Safety mindset: An approach to minimizing bad side effects

Watts et al. (2021) present a compelling argument by (a) claiming “the field of [industrial-organizational (I-O)] psychology has not devoted the attention to side effects that this subject deserves” (p. 16), (b) proposing that “the science and practice of I-O psychology will benefit from investing more attention toward understanding intervention-associated side effects” (p. 24), and (c) stating that their goal in writing their article was to “stimulate conversations within the field about the phenomenon of side effects as well as what might be done to improve our science and practice in this domain” (p. 2).

To do this, Watts et al. (2021) present examples of organizational interventions and their respective side effects, as well as reasons why the study of side effects has been traditionally neglected in organizational development (OD) research (i.e., organizational interventions), and proposes strategies for addressing this oversight in the future. In this latter section, Watts et al. encourage OD researchers to adopt methods from clinical research (i.e., medical interventions) that have been shown to effectively identify and mitigate side effects. Although Watts et al. make several face valid recommendations (e.g., developing a reporting system, establishing effect size guidelines, and advertising known side effects), one important practice that they fail to recommend is the emphasis on safety climate (Crowe et al., Reference Crowe, Xia, Berlin, Watson, Shi, Lin, Kuebler, Schriver, Santanello, Rochester, Porter, Oster, Mehrotra, Li, King, Harpur and Hall2009; Yao et al., Reference Yao, Zhu, Jiang and Xia2013).

Medical research, like the field of medicine in general, is dynamic, demanding, and risk adverse. When studying a medical intervention (i.e., treatment), researchers do not have the luxury to focus solely on the efficacy of the primary intervention (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, methylenedioxymethamphetamine) on a set of targeted clinical outcomes (e.g., depression, anxiety, posttraumatic distress). Rather they are compelled to, in parallel, identify and examine potential side effects (e.g., cognitive functioning, sleep quality, comfort; March et al., Reference March, Silva, Petrycki, Curry, Wells, Fairbank, Burns, Domino, McNulty, Vitiello and Severe2007; Mitchell et al., Reference Mitchell, Bogenschutz, Lilienstein, Harrison, Kleiman, Parker-Guilbert, Ot’alora, Garas, Paleos, Gorman, Nicholas, Mithoefer, Carlin, Poulter, Mithoefer, Quevedo, Wells, Klaire, van der Kolk and Dobin2021; Perera et al., Reference Perera, George, Grammer, Janicak, Pascual-Leone and Wirecki2016). Likewise, the practice of examining the safety of an intervention should be normalized in OD research. However, like with any prescription, the how is just as important as the what and why.

To habituate safety in testing and implementing organizational interventions, researchers should make it standard practice to red team their intervention. Red teaming refers to “the process of studying a problem by anticipating adversarial behaviors” (Yang et al., Reference Yang, Abbass and Sarker2006. p. 268). In other words, red teaming is role playing the issue to answer the question of what could possibly go wrong with our plan? Red teaming is commonly used in competition-based occupational contexts such as cybersecurity, the military, and team sports (e.g., footballFootnote ¹). Red teaming could, and should, be used in any open and/or wicked environment that is defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), which characterizes both applied organizational research and most organizational contexts in the 21st century (Bennis & Nanus, Reference Bennis and Nanus1985; Hogarth, Reference Hogarth2001; Mack et al., Reference Mack, Khare, Krämer and Burgartz2015; von Bertalanffy, Reference von Bertalanffy1969). To red team something, one simply needs to assign a member of the research team to find ways in which the research could potentially go sideways. At first blush, this strategy may not seem applicable because it’s hard to conceptualize an unintended effect as the enemy in the context of OD research. However, when you think about it through the lens of safety, you can start to see how side effects could be construed as such. In this context, the red team’s task is to, at every stage of the intervention (e.g., theory, research, development, and practice; Swanson, Reference Swanson, Swanson and Holton1997), attempt to identify potential side effects. Once a potential side effect has been identified, the research team as a whole rigorously approaches the study of the potential side effect just as they would the intervention’s focal effect. By adopting a safety mindset alongside the other recommendations made by Watts et al. (2021), researchers can (a) increase the probability of identifying and understanding potential side effects associated with their intervention, (b) increase the odds of being able to evaluate and mitigate the holistic risk associated with their intervention, and (c) ensure their research doesn’t override the health, well-being, and care of either the employee or the organization.

Listening: A technique for reducing adverse side effects related to performance feedback

An important additional organizational intervention we believe should be included with those offered by Watts et al. (2021) concerns the side effects of performance feedback. Performance feedback and its associated pitfalls provide a good example of several points that were made in the focal article, which include (a) the discovery of side effects, causal attribution, and social forces that prevented organizations from paying attention to side effects previously and (b) identifying a potential remedy to these side effects using programmatic research.

A seminal 1996 meta-analysis revealed in 38% of the cases, performance feedback hurts performance regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative (Kluger & DeNisi, Reference Kluger and DeNisi1996). Kluger and DeNisi (Reference Kluger and DeNisi1996) noted that feedback has a structural problem. Feedback includes evaluating one person based on another person’s standards, which elicits defensiveness and unwillingness to change.

