How to get your employees in ‘The Learning Zone’.
The Learning Zone, which is responsible for learning and development, is where you want your employees to be! But where can you find that learning zone in your organisation? Well, that’ssimple:it’s the spot adjacent to your employees’ comfort zones! In this blogpost,we’ll guide you towards finding the magical place which is the ideal environment for learning, innovation,and growth.
Creating the ideal environment for (personal) growth and productivity requires your organisation to balance two things: psychological safety and accountability. To better understand how both factors relate and influence each other, we first need to examine both concepts.
Phycological safety is about cultivating a work environment where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. Or as Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, describes it in her book: “People who feel psychologically safe are confident that candour and vulnerability are welcome in their workplace. They believe they will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.”This is why psychological safety can help businesses achieve goals such as higher levels of innovation, higher quality in execution, and greater agility.
Unfortunately, psychologically safe work environments are quite rare. This has to do with the Common Knowledge Effect, which can best be described as a decision-making bias. It’s when teams overemphasise the information that most team members understand, instead of pursuing and incorporating the unique knowledge of each individual team member. This leads to teams not living up to their full decision-making potential.
Psychological safety describes an environment of low interpersonal fear. When fear gets in the way of people admitting to their mistakes, speaking up,or sharing different and new ideas, it’s not only the individuals keeping silent who miss out. Companies also lose opportunities to generate innovation, and this is especially dangerous in a world where businesses need to innovate if they want to succeed.
Accountability in the workplace means that all employees are, and feel, responsible for their actions, behaviour, performance, and decisions.It’swhen your employees hold themselves and others answerable for commitments, achieving results, and fulfilling agreements. A culture of accountability fosters trust, transparency, and a shared commitment between team members toorganisational success.
As you probably can imagine, creating a culture of accountability is fostered at an organisational level. Picture clearly defined roles and responsibilities for all employees, feedback- and performance review cycles, and creating SMART goals atboth theteam and individual levels. All these examples foster a sense of accountability for employees. Together, they offer a framework for their roles, tasks, and responsibilities on the individual, team, and organisational levels.
Just as with psychological safety, the absence of accountability in an organisation can have far-reaching consequences that undermine organisational effectiveness, culture, and reputation. For example,it can lead to decreased productivity, blame-shifting and finger-pointing, and – again - a lack of decision-making that halts innovation.
Now, if we bring psychological safety and accountability together, we create a useful model to understand what happens in organisations when it comes to learning and development. Gijs Coppens, CEO of mental wellbeing platform OpenUp, explained just that on our podcast.
The model as Gijs described consists of a 2 x 2 matrix. On one axis, you’ll find accountability. On the other axis is psychological safety. Together, they create an atmosphere that’s correlated to learning, innovation, and growth in the workplace. The four zones of psychological safety—learning, comfort, apathy, and anxiety—reflect shifts in that balance.
When both psychological safety and accountability levels are low, your employees end up in the Apathy Zone. As the name of this zone already gives away, this is definitely nota zone where learning and development flourish. With no repercussions for mistakes, a lack of team communication, and little to no support, employees struggle to even care about their work, to say nothing of growing and developing in their role.
Another quadrant where you don’t want your employees to be positioned is the Anxiety Zone. In this quadrant, accountability is high, but the psychological safety necessary for fostering learning and development is absent. This means that employees are wary of experimenting, offering new ideas, or seeking help. In this quadrant, employees lack motivation to learn or innovate. Burnout can be an alarming outcome of employees staying in this zone for a longer period of time.
Now, we all know the Comfort Zone also isn’t where the L&D magic happens. In this quadrant, psychological safety is high, but there’s no pressure to perform. This zone feels almost like a vacation! There is hardly any sense of urgency and doing the bare minimum is the norm for employees. This absolute lack of accountability also doesn’t push growth or creativity.
Finally, we reach the Learning Zone! This is where psychological safety and performance pressure go hand in hand. This is the quadrant where high-performance teams belong.
In a learning zone, employees experience continuous support from their peers. They feel comfortable speaking up and taking risks because they don’t fear negative consequences. Mistakes are seen as opportunities for improvement, rather than as failures.
Employees in a psychologically safe environment feel that their ideas and opinions are valued and respected. This motivates them to explore new possibilities, challenge the status quo, and engage in open and constructive discussions. Additionally, every individual is responsible and accountable for their actions. As a result of this balance, the Learning Zone fosters a culture of continuous learning – asthe name suggests 😉 - and growth.
So, how can you create this learning zone within your organisation? The table below shows some immediate and easy actions you can incorporate today, as well as some organisational changes you could make over the long run. Working on both axes of the model and improving your employees’ feelings of psychological safety and accountability will eventually get your organisation exactly where you want it to be: in the learning zone!
| Improve psychological safety | Improve accountability |
|---|---|
Celebrate successes and learning moments, no matter how small. Celebrate successes and learning moments, no matter how small. | Create clear job profiles defining the role, including the responsibilities and performance expectations of that role. Create clear job profiles defining the role, including the responsibilities and performance expectations of that role. |
Provide psychological support. Offer your employees access to resources that support mental health and wellbeing. Provide psychological support. Offer your employees access to resources that support mental health and wellbeing. | Set SMART goals with each employee that are aligned with organisational objectives. This provides clarity and accountability for everyone’s contributions. Set SMART goals with each employee that are aligned with organisational objectives. This provides clarity and accountability for everyone’s contributions. |
Encourage diversity, inclusion, and equity. Make sure people feel valued and that diverse perspectives are acknowledged. Tip: You can start by listening to our podcast episode on this topic! Encourage diversity, inclusion, and equity. Make sure people feel valued and that diverse perspectives are acknowledged. Tip: You can start by listening to our podcast episode on this topic! | Provide regular performance feedback that’s not just top-down but also amongst peers and team members. Provide regular performance feedback that’s not just top-down but also amongst peers and team members. |
Establish trust and a safe space within teams. This could be done by regular meetings, insight into other team members’ tasks and responsibilities, or an anonymous suggestion box. Establish trust and a safe space within teams. This could be done by regular meetings, insight into other team members’ tasks and responsibilities, or an anonymous suggestion box. | Conduct periodic performance evaluations to assess progress on your employees' goals and provide opportunities for reflection, feedback, and adjustment. Conduct periodic performance evaluations to assess progress on your employees' goals and provide opportunities for reflection, feedback, and adjustment. |
Provide training and resources to build the skills and competencies needed. Provide training and resources to build the skills and competencies needed. | Promote ownership and peer accountability. Promote ownership and peer accountability. |
Promote open communication. Leaders and managers should actively listen to employees’ concerns, ideas, and feedback without judgment. Promote open communication. Leaders and managers should actively listen to employees’ concerns, ideas, and feedback without judgment. | Foster a culture of transparency, where information is shared, and communication is open on all levels of the organisation. Foster a culture of transparency, where information is shared, and communication is open on all levels of the organisation. |
Lead by example. Demonstrate vulnerability and openness as a leader to set the tone for the rest of the organisation. Lead by example. Demonstrate vulnerability and openness as a leader to set the tone for the rest of the organisation. | Provide training and development on skills and competencies that foster accountability. Provide training and development on skills and competencies that foster accountability. |
Discover the full podcast episode!
Discover more of Gijs Coppens his insights, tips and tricks in our podcast episode 'Navigating mental health in today's workplace'.