Embarking on a journey of self-improvement often involves navigating the treacherous terrain of near-misses and almost-made mistakes. Let's delve into the art of transforming these close calls into valuable lessons for personal growth and success.
Resilience vs. vulnerability: Psychological Safety and Reporting of Near Misses with Varying Proximity to Harm in Radiation Oncology
Incidents that almost result in loss or harm often pass unnoticed, in part because workers worry about being associated with vulnerability or failure.
- When leaders frame near misses as free learning opportunities and express the value of resilience to their teams, the likelihood that workers will report such incidents increases.
A spectrum of close calls
The research team wanted to understand the role of psychological safety-defined as “the shared belief that interpersonal risk-taking is safe”-in determining the likelihood that employees in the radiation oncology department report near misses and whether that changes based on the nature of the incident.
- Near misses that highlight things that are scary to talk about require more psychological safety
- They found that the closer the situation got to causing patient harm, the more important psychological safety became in determining whether the employees would report the event
The ‘goldmine’ of avoided catastrophes
By framing near misses as important learning opportunities, as well as by fostering psychological safety, business leaders can increase the chances that employees will discuss close calls
- This can help to avoid costly errors immediately and in the future
- When people don’t recognize near-misses as a goldmine, then they won’t take advantage of them
