Psychological safety doesn't guarantee effectiveness. It just makes it easier to find out what people have to offer. Sometimes, that's a happy surprise. But when people feel able to express themselves, and you find that what they say is not adding value, then you have a responsibility to help. To coach. And even though it's not fun to give people that kind of feedback, it's better to know that someone is in need of it than to remain in the dark. Moreover, it's only fair to let your colleagues know that the impact they're having is not what they're hoping it is.

People opened useful messages for extrinsic reasons; they had something to gain or lose. They opened the other messages for intrinsic reasons; they were just curious.

Our study emphasizes approaching the patient as a human being and not as an anonymous case study,” Turner told ScienceDaily…

Instead of seeing patients as duffel bags of symptoms, viewing them as full-fledged human beings helps physicians in their work and patients in their treatment. This doesn’t mean doctors and nurses should abandon checklists and protocols. But it does mean that a single-minded reliance on processes and algorithms that obscure the human being on the other side of the transaction is akin to a clinical error.

Every circumstance in which we try to move others by definition involves another human being. Yet in the name of professionalism, we often neglect the human element and adopt a stance that’s abstract and distant. Instead, we should recalibrate our approach so that it’s concrete and personal—and not for softhearted reasons but for hardheaded ones.

Put more generally: In settings that are important to us and where we could be devalued based on stereotypes about our identity, we feel safer with our own kind.