Being Approachable

Metadata

• Author: Jade Garratt

• Full Title: Being Approachable

• Category: #articles

• Summary: Being approachable at work is crucial for fostering psychological safety. It is not a fixed trait but a dynamic quality that requires ongoing effort and proactive behaviors from leaders. By openly sharing mistakes and encouraging dialogue, we can create an environment where everyone feels safe to speak up.

• Document Tags: #psychological-safety

• URL: https://psychsafety.co.uk/being-approachable/

Highlights

• In a great piece of research which used simulation of team scenarios in healthcare education, researchers identified a couple of common misconceptions around approachability:
  1. Approachability is a fixed characteristic – the belief that you either are approachable or you aren’t.
  2. Approachability is mostly about avoiding negative behaviours, such as overt rudeness, chastising people for disturbing you or punishing those who admit mistakes. (View Highlight)
• What their data showed was that approachability is “a dynamic state that is constantly reconstructed through action” and is “more fragile” than often assumed. (View Highlight)
• In other words, it’s not enough to avoid the behaviours that make you unapproachable. You have to actively engage in behaviours that make you approachable. (View Highlight)
• Unfortunately in many contexts, not just healthcare, this results in those with least power being asked to “speak up”, “be courageous” or “lean in” while ignoring the very real risks that doing those things may pose for them. And if they don’t speak up, it’s too easy to place the blame on them, when it’s likely that they want to speak up, or at least know they should, but the space they are in does not feel safe enough for them to do so. (View Highlight)
  • Note: The o'Neill story at Alcoa is a great example of the flip side
• Be more physically present. This one is so simple, but it bears emphasising. Approachability is intrinsically linked to accessibility. If you’re not there, people are less likely to approach you. (View Highlight)
• Think aloud and talk through your decision-making process. In the vast majority of the contexts we work in, from healthcare to education to manufacturing, there is a considerable ambiguity as to what constitutes “best practice” or even “good practice.” We work in areas that are complex, and where we can’t always be sure of the outcome of our actions. So having the conversation out loud about which course of action you are considering, and where you might be uncertain allows space for others to offer their perspective and lets them learn from your approach too. (View Highlight)
• Admit mistakes and be vulnerably imperfect – we often talk about the importance of leaders being the ones to share their mistakes first (View Highlight)
• Use debriefs and retrospectives. These are the ideal places to be explicitly “approachable”. You can actively invite an exploration of ambiguity and bring in learning from different perspectives in a team. (View Highlight)