Pink pants, pink cabins in Dubai, and safe spaces
When I travel, I make it a point to meet new people. So, during my recent trip to Dubai, I went on an excursion to Festival City to meet with Laaleen Sukhera, a communications professional. We quickly discovered that we share a preference for pink pants.
It was no surprise that I then stumbled upon Dubai Metro's pink cabins. The prospect of boarding a tightly packed cabin made my heart sink, so I opted to board the pink cabin—reserved for women and children—and could sense myself decompressing.
This got me thinking about safe spaces in another context: organizations.
What do organizations require during periods of fast growth? More than anything else: Safety.
Growth Without Safety: The Organizational Dilemma
In my experience, organizations that experience significant growth often develop a somewhat toxic culture and work environment.
Take a well-funded startup that scales, for example. Suppose it grows so quickly that the employee base increases from 20 to 200. In that case, leaders often lack the time or skill set to provide psychological safety or maintain the original "we are all in it together" mentality. Well-established corporations with high profits and revenues can look great on paper and pay their employees attractive salaries—yet they feature an autocratic, top-down leadership approach that leaves their members wishing for a more inclusive work environment.
Neglecting safety in these scenarios can lead to:
Burnout: A 2024 survey by the American Psychological Association found that 15% of workers reported a "toxic" work environment, contributing to burnout (American Psychological Association, 2024).
High turnover: Burnout and stress are significant drivers of employee turnover. By creating a psychologically safe environment, leaders can reduce the likelihood of key talent leaving (Forbes et al., 2024).
Toxic culture: In 2023, around 42% of NHS staff felt unwell in the last 12 months as a direct result of workplace stress, indicating a toxic culture (BMJ et al., 2023).
Loss of innovation: Psychological safety fosters creativity and innovation. Without it, employees may withhold ideas, stifling innovation (American Psychological Association, 2024).
organizational sanctuaries: their true nature
Organizations, like people, need safe spaces to flourish. These are places where employees can:
Share ideas without fear of judgment.
Admit failure and learn from it.
Trust that their leaders and peers have their backs.
Most organizations do not have safe spaces. However, safe spaces can be retrofitted, like a pink cabin in a metro.
The Theoretical Foundations of Safe Spaces
Several concepts about safety in organizations are worth noting:
Amy Edmondson's psychological safety: This concept focuses on creating environments where employees feel safe to voice opinions, ask questions, and challenge the status quo without fear of negative consequences (Edmondson, 1999). How can you - a busy manager - turn this into a solution for your organization? Create rituals like "question hours" during team meetings where employees are encouraged to ask even the most basic questions without judgment. Recognize and reward employees who speak up or bring up new ideas, even if those ideas are not implemented.
Peter Senge's learning organizations: Senge emphasizes creating systems where teams feel safe to experiment and learn together (Senge, 1990). What are the implications for your work? Introduce regular "failure debriefs," where the team reflects on what went wrong in projects and discusses how to improve in a constructive, blame-free environment. Such an approach normalizes experimentation and learning.
Edgar Schein's organizational culture model: Schein's model highlights that culture is a living and breathing entity that leaders can shape, with trust being a key component. Schein focuses on three different layers of culture, all of which can easily be unearthed during a two-hour workshop (Schein, 2004). What steps should you as a manager take? Audit your organization's values by asking employees what behaviors are rewarded versus discouraged. Use this feedback to design small interventions, like public acknowledgment of collaboration over competition, to align day-to-day actions with your desired culture.
Frederic Laloux's teal organizations: Laloux explores how companies can evolve into self-managing, adaptable systems where safety is a prerequisite (Laloux, 2014). So what? What should you do? Start by giving teams more autonomy in decision-making. Set up boundaries like budgets or timelines, but allow them to decide how to achieve outcomes. This builds trust and empowers employees to self-manage within a safe structure.
Photo by Dubai Travel Blog on Unsplash
Retrofitting Safe Spaces
Much like a pink cabin can be added to an existing subway line, safe spaces can be introduced to existing organizations. This can be achieved by implementing the following steps:
Starting with leadership: Encourage self-awareness and vulnerability among leaders.
Promoting open dialogue and transparency: Create platforms for employees to share concerns and ideas without fear of retaliation.
Encourage a new view of failure: Establish a culture that values failure as a step toward improvement.
Build trust and empathy: Share techniques such as active listening, mentorship, and celebrating small wins.
For startups, organizational sanctuaries are a must
There is a reason why I included the reference to startups that scale in my article. Based on my own experience and that of colleagues, startups that look great on paper do not always feature a healthy culture. Quite the contrary, they can be prone to organizational dynamics that are toxic, with leaders questioning employees’ commitment and demanding sacrifices (time, energy, creativity). A friend of mine and I recently discussed the organizational dynamics of startup she currently serves.
I shared my observation with her that “the organizational system follows its own rules and create its inherent logic, but for an outsider, these are not rational rules”.
The role of safe spaces in ventures resonated with my acquaintance, a fractional CFO. She was intrigued. How do you create them? How do convince leaders to invest in them? Holding regular team huddles, open office hours with leaders, and using tech tools for anonymous feedback can foster a safe environment.
How do get buy-in for the establishment of safe spaces from founders and venture capitalist? You show the link between safe spaces, productivity, innovation and team performance:
Higher Productivity: Employees who feel safe are more engaged and effective. According to Gallup, highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability (Gallup, 2023).
Innovation Growth: Psychological safety fosters creativity. Studies show that teams with high psychological safety generate more innovative ideas (Amy Edmondson, 1999).
Retention Rates: Startups often lose talent due to burnout or toxic cultures. Highlight that replacing an employee costs up to twice their annual salary (SHRM, 2023). Safe spaces reduce turnover by promoting trust and well-being. Establishing safe spaces is crucial to maintaining cohesion and innovation in fast-growing companies.
Creating a culture conducive to both growth and safety
Just as the pink cabins in the Dubai Metro provide a haven amidst the hustle, organizations can create their own "cabins" of safety in the chaos of rapid growth. Safety is not about avoiding challenges but equipping teams to handle them together. Leaders should prioritize safety as part of their growth strategy, ensuring that as the organization scales, its members thrive.
Sources:
American Psychological Association (2024): Work in America 2024 Report. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/work-in-america/2024
Amy Edmondson (1999): Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1999/11/psychological-safety-and-learning-behavior-in-work-teams
Forbes Coaches Council (2024): The Hidden Link Between Psychological Safety and Preventing Burnout in High-Performing Teams. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2024/11/04/the-hidden-link-between-psychological-safety-and-preventing-burnout-in-high-performing-teams/
Gallup (2023): The Relationship Between Employee Engagement and Business Performance. Retrieved from https://www.gallup.com/
Google re: Guide: Understanding Team Effectiveness (Project Aristotle). Retrieved from https://rework.withgoogle.com/
BMJ Quality & Safety (2023): Workplace Stress and Wellbeing Among NHS Staff. Retrieved from https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/33/8/483
Frederic Laloux (2014): Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Retrieved from https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/
Peter Senge (1990): The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Discipline-Practice-Learning-Organization/dp/0385517254
Edgar Schein (2004): Organizational Culture and Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Organizational-Culture-Leadership-Edgar-Schein/dp/0787968455
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM, 2023): The Cost of Employee Turnover. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/