Although many organizations are unsatisfied with their feedback procedures, organizations largely ignore these important findings and continue to follow their routine feedback procedures. Consistent with Watts et al. (2021), this is an example of a case where social forces prevent improving organizational interventions. However, these social forces might be less resistant to change if they were given a technique that can remedy the pitfalls of feedback without “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” Instead of telling people they need to change (i.e., feedback), it might be more beneficial to listen to them in an attentive, empathic, and nonjudgmental manner, thereby making them want to change. For this goal, the Feedforward Interview was developed (FFI; Kluger & Nir, Reference Kluger and Nir2010). The FFI is an organizational development technique built on listening and question asking to gain insight from the interviewee. The FFI is a semistructured interview technique for the interviewer. The FFI focuses on eliciting a significant event during which the interviewee felt at their best, clarifying the conditions that allowed this event to happen, the cognitive and emotional ‘picks,’ and plans for future actions. A field experiment found FFI superior to feedback and resulted in enhanced performance (Budworth et al., Reference Budworth, Latham and Manroop2015).

The FFI is only one technique that sheds light on the power of listening in organizations (For a comprehensive review, see Kluger & Itzchakov, Reference Kluger and Itzchakovin press). High-quality listening is a multifaceted construct characterized by undivided attention, comprehension, and a nonjudgmental intention from the listener toward the speaker (Itzchakov & Kluger, Reference Itzchakov and Kluger2017b, 2018; Kluger et al., Reference Kluger, Malloy, Pery, Itzchakov, Castro, Lipetz, Sela, Turjeman-Levi, Lehmann, New and Borut2021). Five positive outcomes of listening as part of performance feedback include (a) reduced defensiveness (Itzchakov et al., Reference Itzchakov, Kluger and Castro2017), (b) increased psychological safety (Castro et al., Reference Castro, Anseel, Kluger, Lloyd and Turjeman-Levi2018; Castro et al., Reference Castro, Kluger and Itzchakov2016), (c) openness to change (Itzchakov et al., Reference Itzchakov, Weinstein, Legate and Amar2020), (d) voice behavior (Tangirala & Ramanujam, Reference Tangirala and Ramanujam2012), and (e) self-disclosure (Weinstein et al., Reference Weinstein, Huo and Itzchakov2021).

From a practical perspective, studies about listening interventions in the organization found that it is possible to train managers to become better listeners (Kawakami et al., Reference Kawakami, Kobayashi, Takao and Tsutsumi2005; Kubota et al., Reference Kubota, Mishima and Nagata2004; Rautalinko & Lisper, Reference Rautalinko and Lisper2004). Employees can be trained to be better listeners as well (Grimholt et al., Reference Grimholt, Jacobsen, Haavet, Sandvik, Jorgensen, Norheim and Ekeberg2015). Benefits of listening training were found to increase employees’ performance (Gonzalez, Reference Gonzalez2009), increase employee competence (Itzchakov, Reference Itzchakov2020), and make employee’s work attitudes more complex and less extreme (one-sided; Itzchakov & Kluger, Reference Itzchakov and Kluger2017a).

Therefore, we posit that listening as an integral part of performance feedback would be beneficial to I-O psychology as a means of focusing on constructs, techniques, and practices that can serve as remedies to established organizational interventions to reduce negative side effects.

Applications and adjustment to change

Given current world events, specifically demands for social justice, organizations have a part to play in addressing the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues with initiatives and training. As a society, such efforts are usually applauded to close the gap on pressing and controversial social dilemmas, especially racial injustice and gender inequality. This being said, we raise the question, how might “side effects” be minimized if DEI training incorporates a safety mindset that leads to a climate change as part of the intervention initiative? Arguably, it can help organizations attempt to solve social problems while minimizing the potential to open Pandora’s box to a host of new challenges. An example is a recent global finance service company that was named for alleged reverse discrimination because of a DEI initiative involving critical race theory (CRT) training. The complaint was such that White people were no longer receiving promotions or raises and that people of color were receiving preferential treatment. This scenario highlights the importance and fragility of changing mindsets when deploying interventions. Perhaps elements we have addressed concerning both safety and a listening technique can serve as new approaches to developing organizational policies.

Regardless of an intervention to address DEI or COVID-19 protocol compliance, the reality is disturbances in social equilibriums should be expected in organizational systems and structures. For example, what was considered balanced was understood to have been weighted to a different race (i.e., White). Considering the financial service company, as a matter of change toward establishing a new equilibrium (i.e., away from White and toward people of color), perceptions of reverse discrimination likely resulted among Whites. We argue this “side effect” is in the eye of the beholder and is somewhat subjective. In relation to Watts et al. (2021), the side effect of a DEI or COVID-19 initiative, whether it be policy changes and/or training, it is likely a necessary part of disrupting the social equilibrium. As should be expected, those that stand to gain are pleased, whereas those that stand to lose are disgruntled. Therefore, we raise a second question, “To what extent are side effects generally a subjective phenomenon as organizations and society go through a change process in redefining new norms?” If the side effects of an intervention alter the social equilibrium in the same direction as the intervention, then this is a good rather than bad outcome.

The bottom line

Unforeseen outcomes of an undesirable nature—that is, “side effects”—exist as inherent risks that arise from organizational interventions. This being so, approaching interventions in a way that instills a safety mindset and related climate can make all the world of difference. Furthermore, research from performance feedback sheds light on a technique called Feedforward Interview. Essentially, with listening training, greater insights via employee voice can be obtained at the onset of an intervention to gauge progress while at the same time identifying actual and potential side effects in the process.