psychological safety

"I don't feel like I can be myself", or "the young people don't feel safe".  It is something I hear a lot, especially in the evangelical environments that I used to be involved in. There seems to be something about Christian (evangelical) environments that make it very difficult to create a psychologically safe environment.   I mentioned psychological safety briefly on my blog last weekbut it is such an important concept for churches and organisations to discuss I would like to highlight it again.  

A psychologically safe environment is one where people feel free to be themselves, where they don't have to protect themselves by disengaging or holding back, where they don't fear negative consequences if they say what they think, make mistakes, ask questions express doubtor challenge the status quo.  In contrast to vulnerability which is largely an individual’s ability to share on a personal level, psychological safety deals with the actions, attitudes and beliefs on a group level.  For those of us in christian environments the biggest negative consequence of speaking our minds is the threat to our sense of belonging to the Christian community.  There is still an
emphasis on ‘in’ and ‘out’ and the feeling of belonging is very (perhaps spiritually) important to members.  Members may be reluctant to express themselves as the consequence is that they are labelled as non-christian or non-biblical, and their sense of belonging to the community is questioned.  

Psychological safety is necessary to encourage innovation and learning.  If we want to grow the individuals in our churches and our churches ability to keep up with societal changes we need to create psychological safety.  Leaders have a role to play in creating a psychologically safe congregation, but the research shows that the members have just as an important part in creating safety.  Leaders can help by modelling how to value and appreciate diverse opinions, by acknowledging the diversity of opinions within Christianity and within their denominations.  They can admit their own mistakes and doubts, and importantly they can model that the status quo can be challenged, and ask for input and feedback.  Members then need to be taught how to value and respect other's opinions, and how to be accepting of others doubts and questions.   As an individual it can be difficult to create a psychologically safe environment,  but it is possible to gradually make some small changes.  The first step is to take some small risks in sharing your own thoughts and ideas, this may encourage others to share as well.  Here are some questions to get you and your leadership thinking about psychological safety.  

Is my church a psychologically safe environment for me? For others?
Do the people in my church seem different in contrast to when I speak to individuals?
3) What are the ways in which we re-in force belonging over not-belonging and hold it as a threat for those who don't conform?
4) Does the leadership admit their fallibility, not just in their personal or spiritual life but acknowledging their blind spots and asking for input?  
5) How do I express appreciation for others opinions?
6) What are the small risks I could take this week to express myself fully?

Staying Positive

As we drove through the grassy fields of the Waikato during our summer holiday, we came to a small town.  I noticed that the town had two churches,  they were both rectangles of concrete block or brick that were popular in church architecture prior to 1970.  I looked at these rectangles and became annoyed with our church forebears.  Why couldn't they see that laying out their churches this way, was going to limit the church in the future.  These long rectangles with hard pews set out in rows, it wasn’t going to be the future of the church.  Why did they lack the insight to build structures that were more friendly, that helped us to develop community, discussion and interaction.  Why couldn’t they see that they were just leaving us with problems.  Of course I caught myself, and realised my annoyance was a little irrational and unreasonable, we can only do the best we can based on what we know today.  

This incident made me aware that once we start a process of critical reflection and deconstruction it is only a breath away from becoming critical.   The frustration with the slowness of change, the difficulty of helping people even see the need for change, the work it takes to help people imagine the future, the weight of it all accumulates over time.  The frustrations can quickly lead to a general attitude of negativity towards the church.  As I try and introduce change and cast critically reflective eyes over the church I need to make sure that I have measures in place that can keep me realistic and prevent me from becoming negatively critical.  If I am constantly negative it has an impact on my wellbeing but it also stops people from hearing the genuine critique that I have to offer.  Here are 6 practices that I find help protect me from slipping into negativity.  

1. Have some close friends and/or family who can be completely honest with you, give them permission to say “that is a bit harsh!, I think you are slipping into negativity.”     
2. Create a practice where every few months you must attend a service or event and you     must find 3-4 things, that were done well, and have a holiday from offering critique.    
3. Send some positive feedback or encouragements in a card or e-mail to your faith         community leader.  It can be pretty tough being in leadership today.   
4.  Make time to read stories of successful change in other communities, these stories can    keep you encouraged, help you believe that change is possible and that it will happen.
5. Create small goals, you are not going to change the structure of the whole church today, but perhaps you can start the conversation.
6. Record examples of small changes and small goals that you have achieved, as they        occur and look back over them regularly. Change comes gradually and it is easy to         overlook the gains that have been made.

tend your garden

A fresh year lies before us, it's pain and pleasures lie tightly furled and hidden from our eyes and ears.  As we are swept into the year it can be easy to focus on productivity and tasks, questions like, what do I want to achieve? What do I want to do? How many people do I want to reach? May be circling around your head.    Before you get lost in the pressure to create measurable outcomes stop a minute and think about what happens if you view your life as a garden.  If as we enter the year we focus on tending the garden (tending our own being), then a premature counting of the fruit (measurable outcomes) is removed.  Instead we need to think about the seasons, the soil, the conditions and the needs of the plants.  We then arrive at a different set of questions to focus our year.  We can think about who we are and who we want to become, we can think about what strengths and virtues we want to grow and the values that we want to express.  

We can focus on what we want to grow in ourselves rather than what we want to achieve.

Here are some questions to think about  

1. What character traits or virtues do you want to cultivate? (For me it is patience).  
2. What needs fertilising or extra energy? What type of fertiliser works best? (I definitely need lots of silence!)
3. What needs pruning? (Sugar and caffeine for me!).
4. What is feeling dry and desiccated and needs a watering schedule? (my IRL relationships need some work)
5. What tiny buds of strengths and character do you see in your children or people you work with that you need to notice and nourish?  
6. What needs to lie fallow?  Which areas of your life are depleted and need to rest?
7. What is your watering schedule? How will it change as the seasons change?
8. What is the Holy Spirit saying about which areas of the garden are full of unnoticed life, that may be going to bloom this year?