Psychological safety is a compromise

It’s interesting to note that psychological safety is NOT a natural thing: our instinct is to always try to protect ourselves by not speaking up. The reason is that the pros of speaking up are usually delayed and uncertain (something might go wrong if you speak up), while the cons are usually immediate and certain (your boss will certainly berate you for speaking up).

Therefore, you can’t expect people to speak up out of sheer willpower, because it’s unnatural. The trick to fostering psychological safety, then, is to completely flip the equation:

• You want to make the pros more immediate and more. This is typically done by systematizing psychological safety at the organization level and rewarding people for speaking up rather than punishing them.
• You want to punish those who don’t speak up by framing it as a disservice to the user/customer. If someone has an opinion or critical thought, they should have an obligation to share it with the group.

References

• The Fearless Organization