The Asymmetry of Voice and Silence
Why psychological safety enables people to share their best ideas and important concerns.
Author: Kellie Cummings
Image: @tinaflour
Topic
Psychological Safety
The science
Implicit theories of voice are common beliefs about when it is and isn’t safe to raise a concern to higher ups at work.
Why it matters
When employees don’t feel comfortable speaking up, they hold back valuable ideas and important concerns. Asymmetry refers to the fact that companies benefit when people speak up, but individuals benefit from remaining silent.
Have you ever worked on a team that was dominated by one or two outspoken people? Yes? I thought so. Now recall a time when you worked on a team that was truly energizing, where each person contributed their best ideas, and everyone seemed interested in what the others had to say. If given the chance, would you work with that team again? Yeah, me, too.
So, what is it that makes some teams great and others miserable? Researchers at Google found that high performing teams have high levels of psychological safety, in addition to other factors. Amy Edmondson, the organizational behavior scientist who introduced the term team psychological safety defined it as a team climate that is safe for interpersonal risk taking. On these teams, people freely express their best ideas and their concerns without fear for how higher ups will respond.
Why people stay silent
According to a 2003 study on workplace silence in industries such as financial services, media, pharmaceuticals, and consulting, people gave the following reasons for keeping their ideas to themselves:
Not wanting to be seen in a bad light
Not wanting to embarrass or upset someone
A sense of futility that their comments won’t make a difference
A fear of retaliation
Not wanting to be labeled negatively
Not wanting to damage relationships
In her book, The Fearless Organization, Edmondson explains that while the organization and its customers benefit when people voice their ideas and concerns, the individual employee benefits from staying silent—and the benefit is immediate. She succinctly explains an employee’s decision-making calculus with the phrase “no one was ever fired for silence.” And the table below illuminates the benefits of speaking up or remaining silent.
| Who Benefits | When Benefit Occurs | Certainty of Benefit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voice | The organization and/or its customers | Later | Low |
| Silence | The employee | Immediately | High |
How to strengthen psychological safety
Over the past year, I’ve worked on a team with a high level of psychological safety and the experience has been tremendously enjoyable. One day, I noticed that our team was laughing at the beginning of a meeting and again at the end, but in the middle of the meeting, we disagreed with each other several times. Our collaboration was effective and energizing—and we didn’t get our feathers ruffled when someone disagreed with us. Here are some aspects of how we worked that reflect best practices for team psychological safety.
During meetings, each of us spoke for roughly the same amount of time and we each participated actively. This balance of turn-taking was noted in Google’s research and stands out to me personally, because when I’ve worked on less dynamic teams, one or two people have dominated the conversation.
We each encouraged each other to take the risk of speaking up, by normalizing disagreement. We each drew from our own expertise and experience to offer our opinions, which would routinely contradict or offer a nuance to someone else’s opinion. These disagreements were not about vying for authority but rather about seeing a decision from all perspectives.
Google’s researchers found that high performing teams had a high “average social sensitivity,” and we excelled in this way by taking extra care to keep each other well informed and to listen attentively to each other.
We also used an online collaboration space to share our opinions and supporting research, which increased transparency. Google’s research found that ambiguity and uncertainty undermine confidence and trust, which underscores the importance of clear communication.
Want to learn more about high performing teams?
In 2016, Charles Duhigg wrote an article titled: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. This essay described Project Aristotle, Google’s multi-year study to understand why some teams perform exceptionally well and others don’t. The findings from Project Aristotle showed that high performing teams had five factors in common: meaningful work, clear goals, a belief that the work has impact, dependable colleagues, and psychological safety. But of those five, “psychological safety was by far the most important,” according to Google’s research.
Fostering team psychological safety is something that everyone can actively support — not just leaders. Help your team learn about psychological safety and discuss what each person can do to create a climate that feels safe for risk taking. You might just build a highly enjoyable team environment in the process!