Creating a Safe Zone

Creating a safe zone is not actually the goal, it an enabler for bigger business goal - to excel, to perform and to succeed.  High safety enables this by tapping into ideas, reducing stress levels, reducing mistakes, increasing creativity, enabling improvement actions and improving morale.  And of course it helps to create a working environment that encourages employees to remain whilst also attracting great talent.

Here are some actions we can implement to help us create that safe zone:

The team doesn't become vulnerable by accident; it takes the leader to teach vulnerability and ensure that everyone buys in.  Watch a description of Vulnerability-based Trust here.


Note that safe doesn't necessarily mean nice.  Pressure may exist, there may be high expectations and there will be tough times.  A safe place primarily means an environment that doesn't unduly induce a high level of stress (a fight or flight response) where one's amygdala and adrenal gland don't get rudely awoken and pump copious amounts of adrenalin and cortisol into the bloodstream.

Constraints and a sense of necessity often lead to innovative ideas and steps forwards.

Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.

- Christopher Markus