How does Prospect Theory help us work on psychological safety? Understanding the decision to stay silent or mitigate our speech through the lens of Prospect Theory can help us improve the underlying substrate that influences those decisions: how can we reduce the cost of speaking up, and increase the benefit? Here’s what that looks like through a Prospect Theory lens: 1. Shift the baseline We want to change the baseline by making “speaking up” (not just verbally) the norm. We invite questions. Celebrate candour. Model vulnerability and create scaffolds and spaces where speaking up is easier. The more normal it feels, the less comparative cost it incurs. 2. Minimise the perceived losses Don’t just avoid punishing people for taking interpersonal risks: make it obvious that those risks are welcome, praised and valued. Be consistent, fair, and transparent in your responses. Shift from blame towards praise. 3. Make the benefits of speaking up obvious and tangible Highlight and share examples of when speaking up leads to good outcomes. Link feedback given to improvements made as a result. Share credit and publicly thank people. Make the upside of speaking up visible and real. 4. Challenge catastrophic thinking Talk openly about the fears people have and acknowledge them with humility – making sure not to make people unnecessarily uncomfortable or fearful in the process. Make it clear what will not happen if they speak up. Help people recalibrate their internal risk calculus. 5. How we frame things matters. Our decisions are influenced by how options are presented to us. If we frame mistakes and problems as positive opportunities to learn, and as windows into the system, people are more likely to speak up with them.

We look back at a failed project, a near miss, an incident or accident, and feel the seductive pull of “they should have..” or “they shouldn’t have…” because we crave causality and coherence. When something goes wrong, we want to believe that there was a single point of failure that we can fix for next time, reassuring ourselves that it won’t happen again. But as Dekker reminds us, “…[counterfactuals] make you spend your time talking about a reality that did not happen (but if it had happened, the mishap would not have happened.)” (Dekker, The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error, 2006, p. 39). Counterfactuals don’t actually explain why people acted as they did.

a recipe for unhelpful investigation: Hindsight bias says the outcome was obvious. Attribution error says someone failed to see it because of who they are. Counterfactuals provide the tidy fix: “They should have done X.”

There are four components to practice nonviolent communication, and in this order: Observation: These are facts (what we are seeing, hearing, or touching) as distinct from our evaluation of meaning and significance. NVC discourages static generalizations. It is said that "When we combine observation with evaluation, others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying." Instead, a focus on observations specific to time and context is recommended.[1]: ch.3  Feelings: These are emotions or sensations, free of thought and story. These are to be distinguished from thoughts (e.g., "I feel I didn't get a fair deal") and from words colloquially used as feelings but which convey what we think we are (e.g., "inadequate"), how we think others are evaluating us (e.g., "unimportant"), or what we think others are doing to us (e.g., "misunderstood", "ignored"). Feelings are said to reflect whether we are experiencing our needs as met or unmet. Identifying feelings is said to allow us to more easily connect with one another, and "Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts."[1]: ch.4  Needs: These are universal human needs, as distinct from particular strategies for meeting needs. It is posited that "Everything we do is in service of our needs."[14] Marshall Rosenberg refers to Max-Neef's model where needs may be categorised into 9 classes: sustenance, safety, love, understanding/empathy, creativity, recreation, sense of belonging, autonomy and meaning.[15] For more information, the Center for Nonviolent Communication has developed a needs inventory.[16] Requests: Requests are distinguished from demands in that one is open to hearing a response of "no" without this triggering an attempt to force the matter. If one makes a request and receives a "no" it is not recommended that one gives up, but that one empathizes with what is preventing the other person from saying "yes," before deciding how to continue the conversation. It is recommended that requests use clear, positive, concrete action language.

Falling for this statistical illusion is easy. It has nothing to do with your intelligence or even your gullibility. It’s your brain working against you. Most of the time conversations are collaborative and personal, so your mind is optimised for finding meaning in what is said under those circumstances. If you also want to believe, whether it’s in psychics or in AGI, your mind will helpfully find reasons to believe in the conversation you’re having. […] The psychic’s con is a mechanism that has been extraordinarily successful at fooling people over the years. It works. The best defence is to respond the same way as you would to a convincing psychic’s reading: “That’s a neat trick, I wonder how they pulled it off?”