What People Say in Training Rooms That They Don’t Say at Work 

Lots of organisations say they want people to speak up, challenge ideas and raise concerns early. 

But that only really happens when psychological safety at work is there in practice – when people feel able to ask awkward questions, voice doubts and say what they really think without worrying about what happens next. 

One of the interesting things about being an external facilitator is that people will often say things in a workshop that they would never say in the business.  This is partly that’s because you’re external, but it’s also because of the way we set up the group. 

We often agree a Vegas rule at the start of a programme: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”.  In other words, individual comments are not going to be quoted back to managers, leaders or HR.  This matters as it helps people relax a bit.  They know they can test things out, ask honest questions and talk about what work is really like without feeling exposed. 

And when that happens, you start to hear the questions and comments that don’t always get said out loud in everyday working life. 

They’re not usually hugely dramatic. They’re often thoughtful, practical and a bit uncomfortable.  But they can tell you a lot about culture – especially the gap between what an organisation says it values and what people actually experience day to day. 

Here are five that come up surprisingly often.  

Why Do People Say, “My Manager Needs This Training Too”? 

This is probably one of the most common things we hear. 

What people are really saying is:  “I can see the value in this, but I’m not sure what happens when I go back into an environment where my manager doesn’t work like this”. 

Whatever the topic, the point is often the same.  People are being asked to learn and practise good behaviours that they do not always see modelled by the people above them. 

People don’t learn in a vacuum.  They take their cues from what feels normal, what gets rewarded and what feels safe.  So, if someone leaves a workshop thinking, This makes sense, but I’m not sure my manager would react well if I actually did it, that’s useful information for leaders and L&D to hear. 

We know that training can develop skills, but it’s the culture that tells people whether it’s safe to use it. 

Why Do Employees Find it Hard To Challenge Upwards? 

It’s probably no surprise to you to hear that in a safe training environment, participants often complain about their own managers, senior leaders or things they disagree with.  We always challenge them to say, “Well, have you mentioned that?”, or “Have you pushed back?”  But the response is usually “no”.   

It’s because they either don’t feel safe, comfortable to challenge upwards, or they don’t realise they have permission to. 

A lot of organisations talk positively about openness.  They want people to speak up, challenge assumptions and raise concerns early. 

But individuals are often doing a quick risk calculation in their heads.  Will this be welcomed? Will it damage the relationship?  Will I look thoughtful, or difficult?  Will anything change, or am I just making life harder for myself?   … or simply they just don’t know how to or where to begin (which is where we come in to help them to manage upwards). 

And that’s an important part of psychological safety at work.  It isn’t just about whether people are allowed to speak up.  It’s about whether they believe it is genuinely safe to do so when it matters. 

What Happens When There’s “No Blame Culture” Until Something Goes Wrong? 

This one comes up a lot whenever accountability is in the mix. 

You’ll hear some version of: “It’s all very well saying there’s no blame culture, but what actually happens when something goes wrong?” 

That’s such a useful question because it gets underneath the language organisations use about culture and looks at what happens in real life. 

Lots of organisations say they want accountability without blame.  They want people to raise issues early, own mistakes and learn from them.  But people pay attention to what happens in the difficult moments, not just the happy ones. 

What happens when a deadline is missed?  When a client complains?  When a decision backfires?  When somebody admits they’ve got something wrong? 

That’s when people find out what the culture really is. 

If the response is curious, fair and focused on learning then trust grows.  But if the response is finger-pointing dressed up as accountability, people notice that too.  And next time, they may stay quiet for longer. 

So, when this question comes up in a workshop, it’s often pointing to a deeper uncertainty: Do we really mean what we say about accountability, or only when things are going well? 

Why Do The Most Senior Voices Still Dominate Meetings? 

Senior leaders might use language like “open forum”, “let’s collaborate”, “I want to hear your views”  …but does everyone believe that. 

Workshops might be talking about dialogue, decision-making or making space for different perspectives, and then someone will say something like: “Yes, but what do you do when the loudest voice in the room has already decided?” 

Most people know this dynamic.  Meetings can look open on the surface, but everyone in the room already knows whose view will carry the most weight. 

