Can you grow without fear of failure?

Learner safety is crucial to helping your people become their best selves. As the second stage of psychological safety, it encourages team members to engage in all aspects of the learning process without fear of being rejected or neglected.
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™

Stage 2: Learner Safety

Learner Safety satisfies the basic human need to learn and grow. It allows us to feel safe as we engage in all aspects of the learning process—asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, experimenting, and even making mistakes, not if but when we make them.

Does my team have learner safety?

When you have it...

When we sense leaner safety, we’re more willing to be vulnerable, take risks, and develop resilience in the learning process.

Team members share their mistakes openly.
You’re supported in your learning goals.
You’re allowed to say “I don’t know.”
Your leaders are learning right alongside you.

When you don't...

Conversely, a lack of learner safety triggers the self-censoring instinct, causing us to shut down, retrench and manage personal risk.

People would rather stay quiet than reveal a mistake.
You feel like your job is constantly on the line.
Learning is viewed as a “waste of time.”
People only interact inside their roles, never outside.
african american man happy at work in front of a lap top

Detach fear from mistakes.

Learning involves risk. One of the most important things that you can do to build learner safety is to create a culture where you detach fear from mistakes.

When you give your teams learner safety, you’re giving them permission to overcome setbacks and find solutions without fear of failure. And really, at the end of the day, isn’t failure just progress?

Request a Demo

Learning is both intellectual and emotional.

If we’ve learned anything about learning, it’s that we learn in context, not in isolation. It’s the interplay of the head and the heart. We can either cultivate or crush, nurture or neglect, stimulate or stifle learner safety.

Read The Book

How do I help others grow and feel motivated to learn?

Try these eight things to introduce learner safety into your organization’s culture:

Share What You’re Learning

Your optimism and enthusiasm for learning is contagious. Give people the permission to learn and a reason to start by modeling passionate learning yourself.

Offer One-One Help in Their Space

You may have some team members that are reluctant to “learn publicly” in a group setting. Take away their learning inhibition and anxiety by choosing a neutral space.

Find Each Person’s Learning Style

Some people are visual learners. Some like to learn alone. Some like to learn out loud. Some are self-directed. Some hate classrooms, but love to learn on the job.

Assign Learning Projects

Assign a small group a real problem to solve. Provide clear objectives, a timeline, and resources for solving the problem. Adopt the suggestions if they makes sense and recognize those who participate in the process.

Dedicate Time and Resources to Learning

If you talk about the importance of learning but don’t dedicate any time or resources to it, it’s really not a priority. Formally allocate budget and dedicate time to learning.

Share Past Mistakes

It’s hard to learn from mistakes if a team has a culture that hides its mistakes. Take the opportunity to mention some of your mistakes, laugh at them, and share what you learned from them.

Reinforce Learning Potential

The learning potential of your team is unknown and unknowable. But you can always encourage them to level-up. Remind your team that to earn their living is to learn their living.

Ask For Help From Different Roles

Model humility and ask for help from those who work outside, or under, your role. Let them teach you, which leads to increased confidence and engagement.

Keep Exploring The 4 Stages:

Explore content and resources related to each of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™

Learner Safety Podcast Episodes

Two Leadership Failure Patterns: Paternalism and Exploitation

In this episode Tim and Junior introduce the two leadership failure patterns found in The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™ model - paternalism and exploitation. This is a very practical episode for managers and leaders but applies to anyone working with other humans.

Podcast
Read more
small arrow pointing right

What Psychological Safety is Not

Read more
small arrow pointing right

What's Driving the Demand for Psychological Safety?

Read more
small arrow pointing right

What is Psychological Safety?

Read more
small arrow pointing right

Learner Safety Articles

The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety

The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety framework acknowledges that we’re humans first and employees second. The framework follows a universal pattern that reflects the natural progression of human needs in social settings. These needs exist across demographics, psychographics, nations, and cultures. Just like humans need water, food, and shelter to survive, teams that want to innovate need four things in order to thrive: they need to feel included and safe to learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo. Teams progress through these stages as they intentionally create cultures of rewarded vulnerability and psychological safety.

Articles
Read more
small arrow pointing right

The History of Psychological Safety

Read more
small arrow pointing right

Psychological Safety: The Secret to Building Trust in Teams

Read more
small arrow pointing right

What Psychological Safety is Not

Read more
small arrow pointing right