The biggest misunderstanding about psychological safety in Japan?
That there is only one kind of psychological safety. Actually, there are two.
This makes most people blink twice. "Uh, did you say 'two types'"?
Fear is not something that exists as an invisible miasma in the atmosphere. Fear exists in a person's mind. You and I could be in the same meeting, experiencing totally different fears.
So who manages your fear? Who manages mine?
If someone else removes our fears for us, that is externally provided safety. If we handle our fears on our own, that is internally generated safety.
One concept, but two ways of thinking about handling that fear: Externally Given Psychological safety and Internally Generated Psychological safety.
We can make strong cases for both. But with my clients, they put all their chips on Externally Given Safety, with the assumption that Internally Generated Safety will come next ... somehow, through osmosis, maybe.
That's a risky assumption.
If you manage my fear for me, what happens when you are no longer in the room to make me feel safe? What happens when I meet new people who I don't understand or trust yet? What happens when an aggressive asshole tries to intimidate me into silence?
And here’s perhaps an uncomfortable truth: the people who make business truly unsafe are the least likely to take psychological safety seriously. I’ve met these types. We all have.
And I don't want to wait for them to make me feel safe because they are legally or morally required to. They might wiggle out, gaslight me, or try to make my life hell.
When I look at my clients, I find myself thinking, “What do they need to survive reality?”
Externally provided safety, up to a point, is not a bad thing. But if I look to others to manage my fear, and neglect my own ability to make myself feel safe regardless of the context, I will have very few places where I can function on my own. My ability to act will depend on how other people behave.
After all, laws, morality, and reality do not always overlap nicely.
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