Recently, I was in a meeting with an external data team when someone told me I “obviously wasn’t a statistician.”

They weren’t wrong. I’m not. In fact, my high school math teacher told me I’d never work in tech because my math wasn’t good enough. 

But here we are — in a world where I spend every day buried in data, with a team building software that helps visitor attractions make evidence based decisions.

So when someone drops a line like that, I know that’s part of our work democratizing data – it’s about making data accessible for people like me, those who aren’t data analysts or engineers, so we can get to insight. But it does make me think: how many people’s enthusiasm would be shut down in that moment? How many people back out of a conversation, an insight that could lead to something big, even a future career in data… because somewhere along the way they were made to feel like they didn’t belong?

And how many ideas are we losing because of it?

Psychological safety isn’t a ‘nice to have’ in data conversations. It’s the whole thing.

Here’s something I’ve seen over and over in museums, galleries, theme parks, zoos, aquariums, stadiums — you name it:

The data is there. The tools are there. But the conversations? Sometimes, they can fall flat. Quiet. Safe in all the wrong ways.

People nod, agree, flip through the dashboards. No questions. No challenging the data. It feels smooth. Efficient. Almost like… success.

But smooth data meetings aren’t a sign of alignment. They can also be a sign people don’t feel safe to say what they really think – or worse, that they don’t understand, from fear of what others might judge of them if they were to speak up.

In other words: if your data culture feels too tidy, you’re probably leaving truth on the table.

Why it matters for visitor attractions

Whether you’re in marketing or membership, operations or education, visitor services or finance — you’re making decisions every day, hopefully informed by data.

But data isn’t neutral. It needs context, debate and curiosity to become useful. And for that, you need a team that feels safe to speak up.

Without psychological safety, here’s what happens:

• People stay quiet when something doesn’t make sense
• Mistakes go unspoken and as a result, uncorrected
• Teams become overly reliant on one ‘data expert’
• Bad assumptions go unchallenged
• And the scariest part? Lots of nodding, masking a lack of belief: belief in the data, or the finding, the need for action, or the work itself. 

You can have the best dashboards in the world. But if people feel the need to fake their understanding or hold back on what they really think, the insight never gets through.

What psychological safety actually looks like

This doesn’t mean your meetings turn into therapy sessions or you throw out critical thinking.

It means this:

• People can and do say “I don’t get it” without shame
• Junior staff disagree with leadership (and get thanked for it)
• Someone can point out a flaw in the data without being seen as difficult
• “I changed my mind” is something you celebrate, not hide
• Mistakes are seen as leveling up, not a place to call people out

   

Five ways to build it as a leader

You don’t need a psych degree or a post it fueled workshop. Just be human, open and intentional.

1. Kill the myth of the ‘data person’

There’s no such thing. Data is for everyone — and everyone brings context. If your ops manager doesn’t understand the forecast, that’s not on them. That’s on how it’s communicated.

“Your perspective is different — that’s exactly why we need it.”

2. Admit when you don’t know

If you’re in charge and model vulnerability, it gives everyone else permission to do the same.

“I don’t understand this part either. Let’s figure it out together.”

3. Interrupt the nodding

Silence looks like agreement, but it usually isn’t. Ask for the weird ideas. The outliers. The stuff people almost said.

“What’s not sitting right for you here?”

4. Reframe mistakes as learning

This one’s huge. If people think they’ll get grilled for surfacing an error, you’ll never hear about them. But if mistakes are just part of the story, the whole team levels up.

“Good catch. Let’s talk about what we missed and what we need to change in our procedures.”

5. Watch who’s not speaking

Data conversations often default to the same loud voices. Make a habit of drawing others in — especially those with frontline experience.

“What are you seeing on the ground that might not show up here?”

And, dare we say it, “What does your gut tell you that the data doesn’t?”

Bottom line?

You don’t build a data culture by teaching people to analyze. You build it by making it safe to be curious, wrong, messy and honest.

That’s where real insight lives.

And that’s what moves the needle — not just on the numbers, but on the way your team thinks, acts, and shows up together.

So if you’re not hearing enough questions and debate in your data meetings… it might be time to look beyond the spreadsheet, or the dashboard.

Start with the room.