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Bionic Reading
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What’s in it for me? Learn how to

encourage innovation through
inclusion in your team or organization.
Congrats! You’re in the luxurious position of
choosing between two teams you could work with.
Let’s go ahead and meet them.

This is the first team’s office. Notice that? The air is

stiff. The atmosphere – ice cold. Everyone looks
scared. People aren’t asking questions; they think
they’ll look stupid. And on top of it all is a boss who’s
more concerned with sustaining an ego trip than
hearing what anyone else has to say.

Now let’s mosey on over into the second team’s

office. You’re warmly greeted at the door. A few
members of the team are working on a project
together. They invite you over to explain the
problem they’re trying to tackle. The manager is
there too – listening and encouraging everyone to
put any and all ideas on the table for discussion.
Immediately, you know that this is your team.

But why aren’t all teams like that? It’s simple: an

inclusive environment doesn’t just happen – it takes
effort. It has to be cultivated. And it requires that the
team leader or coach provide psychological safety.
This means that every team member feels they can
take risks, try new things, and make mistakes
without the fear of negative consequences.
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We’ll take a look at Timothy R. Clark’s ideas about

how you can provide the four levels of psychological
safety to create more productive environments.
You’ll be able to apply the following actionable tips
and insights to do this – whether you’re a parent, a
youth soccer coach, or a Fortune 500 CEO.

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To create inclusion safety, make sure

team members feel unconditionally
included from the very beginning.
The first stage of psychological safety, inclusion
safety, is a prerequisite for everything else. This
involves an initial offering of unconditional respect
for all human beings – an acknowledgment that
everyone deserves respect and therefore deserves
to be included. Later, inclusion might be withheld or
revoked – but, at the start, the only condition for
inclusion should be a person’s fellow humanity.

In this day and age, leaders tout “diversity and

inclusion” as buzzwords to brag about their
wokeness – so why does there continue to be a lack
of inclusion safety? For one, not everyone who talks
about it actually puts it into practice. More often than
not, as we saw with the first team you visited
previously, a tense, distrustful environment is
favored over an empathetic and inclusive one. A
study by Ernst & Young found that not even half of
employees trust their bosses. So what can you do to
avoid becoming part of this statistic?
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Before you can address this, you’ll need to ask

yourself a question: Why do you choose to include
some people and not others?

According to the author, Timothy R. Clark, children

seem to intuitively know the importance of
inclusion. It’s strange, then, that this doesn’t transfer
to adulthood. One answer could be that, as adults,
we continually find ways to justify why we’re
superior to other people. We tell ourselves that our
differences are a reason for conflict, not celebration.
Often, it’s a way of compensating for things we’re
insecure about. Interestingly, we don’t always
exclude someone because we don’t like them;
usually, it’s because we have unmet needs.

This attitude starts at the top – with a manager,

teacher, or parent more concerned about being right
than creating an environment that stimulates safety
or innovation. Then it trickles down through the
ranks.

Clark witnessed this effect first-hand when he

started out as manager of a steel plant in Geneva,
Utah. The first team he spoke with at the steel plant
pulled him aside and insisted that their department
was a little special. They had more expertise than
the other teams, they said. Their work was more
complicated, and they were absolutely essential to
the steel plant’s operations. It made sense at first –
but every team he met with after that said the exact
same thing. They all believed they were special, that
they were the most important. And in trying to
distinguish themselves, they were putting down the
others. This resulted in each department becoming
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isolated, and averse to collaboration and

communication. They were stuck in a cycle of
unhealthy competition.

Now, here’s a solution: suspend your judgment –

initially, at least – to encourage inclusion. Think
about who you include and exclude. Now ask
yourself why? What biases or prejudices might be at
play here?

Perhaps it’s easier said than done. You can’t get rid
of personal bias altogether; you’ll always have a bit
of it lying around. But by identifying it and noticing
where it affects your behavior, you can slowly start
working on eliminating its influence. If you’re having
trouble with this step, ask a close friend or
acquaintance about your unconscious biases.

Once you’re comfortable providing inclusion solely

on the basis that every human being deserves a
fundamental level of respect, you can move on to
the next stage of psychological safety: the safety to
learn, make oneself vulnerable, and make mistakes
in the process.

