Introduction

The Tenerife Airport Disaster, occurring on March 27th 1977, remains aviation’s darkest day. The lessons learned from the disaster however, extend far beyond the world of aviation and apply directly to any team facing a fast moving, high stakes incident.

On that fateful day, 583 people lost their lives when two 747 airliners collided on a foggy runway at Los Rodeos Airport. Blame for the disaster is attributable to a combination of inadequate airport infrastructure, communication failures, human factors, and the absence of effective Crew Resource Management (CRM).

The disaster was a catalyst for a cultural shift towards safety in the aviation industry. It taught the industry that safety isn’t just about technology, but about fostering an environment where junior crew members on the flight deck are encouraged to challenge the decisions of those in charge if they believe there is a safety imperative.

Had the flight crew of KLM felt psychologically safe to challenge Captain van Zanten’s authoritative demeanour, then it is likely that he would not have carried out the decision to take off on a fog bound runway, killing all on board, and everyone bar the 61 survivors on the Pan Am 747 that they collided with.

What is psychological safety?

The term psychological safety was coined by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, and is the belief that ‘one cannot be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for inter-personal risk taking.’ Where psychological safety is absent in a team, the results, particularly in safety critical industries, can be catastrophic.

Psychological safety and incident management teams

A key success factor in managing any incident, is the ability of a team to be creative, agile, and adaptable to rapidly unfolding events.

All hazards or incident agnostic plans, allow us to bend and flex to the incident needs, whilst also providing the necessary structure that is the bedrock of our response. This bending and flexing can only work however, when those in leadership positions can adapt their style of leadership to the situation at hand.

Autocratic Leadership

For certain fast moving, high stake incidents, the leader may choose to adopt a style that is autocratic. Autocratic leadership styles are not generally associated with psychological safety, however, the clear hierarchies associated with environments such as emergency services work can lead to acceptance of this power dynamic. Firefighters train this way and expect orders to be issued by an Incident Commander (IC) on the fireground.

Modern training in firefighting supports IC’s in their decision making, by aligning a pragmatic risk based philosophy to a healthy organisational risk appetite. It also encourages firefighters to challenge the decision of an IC if they believe there is a safety issue at stake. CRM, sometimes referred to as Team Resource Management, has been adopted by many Fire/ Rescue Services and integrates within their respective Incident Command Systems. Modern fire service command approaches, balance the tactics of response with bigger picture strategic outcomes and mission effectiveness.

Collaborative Leadership

Of course, incident management is not all about rapid decision making and immediate life risks. In many cases, the incident will allow for a more considered approach by the individual leading the response. Collaborative leadership styles are effective in reducing team anxiety and potentially enhancing cognitive ability to problem solve. Collaborative leaders demonstrate and foster trust, actively encouraging all voices to speak, even if some of those voices are dissenting. They create an environment where team members feel valued by their contribution and feel safe in speaking up, an environment of psychological safety.

The Cost of Silence

Throughout history there are many examples of what can happen when psychological safety is missing in teams and people are afraid or don’t feel empowered to speak up. Both the BP Deepwater Horizon and Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster are two such examples that not only led to loss of life, but severe reputational damage for the organisations involved.

Incident Management Structure

When an organisation is impacted by a significant incident, we may see a response dispersed across a wide geographical area. Typically, this response can be divided into strategic, tactical, and operational levels. At each level, the requirement for psychological team safety is high.

At the Strategic Level, a C suite team will lead the overall organisational response. This team may be located remote from the incident and will only be convened should the incident be one of significant magnitude. The executive suite sets the tone for the organisations culture and must demonstrate through its actions and words that psychological safety is not just an abstract concept but a strategic imperative. Leaders here must model openness, trust and vulnerability and demonstrate a growth mindset that percolates downwards throughout the organisation.

Implementing the decisions of the strategic response, and supporting the on-site incident response, is the Tactical Level. This level may lead the initial response to the incident, until pre-determined effect levels see a strategic response activated. They have many reporting lines, including upwards to the strategic level, downwards to the operational level and laterally to multiple stakeholders involved. They need to feel empowered to make decisions confidently, without fear of blame or second guessing from above.

At the incident site, we have an Operational Level of response. This level, is most likely hierarchical in nature, with established roles, functions, and reporting lines. Those with a command function should be empowered to make decisions within the remit of their authority and in the belief that organisational support at higher levels will be forthcoming. Psychological safety is paramount here; this is the coal face of the incident and decisions are quite often made with limited or competing information and compressed timelines. Where psychological safety is in evidence, earlier and safer incident resolution often occurs.

The benefits of psychological safety in incident management

Communications:

· Psychologically safe teams lack fear of consequence and thereby communicate clearer, more authentically and more truthfully to all stakeholders, reducing the possibility of reputational damage in a crisis.

· Teams working at both Operational and Tactical levels will likely share bad news quicker, thereby allowing the Strategic response more time to manage this.

Decision Making:

· Team members are more likely to share information within the team, leading to greater collective situational awareness and subsequent effective decision making

· Team members feel empowered to make decisions within the scope of their team function, allowing for a timelier resolution of the incident itself

· Decisions are made without procrastination as fear of castigation is removed

Positive culture and attitude:

· Positive learning environments are experienced as teams feel free to try new ideas

· Safe teams feel more motivated resulting in greater effort and rewards

· Innovation and creative thoughts thrive

How can we implement psychological safety in our incident management teams?

Organisational Culture

It all starts with culture. Does your organisation encourage people to speak up when something is wrong? Is there a culture of openness and transparency throughout your company? If the answer to both questions is no, then issues of trust and communications will be magnified during a crisis and teams will not only feel disempowered but also psychologically unsafe.

Changes in this area don’t happen overnight, it takes time to truly turn a ship around and for employees to buy into this new directional course. Nonetheless, when we are valuing employee input and following a maxim that it’s ok to not have all the answers, we are building trust and more active employee engagement across a range of services, not just incident response.

Edmondson’s 4 Stages of Psychological Safety

Edmondson’s four stages of psychological safety are an excellent building block for any organisation looking to develop psychologically safe teams. The four stages of Inclusion Safety, Learner Safety, Contributor Safety and Challenger Safety can be applied to any organisation. It is a progressive system, starting with employees feeling valued and respected and culminating in them having the confidence to challenge the status quo, engage in constructive dissent, and drive real innovation.

Incident Response and Crisis Exercising

Exercises test organisational response to a crisis, create awareness of the need for cohesive teams and the requirement for all employees, including those leading the response, to feel psychologically safe.

Post-mortem meetings that analyse the organisational response to a fictitious scenario in an exercise, are an opportunity for all to input and feel valued and acknowledged through a process of open dialogue.

Concluding thoughts

Psychological safety is not a ‘soft skill’, it’s a hard edge in incident response. The question is; does your incident response team feel safe to speak up when it matters most?

If you’d like to find out more about psychological safety, building crisis ready teams or strengthening your organisational resilience, reach out to us here at Prosilience Consulting.

www.prosilienceconsulting.eu

email: derek@prosilienceconsulting.eu

Why your incident management team needs to feel psychologically safe