Have you ever experienced a breakthrough moment during a conversation with a coworker or a manager? Most of us have. Engaging and collaborating with those around us has immense value and is actually an integral component of psychological safety; we call it: collaborator safety.
So what is collaborator safety? It’s feeling safe to engage with others in a way that is unconstrained and freely welcomed, a culture of person-to-person openness and electricity, where interaction and mutual access are stimulated by a culture of engagement. It’s an environment that fosters constructive debate and provides for a constant and perpetual state of open dialogue. It is a culture that is invigorating, effective, positive, highly productive, and characterized by market-shattering output where strong relationships are fostered and team potential is maximized.
Without collaborator safety, a culture of withholding ideas, timidness, and impotent collaboration will lead to low-output, weak relationships, and an unstimulating environment with low growth and potential unrealized. It’s a place nobody wants to be.
When your collaborator safety is developed, your psychological safety will be elevated as a whole. All four quadrants of psychological safety are, while separate, inter-dependent. Thus, as one quadrant – in this case, collaborator safety – grows, the others will more naturally follow.
Giving and receiving feedback in real-time is woven into the fabric of the culture of an environment defined by collaborator safety. You will witness the power as individuals come together to grow, imagine, develop, and to create. With collaborator safety, candor and trust will accelerate the work!
So start the conversation. How will you become someone who is defined by collaborator safety? How will you contribute to the collaborator safety of your environment? What can your organization do to foster collaborator safety? For educational and professionally-vetted resources or for more information on Psychological Safety, click here.
Michael Gillespie is the Founder and CEO of BlueEQ, a global consulting, training, and assessment organization focused on Emotional Intelligence and Psychological Safety.
Kaitlyn Dyshkant is a leading BlueEQ researcher, writer, and content developer.