Psychological Safety

“Shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”

- Amy Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School and Author of Fearless Organization

Of course, we're not talking about any unethical or illegal risks here...we're talking about small risks like voicing your opinion about a topic, bringing a new idea forward, or challenging decisions.  

It seems simple enough, right?

Not if you are in an environment where you feel like you might be openly reprimanded, passively excluded, or outright ignored. 

Not sure if your work environment is psychologically safe or not?

Here's what a safe team or organization looks like:

  • Conversational turn-taking

  • Social Sensitivity

  • Acknowledging and learning from mistakes

  • Encouraging curiosity and question asking

  • Being vulnerable (Able to say "I don't know" or "Help me understand")

You can build a safe environment for your team using Emergenetics.

Each thinking attribute is looking for specific things to feel safe enough to take the risks that drive innovation, fuel growth, and lead to professional success:

ANALYTICAL

  • To be able to trust teammates’ abilities.

  • Accurate information.

  • Freedom to ask questions.

CONCEPTUAL

  • The ability to share ideas without judgement.

  • The freedom to take risks and try new things.

  • To understand the overall vision of the team.

STRUCTURAL

  • To be able to trust that teammates will follow through on commitments.

  • Respect for their time.

  • Clear expectations and understanding of their role in the group.

SOCIAL

  • To feel like they can trust teammates with information shared.

  • The freedom to share about their life outside of work.

  • To feel like others care about their well being.

Be the leader whose team answers "Yes!" when asked if they feel like they can safely take risks at work - the team that is growing, innovating, and leading change.

Did you know you can measure psychological safety?

I'm a certified Fearless Organization Scan practioner, who can administer the survey designed by Amy Edmonson, and help you determine where your team is on the safety continuum. It is a quick survey that provides deep insights.  I love how it takes a somewhat ambiguous concept and turns it into to data to take action on (but that's my Analytical preference talking!)
If you'd like to add this assessment into your team development plans this fall, you can schedule time to explore it with me here.

I also want to acknowledge (or introduce you to) the fact that not all spaces can be "safe" for every individual. There are social dynamics at work that make true safety hard to achieve.  While I appreciate the language of psychological safety (and Amy Edmonson's work on it), as I have studied this work more deeply, I have leaned more into the idea of creating courageous spaces, rather than safe ones.  So you will hear me use this language interchangeably! We can all appreciate spaces where we can practice being more courageous, right?

Here's to creating spaces where we and our teams can be courageous!