Flight engineer: Is he not clear yet?
Captain: What do you say?
Flight engineer: Is he not clear yet?
Captain: Oh yes…
- Cockpit recording KLM flight 4805, March 27, 1977

Twelve seconds later, the worst air crash in human history happened when KLM flight 4805 crashed into Pan Am flight 1736 on the runway of the airport of the Isle of Tenerife.

A telling example of psychological safety that, as a Dutch citizen, is close to my heart is the fatal incident involving two Boeings 747 from KLM and Pan Am on March 27, 1977. This catastrophe, resulting from a communication breakdown, highlights the importance of psychological safety in high-stakes situations. The flight engineer's hesitation to speak up, driven by an unconscious evaluation of risk, underscores a common psychological phenomenon: the tendency to discount the future, favoring immediate ease over long-term safety or success.

In this tragic example, the flight engineer underweighted the paramount issue of flight safety, a concern that would have future consequences, and placed too much importance on the captain’s immediate reaction. He fell victim to our natural tendency to weigh the pros and cons of voicing concerns. It serves as an example demonstrating the powerful influence of hierarchical structures, where even in life-threatening situations, subordinates may refrain from challenging authority.

Discounting the future explains the prevalence of many unhelpful or unhealthy behaviors, and the failure to speak up at work is an important and often overlooked consequence of this problematic tendency.

Most individuals manage their self-image at work, both consciously and subconsciously. Fundamentally, everybody strives to avoid appearing incompetent or ignorant. In fact, most of us want to look intelligent, capable, and skillful in the eyes of others. As a result, we are continuously shaping how others perceive us by controlling the information we share in social interactions.

Regardless of our profession, social standing, or gender identity, we all learn how to manage interpersonal risk. In her book “The Fearless Organization, Amy Edmondson explains that managing interpersonal risk is acquired early in life, with children learning to mitigate the risk of rejection or scorn. As adults, we become adept at this, often acting on autopilot: not asking questions to avoid seeming ignorant, not admitting mistakes to escape the label of incompetence, or refraining from suggesting changes to prevent being seen as disruptive.

While prioritizing image over impact might be harmless in social settings, in the workplace, it can lead to significant issues, including hindered innovation, poor service, and, in extreme cases, as in the earlier mentioned example, loss of lives. Yet avoiding behaviors that might lead others to think less of us is pretty much second nature in most workplaces.

This tendency to prioritize self-image over speaking up is not limited to lower-level employees only. Take, for instance, a senior medical consultant in a large hospital. Despite harboring reservations about a new, untested surgical procedure being adopted, she chose to remain silent. Excited about the innovation, her colleagues were all in favor of it. Concerned about being perceived as resistant to progress or overly cautious, she withheld her doubts. Unfortunately, the procedure led to several complications, revealing its shortcomings. It was only in the aftermath, during a review meeting, that she expressed her initial concerns. She admitted to feeling intimidated by the prospect of challenging the group's consensus despite her expertise and experience suggesting otherwise. This example illustrates how the fear of standing out or disrupting harmony can lead to significant consequences, even among seasoned professionals in critical fields.

In this piece, we explained the impact of reluctance to speak up, driven by the fear of interpersonal risk, and how this has led to avoidable disasters. We highlighted that the absence of open dialogue can cause misfortunes.

In the coming articles, we will see how silence can be the difference between averting and facing tragedies. However, this cycle of silence can be broken, creating environments where open communication is valued and encouraged through the power of psychological safety.

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