How To Cultivate And Encourage Speak Up Culture In Organizations
- Nov 2, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 12, 2024
Written by: Ilham N Musayev, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Today I will shed a light on Speak Up culture in organizations. Nowadays the subject of speak up becomes more and more important and even as a reputation mark for many organizations.
I would like to look at the definition of Speak up before we dive into the details and explore this subject further:
According to workplaceethicsadvice.com, “Speak up culture” refers to a healthy, supportive environment, where team members feel free to share their ideas, opinions, and concerns, without fear of retaliation or penalty.
Often people associate it with calling out toxic company culture or even an individual member of staff, however, it can also refer to people feeling comfortable to express different ideas or business models that have previously gone unexplored. as speak-up culture, which means to provide a safe space for people to speak up and speak out, where they can feel emboldened to point out both challenging areas and opportunities for new disruptions and innovations.
Rather than waiting for employees to speak up, leaders could take the initiative and start a structured debate within the organization. It is important to give employees an opportunity to speak up and respond appreciatively when they do.
So, from the context above and definition of speak up what words jump out immediately? It is about “culture”, “healthy environment”, “ideas”, “safe space”, “no retaliation” and many similar words.
In order to build the right culture, there should be the right environment. That environment takes decades to build, maintain and then eventually sustain. Who builds this environment? People do!
As always it starts from leaders, their leadership, leading by examples and thus creating more followers and supporters. As generation of leaders change this culture needs to be passed on and protected so that it continues as one of the core values and brand attributes of that company or organization.
What is really expected from leaders then? or let’s put this question another way – “how employers can support foster a speak-up culture?
I think there are many simple areas, which, unfortunately, are being neglected these days which eventually lead to weaker speak culture in the organizations.
Let’s look at some of them:
Policy or Working Norms: Having these documents up to date, especially with the stress to report questionable or illegal behavior is important. And if employees approach leaders with cases and reference to the norms then it requires incentivizing. It also helps when employees are ahead of the game and offer process improvement ideas, which is a great indicator that people are feeling supported and trust policies.
Action and not just listening: One paramount part of speak-up supportive culture is that all concerns that employees raise are not just being listened by leaders, management and similar, but also acted upon with results shared with those who raised them. As they say, “Actions speak louder than words”. So, an evidence and support-based approach is something which will take speak up culture to the next level.
Are you as a leader act on concerns your employees raised? If not or if actively not, then it is a time to change the dial…investigate the cases and take corrective actions.
Incentivize, incentivize, incentivize – every tiny action or movement in the right direction requires praise. If that praise is given in a proper manner and leadership care, regardless of its size and method it will be taken as a huge prize. One biggest mistake is that leaders are falling into the traps of shooting messenger, while the basic rule is that “Don’t shoot the messenger”.
To start promoting speak up culture another way is to start from anonymous ways of getting feedback. It will continue though up until the time entire organization feels safe and naturally moves to reporting with names attached to the cases.
Confidence in non-retaliation when speaking up is another key factor which promotes internal conversation, anonymous or otherwise because employees feel safe to report what they see when they see it. When employees feel safe to do so, it just simply means that management is interested in having any conversations and is interested in what employees have to say.
How do we know if we are at the right place with the speak-up culture in organizations?
There are surveys and metrics that will help assess the effectiveness of a speak-up culture and the tools to support it. Having a culture of using surveys and reading metrics on a timely basis should keep the environment under the control and take timely preventive actions. This includes tracking substantiated investigations, understanding lessons learnt, and many other similar approaches.
One of the alternatives is hotlines. Hotlines are considered by some promoters of a speak-up culture to be one improvement toward creating quicker, a stronger awareness of problems that might otherwise not be learned and addressed. Considering such hotlines sufficient and then over-relying on them, however, will likely lead to shortcomings and disappointment. But many people see hotlines a last resort, because they are a mechanism which cannot resolve the root cause, hotlines are helping to address symptoms and early stages of the issue.
As a conclusion, I can only say that leaders have a lot to play in building the right environment and walking the walk. One of the critical elements of this process is Openness and Transparency… about how reported ideas being reviewed, progressed, and in general how the investigation process works.
Another important area is approach to retaliation – there should be not only clear communication and supportive information available but also actions to protect against any tiny symptoms of it as soon as a case reported.
The more leadership support against the retaliation is obvious the more it strengthens the trust level in the organizations.
And one last point is that leaders need to be open and willing to listen, it should start from regular team meetings and other regular conversations and move to the next levels up. This means that cultivating psychological safety is another important contributor to speak-up culture. Omitting psychological safety is the biggest mistake, which can cost companies a lot of loss including both monetary and people.
Ilham N Musayev, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ilham N Musayev is a mentor and coach (outside of the company he works for) who helps people unlock their potential in career and personal development. He also helps in the area of personal effectiveness, setting realistic goals, and becoming organized and structured. Ilham also helps to re-gain the [lost] confidence and look to issues and problems from a different perspective. Another area of his support is helping to cultivate servant leadership via coaching and mentoring technics.
Overall, he is an energy sector professional with 23 years of the practical experience obtained by working in one of the leader companies in this sector. Ilham’s experience is very multilayered. He worked and gained his experience from the following functions: Wells, PSCM, Operations, Global Projects, by mainly providing project controls support. For the last three years, he worked in Modernization and Transformation and Agile Design Teams and helped his company transform into new working ways. He currently is a part of the Agility team and, as an agile coach, supports the company by implementing agile ways of working.
Ilham holds the following professional certifications and accreditations: EMBA, PMP®, ICP-ATF; ICP-ACC; PSPO I; PAL I. He also is a Professional Life Coach and ICF Professional (Member).
Ilham’s position is that staying open for support, serving people as a leader, and helping people to grow is what wins hearts and minds and is the only answer to all questions.
His mission: “Aspire to inspire before we expire.
