Trust, the Foundation for Psychosocial Safety

I find it fascinating all these programs on psychosocial safety that don’t articulate a foundation in an ethic of trust/risk. There is no trust without risk nor psychosocial safety without trust.

But most importantly, there is little point focusing on psychosocial safety if you think it is about ‘hazards’ (https://safetyrisk.net/what-is-psychosocial-safety/). The language of ‘hazards’ is the kiss of death to establishing trust and psychosocial safety in the workplace.

Only Safety could think that psychosocial safety is obtained by focusing on objects.

This is because focusing on objects, measures, systems and performance is easy. This is what emerges from an industry that has no mature ethic nor understanding of the basics of morality.

The last thing Safety wants to talk about is ‘persons’ or ‘personhood’. Yet, the foundation for psychosocial safety is found in: a clearly articulated ethic of risk and, an understanding of power and personhood. None of this is discussed in the AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics or in any of the discussion I see on psychosocial safety.

Moreso, the invisible ethic that dominates safety is deontology, the duty to safety. We see this all the time where Safety talks about ‘trust in systems’ and its obsession with ‘safety performance’. If your frame of reference is ‘organisational performance’, you will never know how to engender trust.

So, let’s have a quick look at what erodes trust:

1. A big one is ‘double speak’. When you say one thing then do another, trust goes out the window.
2. Surveillance is a killer of trust. Just put cameras on site and start using video data to drive safety and find out what happens. A sure recipe for a toxic culture.
3. Breaking confidentiality always destroys trust. If your duty is to safety not persons then confidentiality goes out the window, as does trust.
4. Preaching compliancedestroys trust because trust requires an ethic of tolerance and empathy to fallibility.
5. Any organisation that uses the language of zero destroys trust. When what you value is anchored to a number people know that they come last.
6. Sloganeering destroys trust because it is disingenuous. Everyone knows that sprouting silly slogans like ‘blame fixes nothing’ completely fall over the moment you call something ‘dumb’. This is what HOP does. No wonder Safety loves HOP.
7. Transparencyis essential for engendering trust. If your methods in safety are not open and transparent, trust will be low.
8. Micro-managementspells the end of trust, just as does the obsession by Safety on ‘controls’. When the language is about ‘controls’, ‘systems’, ‘performance’ and ‘hazards’, there can be no culture of trust.
9. Telling, the favourite activity of Safety kills trust. If you want to establish trust, stop telling and start listening.
10. Openly accepting dissentis essential for leadership in trust but this is not what safety wants. When dissent is branded as ‘toxic’ and ‘critical thinking’ as ‘anti-safety’ there will be no trust.

So, what builds trust, as the foundation for psychosocial safety?

1. The place to start is with The Ethics of Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-ethics-of-risk/). Unless psychosocial safety is founded in a clear articulation of power, personhood and moral meaning, talk about psychosocial safety will be just ‘noise’.
2. The out working of The Ethics of Risk helps generate principles (not slogans) that people can accept. Creating common meaning in real principles, emerges when one articulates moral meaning in risk.
3. Building relationshipsshould be more than just an idea but rather should be supported by practical positive methods that enhance engagement. In SPoR, we do this through the iCue© method.
4. iCue is a method that fosters visual verbal dialogue, essential for openness and transparency.
5. Accepting fallibility and vulnerability is foundational for trust, especially accepting responsibility for blame and knowing how responding with grace. Preaching no blame, falls over the moment blame surfaces in ‘double speak’.
6. Being aware of unconscious messaging is critical for engendering trust. This means understanding the dynamics of Poetics and Semiotics in messaging. So often Safety spouts some idea that is contradicted by the semiotics that accompany it.
7. People will never ‘speak up’ just because some authority runs a ‘speak up’ campaign. Indeed, the more campaigns circulate asking people to ‘speak up’ confirm that what is being done doesn’t work. People only speak up when they trust leadership.
8. Motivation to trust doesn’t come from behaviourism. Rather, motivation to trust comes from a focus on the Social Psychology of Risk. Trust is a social energy (not a collection of behaviours), quickly killed by the interests of individualism and measuring performance.
9. Listening drives trust and this comes from knowing how to ask questions for listening. There is nothing about in safety that helps people learn how to listen.
10. Understanding the nature of politics is essential for engendering trust. How politics works is of little interest to safety.

A good place to start in understanding trust is: Bachmann and Zaheer, Handbook of Trust Research or Green and Howe, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook.

Or if you are looking for a methodology and methods to engender trust you can ask here: admin@spor.com.au and we can coach you in how to use the iCue method to engender trust in your workplace.

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Prof. Robert Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Prof. Robert Long (see all)

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PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.