From Psychological Safety to Emotional Fitness
What makes the difference between stress that motivates and stress that harms, and how can leaders create environments where people flourish?
This post was developed by Paul Zak, of Immersion Neuroscience, our Summit keynote and collaborator.
Stress. It sucks. Stress can literally suck away our energy and the ability to function. Yet, the sources of stress have different effects on the brain. Project-based deadline stress can be beneficial because it has a clear ending point and recruits neural resources that can produce an endorphin "high," enabling people to be highly productive during a project sprint that is just like a runner's high from sprinting.
Social stress, now that's another beast. The science shows that social stressors can activate the brain's pain matrix. The human brain is unique among mammals in that we obtain value from socializing with strangers, and even with other species. So, it is quite natural to put people together to work on a joint project like we do at work. This is what humans do. But humans together also produce friction due to personality differences and stressors.
When stress comes from other people, it tends to be longer lasting than project stress and may last even when the offending people are out of our lives. This is what happens to victims of abuse; the abuse ends but the pain may not. This is why it is essential that leaders of organizations measure and ensure the social environment of work is psychologically safe. That is, that social frictions are low and institutions exist to quickly resolve conflicts. Friction is inevitable, but sustained friction is a productivity and job-satisfaction killer.
Psychological safety starts from the top. Leaders who yell, berate, or belittle direct reports demonstrate that abuse is expected or even encouraged. This generates high friction, low productivity and causes employees to quit their jobs in order to work someplace more congenial. Yet even one disruptive employee can create an unsafe atmosphere, and thus social behaviors should always be respectful, even when people disagree. In fact, constructive disagreements are more likely, as is innovation, when psychological safety is high. Psychological safety is a must to ensure sustainable business operations.
But, psychological safety is just the start. Long-term sustainable profits require that employees not only survive, but thrive. This idea is new so let's dig into it.
Let's start with two data points: fertility in most middle-income and rich countries is below replacement. The US fell below replacement fertility in 2010, while Germany dropped below this level in 1975. The US, and many other countries, also have record low unemployment rates. There is no doubt the war for talent has been won by the talent so that talented employees have choices. Creating opportunities for employees to grow professionally, personally, and even spiritually is a must to sustain workforces. This may include paid time to volunteer, covering the cost of additional training or personally-enriching classes, and flexible work schedules that permit time to pursue avocations. An interesting approach to this is the "tight 40" in which companies mandate that the parking lot is empty by 6pm most nights so that people have time to exercise, socialize, and eat well. This means that while at work, people have to grind hard, but then can relax and recover. It turns out that this stress-then-recover approach is an effective way to build cognitive resources. Our brains need challenges to stave off cognitive decline.
Thriving means that people are fully engaged in life, doing interesting things and facing challenges. Smart leaders engineer challenges at work for employees so that they gain the satisfaction of doing new and important projects. Similarly, those who thrive have adventures with family and friends, facilitating personal growth. Growth for an organization only happens when employees are growing, too. Expanding profits depends on expanding opportunities for employees.
You may be thinking, "gosh, this sounds really hard." Maybe and maybe not. The first thing is that leaders must be role models of respect while coaching direct reports to high performance. But, employees hide many things from leadership and may even lie on surveys just to get along. The easiest way to start creating a healthy culture is to measure psychological safety and thriving so they can be managed and improved. The SIX app from Immersion Neuroscience does exactly that - providing an objective, continuous, neurologic measure of psychological safety and of individual thriving. When SIX is offered as an employee benefit, it guides individuals to improved thriving by identifying which experiences are most valuable neurologically so people can do more of them.
My published research has shown that those who have six or more well-defined high social-emotional value moments per day are fully engaged in life and thus are thriving. These folks have positive moods and high energy. They kick butt in life. Six key moments a day is a simple goal and many of these will happen at work. Leaders can see anonymized data on psychological safety and thriving to ensure they have created a sustainable workplace where everyone is comfortable and can thrive. Recent data from a large tech company that offered SIX as an employee benefit showed a positive correlation between use of the SIX app and the SIX's neural measure of thriving. That is, the app guided users to greater flourishing the more they used it. That's human sustainability which is the foundation for sustainable organizational performance.
Investing in employee emotional fitness protects productivity and makes work more enjoyable and satisfying. Humans create value for organizations and when humans thrive, value creation is sustained over the long haul. Sustainable humans are the foundation for sustainable businesses.
Be sure to register for our next event! Check out what’s coming up next here. Let's continue to build cultures of wellbeing, together!