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To provide learner safety, create an

environment where failure isn’t just
accepted – it’s rewarded.
Maybe you’ve been in a silent team meeting where
nobody wants to propose any new ideas or ask
questions because the all-too-authoritarian
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manager might criticize them. Or a silent classroom

where everyone is afraid to answer the teacher’s
question in case they look stupid.

Think of the last time you learned something new.

Do you remember that uncomfortable feeling of
vulnerability in the beginning? What happened next
depended on your learning environment – an
environment that’s currently in your, the leader’s,
hands.

Learner safety consists of two powerful levers. First,

minimize the feeling that being wrong is bad. And
second, minimize the expectation that feedback
only happens as punishment. Allowing fear to have
free reign over an organization encourages people
to self-censor, to constantly calculate whether the
potential reward is big enough for the risk taken. Is
it worth the benefit of being right if I might look
stupid? If I get this wrong will my reputation suffer?
That’s how we end up with a one-way ticket back to
our proverbial silent classroom. Unfortunately, this
pattern has become the rule in many cases.

But let’s look to the exceptions for guidance.

At Lone Peak High School in Highland, Utah, an
electrical-engineer-turned-calculus-teacher runs
his classroom with a single basic assumption:
anyone can learn calculus. It doesn’t matter whether
you’re a math whiz or have always struggled with
algebra. Students are expected to have failures
repeatedly during the course of the year. The
teacher, Craig B. Smith, views this as an opportunity
rather than a disadvantage. His classes use a
system that rewards participation with points,
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whether or not someone is right or wrong. As a

student in his class, you can ask questions, take a
stab at solving problems, and openly admit you’re
confused. All of this is rewarded as a positive part
of the learning process.

And the results are striking. The year before Craig

started teaching calculus in 2007, just 46 students
per 1,000 took the Advanced Placement AB Calculus
exam. By 2016, that had jumped 250 percent to 160
students per 1,000. Now, his students pass the exam
at a rate nearly 800 percent higher than the national
average. Craig’s secret isn’t that he has some kind
of exceptional understanding of calculus. Instead,
he sees the students as humans, recognizes the
immense risk they take by entering the calculus
classroom in the first place, and then rewards it. Not
every student continues studying math after high
school, but they all learn how to approach and defeat
challenges with confidence.

In your organization, is failure punished or

rewarded? Do you encourage employees to make
mistakes, or are errors a cause for shame?

It’s important to note that group leaders aren’t the

only people guilty of threatening learner safety –
other team members might threaten it through their
own behavior as well. Not everyone will take to the
idea of rewarding mistakes immediately. That’s why
it’s crucial to recognize when colleagues are quick
to speak out and shoot down others’ ideas, and try
to develop an individual solution to ensure that all
team members feel included and safe to learn.
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If employees feel comfortable asking a superior for

help without fearing negative repercussions, the
organization will become that much more of a
collaborative, innovative place. Everyone will be
able to learn and grow freely while keeping stress to
a minimum.
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To provide contributor safety, get to

know your team, limit your tell-to-ask
ratio, and help colleagues think beyond
their roles.
By now, you know how you can include your team
members and the optimal way for them to learn.
Now, it’s crucial that they get the opportunity to put
their learnings into practice. And for that, you need
contributor safety.

This is the third stage of psychological safety – but

it’s the first that’s not a natural right as a human
being. Contributor safety is something you have to
earn; you need to demonstrate that you can perform
at the level needed. It’s basically an exchange of risk.
If you consistently deliver results, you’ll be trusted
to do your thing.

This quickly descends into a paradoxical chicken-

egg situation. If, for some reason, you don’t deliver
results, the boss or coach can say that’s reason
enough not to let you contribute again. That’s
because the team or organization is taking a risk on
behalf of you. If you don’t perform well, you don’t
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suffer personally – the team does. But if you don’t

get a chance to contribute again after that, you’ll
never get a shot at reversing the fate of a single
mistake. You might get sidelined, benched, fired –
or, even worse, micromanaged!

The point is that contributor safety has to be

established and maintained by both parties. And for
a leader, this is a constant balancing act. If you grant
contributor safety too early, the decision might
backfire. Someone who’s not yet ready may end up
with way too much responsibility or tasks not suited
to their skill set – think letting a first-year medical
student perform brain surgery.

At the same time, you don’t want to overdo the

gatekeeping and hold people back from reaching
their potential. Perhaps someone has the skills and
experience needed, but you’re still withholding
contributor safety because of some other trust issue
or bias.

