Achieving Inclusion and Learner Safety Environment
In our early years, we were accustomed to wearing uniforms in our school. It implies what school you belong to and that you abide by the rules inside. To some countries, a blood compact (Pacto de Sangre) was used to seal a friendship or treaty. These are some languages of inclusion — the grant of equal access and opportunities, acceptance, and acknowledgment of individuals.
Its main goal is to build an enduring system of cooperation. It is not about tolerance or an attempt to cover up differences or mistakes. Inclusion Safety allows the organization to embrace the uniqueness and differences of individuals. Learner Safety allows the organization to fuel the circulation of knowledge and awareness from the bottom of the organization to the top to increase its adaptive capacity. It also empowers people to be curious and creative.
The enemy in cultivating inclusion and learner safety is fear. It suspends initiative and represses creativity. It might be present under the hood when an individual remains to be silent, respond only when being asked, unable to speak their mind and work unpredictably. One of the best ways to foster this safe environment in our workplace are:
- Communicate Goals, Progress, And Shortcoming. Asking hard questions, seeking feedback, creating discussions, and reporting errors or mistakes without the fear of punishment are recipes to build better relationships.
- Encourage Collaboration. The nature of the collaborative work environment accelerates the development of familiarity, which is highly important in the fostering of psychological safety. The faster and deeper you get to know each other, the higher the chance that you can work together effectively.
- Foster Trust and Confidence. Giving an individual a manageable task will slowly gain individual confidence. Tasks that can bore or overwhelmed them can do otherwise and trust formation is abandoned. The absence of trust is the growth of exclusion of team members. This can be troubling because trust is what binds a team.
- Meaningful Recognition. Not all rewards are recognition. The reward has a low impact if it has no meaning. Individuals are motivated by recognition more than rewards. The lack of recognition or validation will make an impression that what an individual doing is worthless.
The decision to include or exclude more about the intent than technique. It’s not about the skill or the personality although it can strengthen your ability to connect.
Challenges as a Leader
The increasing demands of a learning organization require a leader who can set direction, serve, coach, enable and facilitate. They must model a level of openness, humility, and curiosity and facilitate the transition from autocratic to egalitarian, from task-oriented to people-oriented, and from directive to facilitative. There are some red flags that we need to be aware of that can undermine these efforts:
- The Verbally Aggressive member. These individuals are prone to threaten other members with verbal abuse and criticism. It is demoralizing, lead to alienation,
- The Snub member. Ignored messages can fuel up misinterpretations in team communication. Not responding to messages can be worse than outright rejection. It can crush confidence and leave a person in resentful, stupefied silence.
- The Avoidant to Learning member. Members that belong in the higher hierarchy should not relieve from the responsibility to learn and share.
These experiences are not neutral events. Leaders should remove the barriers of coercion, neglect, and manipulation. If the individuals aren’t free to probe, experiment, ask silly questions, learn and fail, they won’t venture. The team member will become more defensive, less reflective, and less able to self-diagnose, self-coach, and self-correct. This will lead to real failure — when an individual failed to continue trying and fall to be a victim compliant.
One of the most important signals in granting psychological safety is the leader’s
- a consistent pattern of positive emotional response
- emotional response to dissent and distress
- active listening and constructive criticisms
Individuals will absorb these cues and gauge their participation accordingly.
Conclusion
It’s the leader’s job to increase mental friction and decrease emotional tension. Motivating an individual to have meaningful work and offering help is the true essence of team success. This recursive process is vital in a learning organization to achieve innovation. This is the lifeblood of growth and yet a formidable cultural challenge.
