.

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And not just inviting the feedback

from others, but also responding

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to it with curiosity and grace.

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And showing that we actually value

that feedback by making changes and

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reporting back, how are we going

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And so we, we need as leaders

to be so much more self-aware.

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Of how we react or respond in situations

and to be aware of how our actions and

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reactions can be perceived by others.

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That even if we don't intend to

knock people down, that may be

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by spinning around on a chair and

not giving attention to the person

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who's speaking, where inadvertently.

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Whether deliberately or not

communicating that this person's

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point of view is not important.

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So self-awareness and self reflection

I think is really key to thinking

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about how we show up and how we role

model, what are the behaviors we

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value as part of a psychologically

safe supportive research culture.

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Second bundle of things I think is

very much around, Requiring us to

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get to know people as individuals.

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Because belonging is really a core

underpinning for psychological safety.

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And, belonging is about.

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Being seen and heard and valued.

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For who we are.

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And that means as leaders, our

responsibility to get to know who people

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are and to understand what each person's

strengths are and what they can bring in

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what they can contribute to the group.

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And also how we can best

support different people.

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:

And this requires deep listening

skills and deep empathy skills.

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Another class of activities can be

around how we engage with difference

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:

and how we run our groups, how we

invite seriously invite different

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voices, different opinions and engage

with disagreements in our groups.

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:

And treat them as sites

for productive engagement.

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:

For, um, opportunities for learning.

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And this becomes really important in terms

of not just what we say, but what we do.

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So we may invite people

to bring up problems.

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And then it becomes really

important that we don't focus.

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On the problems in terms

of looking back or seeking.

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To blame or whatever, but that.

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We really learn how to facilitate

the discussions where we can.

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Move it forward.

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And what can we draw out from this?

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:

What can we learn from this for next

time so that we can get better together?

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So it's about inviting the voices

and, and rewarding people for

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speaking up and making it a learning.

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How do we learn?

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:

And it's the consistency

in how this plays out.

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And in terms of clarity around

roles and responsibilities

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:

as was brought up previously.

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So psychological safety is created by

enacting and enabling belonging and.

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Inclusion.

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Now that are both sort of like the basic

requirements for psychological safety,

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:

as well as outcomes in a way of having

a psychologically safe environment.

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:

So I think there's this sort of

mutually reinforcing relationship

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between psychological safety

and belonging and inclusion.

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And we can also connect here to

definitions of research culture.

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Where research culture is often talked

about as encompassing the behaviors,

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the values, the expectations,

attitudes, norms of what we expect

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:

around here and what we accept.

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It's how we do things.

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And there's this lovely quote by

professor Tom Welton in a UK Royal

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Society report that talks about the

way in which cultures are enacted.

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:

That we enact culture there.

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So let me start that quote.

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"Cultures are not set by policy documents

or by distributing a leaflet, but

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through the people with whom we meet

in thousands of seemingly insignificant

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:

interactions on perfectly ordinary days.

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:

And we should all ask ourselves whether we

display the characteristics that we value.

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And want to see embedded within

the cultures in which we work.

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:

Some people are more visible than others.

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[And here I can interject

that this would be the leaders

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:

that I've just talked about.

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:

And to continue the quote].

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But none of us are invisible.

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And we all have a part to play

in developing an inclusive and

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supportive research culture for all".

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End of quote.

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And this connects beautifully to

what Line and Nicklas and Nina said.

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About everyone having a role

in contribution to creating

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:

great research cultures.

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:

And this means we all have a part

to play in contributing to making

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:

that a psychologically safe culture.

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Where people can show up as their

authentic selves and without fear

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of rejection or ridicule and so on.

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:

So what might be some examples

of these seemingly insignificant

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:

interactions on perfectly ordinary days?

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:

In closing here I invite you

just to reflect on what might

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be some examples for you.

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Of the seemingly insignificant

interactions on perfectly ordinary days.

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And it's an invitation to

reflect on how you show up.

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:

And how you contribute to creating

a great research environment.

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:

That you may one day want to put forward

for a research environment prize as

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:

an example of how to do great work.

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:

And we know that these great research

environments, aren't just about

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feeling good and everyone being happy.

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:

But they're actually about

creating the conditions in

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which we can do our best work.

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Our best creative thinking

our best collaborations for

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the benefit of great science.

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And psychological safety

is really key for that.

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Not just for great science, but

also for enabling the wellbeing and

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development of people and learning

processes that support the production

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of that great science and taking risks.

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Culture matters.

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It really matters.

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And we create and

co-create culture together.

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By our choices and by our

everyday interactions.

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We can make it better.

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You can find the summary

notes, a transcript and related

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:

links for this podcast on www.

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:

changingacademiclife.

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:

com.

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:

You can also subscribe to

Changing Academic Life on iTunes,

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:

Spotify and Google Podcasts.

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:

And I'm really hoping that we can

widen the conversation about how

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:

we can do academia differently.

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:

And you can contribute to this by rating

the podcast and also giving feedback.

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:

And if something connected with

you, please consider sharing this

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:

podcast with your colleagues.

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:

Together, we can make change happen.

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