The importance of psychological safety
In 2012 Google launched an ambitious initiative called Project Aristotle. The goal was to identify why some teams at Google were more effective than others. What was the secret behind their success, and could it be replicated across other teams?
Following a detailed study of over 200 teams at Google, together with an in-depth review of insights and data from previous industry and academic research, they came to a surprising discovery. It wasn’t the skills in a team, the years of experience within a team, or even the diversity of a team that had the biggest impact on their effectiveness. The biggest indicator of success for a team at Google was found to be psychological safety.
What is psychological safety?
In her excellent book, the fearless organisation: creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and growth, Amy Edmondson describes psychological safety as:
“A climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves. More specifically, when people have psychological safety at work, they feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution.”
Amy Edmondson, The fearless organisation
As the term suggests, psychological safety is a collective feeling of safety within a team. Not physical safety, but emotional safety. That warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know that you’re able to take risks, to express thoughts and feelings, to highlight mistakes, all without fear of being shut down, ignored, or rebuked.
Why is psychological safety so important?
In some ways psychological safety is a bit like oxygen. Not because like oxygen it can be nebulous and hard to pin down, but because you only really notice it when it’s lacking (such as when at high altitude). You’ve probably worked in, or with teams in the past where people weren’t comfortable being themselves or sharing their concerns or mistakes. That was due to a lack of psychological safety.
Psychological safety is so important because the absence of it can lead to dysfunction. If people are afraid to speak their mind, then important concerns can go unheard. If people are made to feel uncomfortable for being different, then a team is more likely to fall into group think. If accidents and mistakes are brushed under the carpet, invaluable lessons won’t be learnt.
Psychological safety is important at the team level, the individual level, as well as the organisational level. It’s no good having psychological safety within a team, if someone is afraid to be honest with their manager. It’s no good having psychological safety with a manager, if the leaders within an organisation instil a culture of blame and recrimination.
Peter Drucker a founding father of modern management studies once commented that, “ If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it “, so let’s look at how you can measure psychological safety.
Measuring psychological safety
You can’t just ask a team, or a person if they feel psychologically safe. Well you could, but I doubt you’d get an honest answer, and because there are many different aspects to psychological safety, the question would be an over-simplification anyway.
The best way to measure psychological safety is through regular, anonymous surveys. Anonymous because otherwise you’re not going to get complete honesty, and regular because feelings of psychological safety will continually change.
In her book, the Fearless organisation, Amy Edmondson shares a set of 7 questions that have been shown to reliably measure psychological safety. You can use a 7 or 5-point scale, and because questions are framed both positively, and negatively, it’s important that scores for the questions with a (R) are reversed. The questions are:
- If you make a mistake on this team, it is often held against you. (R)
- Members of this team are able to bring up problems and tough issues.
- People on this team sometimes reject others for being different. (R)
- It is safe to take a risk on this team.
- It is difficult to ask other members of this team for help. (R)
- No one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.
- Working with members of this team, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilised.
Whilst these are excellent questions, they only touch on psychological safety within a team. Much like Chrissy Welch and her excellent framework for psychological safety in high performing teams, I’d suggest also including additional questions covering psychological safety within an organisation. For example:
About you
- I know what’s expected of me.
- My unique skills and talents are not valued. (R)
- I’m able to work in a way that gets the best out of me.
- If I make a mistake, it will be held against me (R)
- I feel safe sharing my thoughts, concerns and feelings.
- I’m able to learn and grow.
- I’m not empowered to make decisions and move forward. (R)
About your team
- I feel ignored within the team. (R)
- I receive constructive feedback from my teammates.
- It’s difficult to ask other members of the team for help. (R)
- It’s safe to take a risk on the team.
- I feel supported by my teammates.
- People on the team sometimes reject others for being different. (R)
- No one in the team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.
It’s also a good idea to give people the opportunity to add comments for their ratings.
Analysing psychological safety data
When analysing psychological safety data it’s important to look for teams where psychological safety might be lacking, along with trends across teams and individuals. For example, the data might suggest that people in general don’t feel empowered to take decisions, or that people rarely receive any constructive feedback.
Survey data will tell you how people are feeling, but it won’t tell you why they are feeling this way. If a team is lacking psychological safety, then a retrospective or team health check workshop can be a good way to better understand what the issues are. Some people might not be comfortable sharing their feelings with the rest of the team, so confidential conversations with individuals might also be required to better understand what is going on.
- Green for teams with high psychological safety.
- Amber for teams with medium psychological safety. These are teams to keep an eye on.
- Red for teams with low psychological safety. These are teams that require immediate action.
Because psychological safety is so important within an organisation it should be shared, discussed and valued at the senior level. A good way to communicate current levels of psychological safety is using something like a simple traffic light system. For example:
It’s also a good idea to show scores for the different questions across teams. This can highlight problem areas across the organisation.
Improving psychological safety
Having identified teams lacking psychological safety, or worrying trends across teams and individuals, what can you do to improve things? Left unchecked, psychological safety is unlikely to improve, if anything it tends to get worse, so action should be the order of the day.
- Identify the team(s) and / or areas to focus on.
- Explore what can be done to address problems. For example, by framing them as ‘How Might We?’ questions, such as ‘How might we create an environment where teams are able to take risks?’.
- Discuss and prioritise ideas and interventions.
- Create an action plan with agreed owners for actions.
A good approach to take is:
With a clear and agreed plan of action in place, it’s important to track how successful ideas and interventions are. Are they having the desired effect? It can take time for psychological safety to change, so don’t expect improvements straight away.
In summary
Psychological safety is too important to be ignored. By regularly measuring psychological safety, analysing and sharing the data, and taking concrete actions to address issues, organisations can not only foster an environment where employees feel heard, valued and empowered, but also one where they thrive.
See also
- Framework for Psychological Safety in High Performing Teams (Chrissy Welsh)
- Team Health Checks: the Person / Team / Product model (Erin Casalil)
- The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (Book by Amy C. Edmundson)
- Team dynamics: Five keys to building effective teams (Google)
- Squad Health Check model — visualizing what to improve (Spotify)
- 5 retrospectives to try with your team (UX for the Masses)
Image credits
- Feature photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
- Traffic lights image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay
Originally published at https://www.uxforthemasses.com on July 15, 2024.
