Safe to Speak?

I participate in Hanson’s Risk Management Committee. The committee reviews potential project pursuits that may have too many or unreasonable risks for our preferences and the ability to effectively mitigate them.

I appreciate our senior member’s discerning thought processes and the open discussion that has allowed us to effectively vet the first few projects submitted for review. It has enabled the group — the committee members, submitting stakeholders and other employee-owners not directly part of the review process — to feel comfortable with accepting the challenges or deciding not to pursue the project. Either way, it allows all parties to move forward with a level of confidence and good feeling they would not otherwise have.

There is a great book titled “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler that identifies the need to create a safe environment in which participants can add to the “pool of meaning” for the best decision outcomes. How true is that when evaluating risk versus reward at the go or no-go stage of a project?

For contrast, I asked my oldest child how he knows he is safe to speak. In the classroom, where the environment is relatively controlled and monitored, he is continually watching the body language of his peers as he engages in conversation, particularly their facial expressions. At home, “continued support over time,” was his answer. We distilled this into building a “trust account” that he knew he could draw from when the conversation topic was weightier.

It seems obvious that effective risk management discussions live inside a safe-to-speak environment that is intentionally fostered, one encounter at a time. Before you identify the best mitigation or capitalization strategies, you must identify threats and opportunities by shining the light of open discussion upon them.

How do you create a safe-to-speak environment, given that we want good decisions? Is it part of the organizational culture and if not, how do you make it so? Is a trust reminder (perhaps an example of vulnerability in some cases) necessary when senior-level participants are mixed with new or junior staff? Does the group size influence the perceived level of safety?

Michael Flatt is a project manager and licensed structural engineer serving the federal; power and industry; and government and energy markets at Hanson Professional Services Inc.