And once that dynamic is established, other people start making decisions about whether it’s worth contributing at all. 

They might still speak, but say less than they really think, soften their point, or not bother. Not because they have nothing to add, but because the room doesn’t feel open enough for it to make a difference. 

This matters because valuable insight gets lost in exactly these moments.  The quieter voice, the dissenting view, the half-formed concern …these are often the things that help teams think better. 

Why Do Leaders Say One Thing And Then Do Another? 

This is another theme that comes up a lot, even if people do not always phrase it quite so directly. 

Someone might say, “We say we support flexible working, but if someone comes in at 10 am people make comments.” Or, “We talk about wellbeing and work-life balance, but then emails are flying around late at night and everyone is still expected to be always on.” 

What people are noticing here is not just inconsistency, it’s the gap between the official message and the message that gets sent through everyday behaviour. 

That matters because culture is shaped just as much by what gets joked about, raised eyebrows at, or quietly rewarded as by what gets written in policies or said in leadership meetings.  Micro-messages might be tiny but the impact can be huge. 

This is where psychological safety at work can start to unravel — not through one big moment, but through the small signals people pick up every day. 

There’s some useful practical guidance from the NHS on supporting psychological safety in the day-to-day reality of work.  And we’ve seen similar themes play out in our own work with NHS leaders. 

So even if an organisation says the right things about flexibility, wellbeing or balance, people are still watching for the real cues e.g who gets praised, what gets normalised and what behaviour gets subtly judged.  What happens when someone actually takes up the flexibility or boundaries they are told they have. 

That is why this kind of comment comes up in workshops.  People are often trying to make sense of two conflicting messages at once: we want you to work in a healthy, sustainable way and we still notice, question or penalise you when you do. 

For leaders, this is such an important one to pay attention to.  Because trust is not usually lost through one big contradiction. It is worn away through small moments where people realise that the lived culture does not quite match the stated one. 

What Do These Workshop Conversations Tell Leaders About Psychological Safety At Work? 

Research from the CIPD on trust and psychological safety reinforces the point that people are more likely to speak up when the conditions feel safe, and we’ve seen similar themes play out in our own work with NHS leaders. 

Questions like these are rarely just throwaway comments, and they’re rarely complaints for the sake of it. 

Most of the time, they’re coming from people who want to do good work, contribute properly and engage with the behaviours their organisation says it values. 

But they do tell leaders and L&D teams some important things. 

First, people notice the gap between what they’re being taught and what they see modelled around them.  If managers aren’t demonstrating the behaviours people are being encouraged to use, that gap gets spotted very quickly. 

Secondly, speaking up nearly always involves some level of risk.  Even in healthy cultures, people are still thinking about hierarchy, relationships and consequences.  That’s normal. The question is whether the culture makes that risk feel manageable. 

And thirdly, safe spaces really do matter.  One of the reasons these conversations happen in workshops is that the conditions are different. The facilitator is impartial and the Vegas rule is clear.  People know they can be honest without their words being carried back into the business attached to their name. 

That creates a level of openness that can be incredibly useful. 

A safe space does not mean keeping quiet about serious concerns.  The wellbeing of the group, and the needs of the business, still matter enormously, of course.  If something comes up that we believe needs to be raised, we would always do that appropriately.  However, in most cases, what we contract with the group is that individual comments stay confidential, while any feedback to the organisation is shared as broader themes rather than attached to specific people. 

If you are reading this, you are probably an HR, L&D’er or leader in an organisation.  Wouldn’t you love to be a fly-on-the wall of some of these conversations we have in our workshops?? 

In the end, the value of these conversations is not that they give you a blow-by-blow account of what was said.  It’s that they offer a rare glimpse into what people may be thinking, questioning or quietly holding back at work.  And if those themes are showing up consistently in a safe learning space, they are probably telling you something worth paying attention to in the culture more broadly. 

If these kinds of questions feel familiar, it may be worth asking what people in your organisation are still unsure it is safe to say out loud.  Creating more open, honest conversations at work does not happen by accident – it takes intention, skill and everyday behaviour.  If you are looking to strengthen psychological safety, communication or challenge in your teams, take a look at our Building Psychological Safety and Managing Upwards workshops.