Conversations around psychological safety need to be normalised at workplaces, says writer Aparna Piramal Raje

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Writer and public speaker Aparna Piramal Raje highlighted that ‘psychological safety’ is a term that is not used in workplaces. She said that psychological safety is probably one of the biggest factors contributing to high-performing teams.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18’s Managing Editor Shereen Bhan at Future Female Forward, Raje stressed that there is a need to normalise conversations around mental health, similar to how there are budgetary allotments for gender diversity in companies. 

Raje said, “When it comes to mental health in the workplace, something like psychological safety is probably one of the biggest factors that contribute to high-performing teams. But it’s still not a word that we’re using.” 

“Mental health is still a very early stage conversation, although there’s a direct correlation with productivity and efficiency and all the things that we do care about in the corporate workplace,” she added.

Raje has had over 100 conversations since her book ‘Working Out of the Box: 40 Stories of Leading CEOs’ was released. Interestingly, she has had conversations about mental health in places ranging from an art gallery to a steel factory to an army cantonment to a corporate headquarters. She emphasised that it is necessary to have the intent to have conversations about mental health without being scared.

Talking about women’s mental health, Raje said, “My favourite line from a book is that men have unwarranted self-confidence. And women have unwarranted self-doubt. So we are constantly trying to prove ourselves to this mold of looking a certain way or being qualified in a certain way until we start seeking that validation from ourselves and not looking for it from other sources.”

Raje added that the unwarranted self-doubt that women have about not feeling good enough affects them at all levels. “I think that’s something that we really need to address and tackle individually, as well as collectively.”

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow