Creating psychological safety is like bungee jumping
Last week I organized a Personal Development weekend for about 25 colleagues. The topic of the weekend was Setting and extending boundaries/limits (Grenzen stellen en verleggen in Dutch).
Because of the topic we knew some vulnerable stories might come up, so we needed to create an atmosphere of Psychological Safety. Psychological Safety means being able to say what you want to say, however hard, because you know it will be taken in the right way.
The thing with Psychological Safety is that it doesn’t come automatically. Someone has to start, someone has to be the first one to test the waters and prove to the others that it is actually safe.
This got me thinking about bungee jumping.
In bungee jumping, the free fall is the scariest part. It fills you with adrenaline, and you’re not sure whether the elastic will hold you.
Then slowly but surely you feel the band around your ankles tightening. You feel the support of the bungee cord, and after bouncing up and down a few times you’re hanging there. Safe and supported.
This is a perfect metaphor for creating Psychological Safety. Because jumping into a personal story is scary. While you’re talking, sharing, and being vulnerable the adrenaline is coursing through your body. You’re anxious, scared, not sure of how people will react.
Then slowly but surely you see that people are engaged. You make eye contact, you see emotions in their eyes as well. You’re connected and they’re living this with you. Like the bungee cord coming under tension, you feel that you are supported. And by the end of your story, you’re sure that you are safe in this environment. That your peers are holding you up (hopefully not by your ankles).
The biggest challenge
The most challenging part, of course, is that someone needs to go first. Someone needs to be the first one to jump off that bridge. To take the risk of venturing where no one has gone before. To test whether the bungee cord will be strong enough.
Doing a bungee jump when you’ve seen 10 or 20 people go before you is still scary. But being the first one can feel literally life-threatening.
It is also the most valuable, because you’re paving the way for everyone else to jump.
So kudo’s to the people that are willing to be live crash test dummies. The people that jump even though they’re not sure whether the bungee cord will hold them. The people that put their own Psychological Safety on the line for the benefit of everyone else. I bow to you.
If that’s not you yet, maybe next time. Remember what you can do for others.
And if you are guiding a group where safety needs to be created, but people say that they don’t feel safe enough to share yet, think of this analogy. Explain that someone needs to go first for it to become safe. Invite them to take a leap of faith, and trust that someone will stand up.
