Psychological Safety: The Most Misunderstood of the Safeties

I once worked at an organization where, in every staff meeting, we were forced to sit in a circle and share something about our lives outside of work. I say “forced” because it was clear many group members did not want to participate. But we sat in a circle, it was explained, because everyone is equal in a circle. And we shared something personal because—well, I’m not sure why that was part of it, honestly.

When I first heard the term “psychological safety,” I equated it with this kind of forced circle-sitting situation. Someone tells you to hold hands, sing “Kumbaya,” and let an assigned partner lead you around blindfolded, even though said partner probably would not care if they ran you into a tree. All of this is in the name of teamwork or belonging or “workplace wellness.” But don’t disagree with anyone because that’s negativity and not allowed.

I think a lot of professionals misunderstand the meaning of psychological safety in a similar way, which is a shame. It’s unfortunate because real psychological safety makes organizations better, more innovative, and more productive. It’s also unfortunate because a lack of psychological safety keeps people from speaking up when they know there’s a problem.

Much of Amy Edmondson’s book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, is spent on providing recent examples of and research on psychological safety. It continues to be one of the most (if not the most) important factors in team success, as well as a team’s ability to learn from their mistakes.

Turns out that the situation I had originally associated with psychological safety was not psychologically safe at all. Luckily my team was not in charge of building space shuttles or engineering bridge suspension. But we did handle potentially dangerous animals in front of school children every day, so there’s that.

WHAT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY IS NOT

Let’s go ahead and dispel some of the myths.

Psychological safety is NOT about being nice and making people feel comfortable. Yes, you want people to feel like they won’t be punished for disagreement, but this is meant to encourage disagreement. Psychological safety often puts individuals in uncomfortable situations. Speaking out about a concern that nobody else seems to have noticed is hard. Pointing out an error to a superior is awkward and can feel “not nice,” but that’s the kind of action made possible (to everyone’s benefit) by a psychologically safe workplace.

Psychologically safe environments are NOT the same as “safe spaces.” As Adam Grant said in a recent tweet, “Safe spaces treat people as fragile and dissenting ideas as threats. Psychologically safe environments build the capacity to embrace and learn from respectful disagreement.”

Psychological safety is NOT a lack of accountability. In fact, in Amy Edmondson’s doctoral research she found that teams with high psychological safety were more likely to hold themselves accountable and admit mistakes.

Psychological safety is NOT unearned autonomy or consensus decision-making. While it’s true that on psychologically safe teams every voice is amplified and important, it does not mean that everyone has to agree. The practice does not provide team members more authority nor does it remove any hierarchical structures in place.

Psychological safety is NOT sitting in a circle and sharing an anecdote about your personal life. I may have been the only one who ever thought that, but it’s worth mentioning.

WHAT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY IS

Now that we’re clear on what we’re not talking about, let’s define what psychological safety can accomplish in a team environment. According to Edmondson, it’s “…a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”

Psychological safety is a group trait. It might seem like extroverts would naturally be more likely to speak out about an issue, but individual personality differences don’t determine as much as the dynamics within the group.

How can you tell whether your team, or a team within your organization, has psychological safety? You can pay to get official assessments, but Edmondson’s seven-criteria survey is a great starting point. These descriptions also give a clear picture of what psychological safety within a team looks like.

1. If you make a mistake on this team, it is not held against you.
2. Members of this team are able to bring up a problems and tough issues.
3. People on this team sometimes accept others for being different.
4. It is safe to take a risk on this team.
5. It isn’t difficult to ask other members of this team for help.
6. No one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.
7. Working with members of this team, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilized.
8. We sit in a circle at every meeting. (Just kidding. I wanted to see if you were paying attention.)

Are you part of a psychologically safe team? Do you lead a psychologically safe team? If so, kudos to you! If not, it’s something you can work on. And here’s why you’ll want to.

BENEFITS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Study after study tells us that psychological safety is beneficial—to our health, to our success, and to our bottom line. It’s interesting that psychological safety is a difficult variable to put your finger on and strikes some as “fluff,” because the benefits are tangible and anything but fluff.

Psychological safety:

• Has a direct impact on work performance.
• Makes organizations more likely to innovate.
• Makes organizations better able to adapt to change.
• Causes team members to feel more engaged and motivated.
• Can lead to better decision-making.
• Encourages a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
• Leads to less stress and burnout.
• Leads to less employee turnover.
• Is one of the best predictors of team productivity, quality, safety, and creativity.

Does it still sound fluffy to you? How about these sobering examples from Edmondson: the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, and the Columbia space shuttle explosion in 2003, were both caused by a lack of team psychological safety. People didn’t feel like they could speak up or push back. Thought about another way, if NASA employees had considered Amy Edmondson’s seven criteria, I’d venture to say most would not have found them to be an accurate description of their workplace.

Over the past few weeks discussing Edmondson’s book, two things are clear. First, in order to learn from failure and avoid future preventable failures, you have to be able to speak openly about said failure. Second, the team trait that is most clearly and strongly attached to individuals feeling comfortable admitting to and talking about failure is psychological safety.

So, how do team and company leaders foster psychological safety within their organizations? That’s what we’ll reckon with next week as we finish our exploration of Right Kind of Wrong. In the meantime, avoid forced circle-sitting and only share personal anecdotes if you want to.

Ask us about our Revenue Acceleration as a Service program if you’re interested in team coaching, training, and quick results. Reach out at mastery@maestrogroup.co.