Here are three ways to up your contributor safety

game as a pragmatic but compassionate leader.

First, get to know your team’s strengths and

weaknesses. Gone are the days of the ivory-tower
managers – but also the days of the constantly
micromanaging bosses. You need to be able to
discern whether to trust someone’s abilities or not.

Another way is to curb your speaking time. Do you

spend more time telling people what to do than
listening to what they have to say? Because there’s
really no need for you to be the one to provide the
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questions and the answers. Instead, let your

colleagues figure it out. Listen first. And if they seem
stuck or are missing something, well, that’s what
learner safety is for! They can ask for help, and you
can gladly provide it – by talking last. Establishing
this type of trust does increase the risk for both you
and your organization. But if you’ve gotten to know
your team’s strengths and weaknesses, you’ll be
much better prepared to make these calls.

Last, share the bigger picture and let your team

collaborate. It’s bad for the innovation potential of
an organization if each employee is isolated in their
own cubicle, with their own little tasks. Initially, of
course, employees need to learn the tasks specific
to their role. But then, by creating and sustaining
contributor safety, you can also help colleagues
think strategically outside of their own roles. And the
more that employees collaborate, the more dynamic
and innovative an organization can become.

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Democratize innovation by fostering

challenger safety.
Now we’re climbing to the top of the psychological
safety ladder. This last stage is challenger safety,
and it’s crucial for the success of your team or
company.

Just like people, organizations can get stuck in their

ways. Going up against that is intimidating,
especially when those in charge are dead set on
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maintaining the existing MO. Similar to the other

stages of psychological safety, challenger safety is
never going to completely remove the heebie-
jeebies that risk-taking induces.
Let’s look at where this chronic dread comes from.
At its foundation is a high level of uncertainty. The
psychological safety contract entails trading
certainty and safety for uncertainty and ambiguity.
But, as a leader, you can work to remove as much
uncertainty as possible. Each unknown can be a
source of stress – so try to eliminate as many
unknowns for your team members to make it less
stressful to voice criticism.

Now, here are a few concrete steps you can take to

encourage challenging the status quo in your
organization rather than upholding it.

Don’t just encourage dissent from the beginning –

assign it! Charge a few people, or everyone, with
finding problems in projects, initiatives, or other
topics. If troubleshooting becomes the norm and not
the exception, it’ll be that much easier for members
of your team to feel comfortable keeping a critical
eye out for weak points. Many organizations already
do this in some way. IT businesses have internal
hackers to intentionally expose vulnerabilities in
their systems. And in the 1960s, NASA famously
created “tiger teams” of specialists tasked with
finding every possible source of failure in spacecraft
subsystems.

You can also be more conscientious about

allocating responsibilities. For regular meetings,
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create a rotating schedule so that a different person

chairs each time.

Consider running a group training session every

week, and use a rotation as well. Make sure that
less-experienced and less-senior members have a
chance to train higher-status employees so they can
practice interacting outside of the traditional
hierarchy.

If you want to talk to someone, go over to their desk

or workspace rather than making them come to you.
This also lessens the power and status gap.

Finally, keep in mind that some of your employees

might be neurodivergent. This means that they have
variations in learning, mood, or attention. Perhaps
they are on the autism spectrum or have dyslexia.
Some might not feel especially at home in social
situations. In the context of psychological safety,
this can translate to a sharp sensitivity to fear. An
individual might respond faster to fear indicators
and also take longer to recover from these
experiences.

Part of knowing your team is perceiving these

variations so that you can recognize which members
need what type of safety when. Thus, you can
ensure everyone feels safe to voice constructive
criticism without the terror of negative
consequences.
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Final summary
The world can be a scary place. And so for every
type of social unit – whether it’s work, school, or
home – we have a desire to feel safe. A lack of safety
stifles productivity, creativity, and innovation. It
deters risk-taking and perpetuates harmful
competition.
You can change that by establishing the four stages
of psychological safety. Notice how your prejudice
influences who you include and who you don’t.
Cultivate learner safety by encouraging and
rewarding people for making mistakes and asking
questions (remember the calculus teacher!). Get to
know your colleagues. Decide what type of
contributor safety they need to participate, and
when it’s a good idea to provide it. And, finally,
remember: innovation won’t happen by sticking with
the status quo – you need challenger safety. So
make it both acceptable and required to challenge
tradition.