Imagine being part of a team where you feel safe to share your ideas, voice your concerns, and admit your mistakes without fear of being judged or ridiculed. A team where collaboration, innovation, and high performance are the norm.

This is the power of psychological safety in the workplace. It's not just a buzzword or a nice-to-have; it's a critical component of building highly effective teams.

In fact, according to Google's Project Aristotle study, which analysed hundreds of teams, there are 5 essential elements that lead to high performance.

- A sense of safe work environments among team members,

- Dependability among teammates,

- Structure and clarity in roles and responsibilities,

- Meaningful work,

- Impact of results.

Of these five elements, psychological safety was the most important for teams to strive for. And for good reason – when team members feel safe to express themselves, it can have a positively profound effect on employee engagement, better problem-solving and creativity and collaboration, improved productivity, and enhanced retention.

However, despite the clear benefits, research from UK consultancy firm, Behave, surveying over 200 HR leaders found that only 16% of the sample admitted to having a clear understanding of what psychological safety means.

What is psychological safety?

While the origins of the concept of psychological safety can be traced back to the 1960s, when researchers Edgar H. Schein and Warren G. Bennis first introduced the term - it wasn't until more recently that it has gained widespread attention in the corporate world. Thanks to the pioneering work of Amy Edmondson in the late 1990s, psychological safety has become a hot topic for organisations and teams alike.

Amy Edmondson, a leading researcher in psychological safety and team effectiveness, defines psychological safety on the Digital HR Leaders podcast as:

 "a shared belief that the environment is conducive to interpersonal risks. Like asking for help, admitting a mistake or criticising a project - that can be challenging to do, so this is the sort of sense that this is a special place where that kind of activity is okay."

She continues to add that "it is not being nice or soft or guaranteed applause for everything you have to say, it is also not permission to whine and it is not permission to slack off."

In fact, in her in her must-read book, The Fearless Organisation, Amy busts a few myths about what psychological safety is not. Psychological safety is not:

·     About being nice

·     A personality factor, e.g., extroversion

·     Just another word for trust 

Essentially, it is about creating an environment where team members feel comfortable being vulnerable, making mistakes, taking risks, and giving honest feedback, without the fear of retribution.

The relationship between psychological safety and performance standards

“Psychological safety is not a silver bullet, it is not the sort of a panacea for organisations they will suddenly be fixed if they have psychological safety. In fact, most simply, I think psychological safety needs to be paired with ambition, is one way to put it, but it needs to be paired with a motivation to really do great work” says Amy. 

To create highly effective teams, organisations have to enable two things:

• High performance standards: through training, coaching, clarity about goals etc.

• Psychological safety: so that people don’t hold back and instead drive innovation 

These two elements are connected, and their relationship can be better understood using Amy Edmondson's four zone model:

1.      Apathy Zone. People show up to work but aren’t particularly bothered. They might be prone to procrastination, they’re typically disengaged, and they don’t exert unnecessary effort collaborating with colleagues.

2.     Comfort Zone. People generally enjoy working with each other, but they’re not challenged by the work they do. They don’t seek stretch assignments, harder tasks or innovate particularly.

3.     Anxiety Zone. An unfortunately common zone, employees feel unable to speak up and simultaneously are buried under a mountain of work that feels insurmountable.

4.     Learning Zone. The work is challenging, complex and satisfying. People collaborate and learn from each other, and the organisation is able to excel in an uncertain environment.

However, in order to move any team into the learning zone, there needs to be a combination of both high performance standards and psychological safety. This is where leadership plays an important role in creating a psychologically safe work environment.

The Role of Leaders and HR in Creating Psychological Safety 

Each employee brings their own level of expertise and experience, which can provide a great amount of knowledge and wisdom to the team.  But if there is no sense of inclusion or belonging, this expertise and knowledge goes untapped. This is why creating a psychologically safe environment is crucial to building highly effective teams.

In a world where teams are increasingly hybrid and distributed, pinned with the ongoing uncertainty of job security as a result of digital transformation, it has never been more important for HR professionals and senior leadership to ensure that psychological safety becomes an integral part of their organisation.

Create Safe Spaces for Open Communication

HR and leadership teams can start by taking an active interest in understanding the team dynamics, creating safe spaces to discuss ideas, leading with vulnerability and encouraging honest feedback. They should also be mindful of staying away from blame-culture, punishing errors and mistakes, or micro-managing processes.

Be Transparent

In times of uncertainty, it has never been more crucial that you are transparent and clear about what the organisation is up against. By doing this, “you are essentially setting the rationale for why their voice might be needed,” says Amy.

People leaders and HR have to be proactive about inviting people to speak up, and the only way to achieve this is to demonstrate the behaviours you want to see, encouraging your people leaders to speak with candour too. “What are you seeing? What concerns do you have? What questions do you have and just make it more difficult for people to remain silent than to speak up because you have issued those invitations,” explains Amy.

Be Open to Feedback

And when others do speak up, you have to respond well. You must not shoot the messenger. Responding well, in a way which further contributes to psychological safety, consists of two things:

1. Showing appreciation to the person for bringing this information to the table;

2. Responding initially in a forward-looking manner, not jumping into a retrospective analysis. Instead of asking “why did this happen?”, ask “what can I do to help?” instead.

By showing that you are open to feedback and value their contributions, HR professionals and leadership can cultivate an environment where everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves, while growing together and learning best practices from each other.  This will enable you teams to transition into the Learning Zone where they can work better together, move faster, and create long-lasting sustainable change.

It is about creating mentoring and coaching relationships within the organisation, by fostering a safe and learning environment which encourages employees to speak up, collaborate together and develop. It’s also about nurturing employee mental health and well-being, by understanding employee needs, and helping to ensure they feel supported.

Measuring Psychological Safety at Work

But how do you know if your organisation has a psychologically safe work environment? What are the key indicators that can be measured?

According to the same survey by Behave, a staggering 73% of HR Leaders find it challenging to measure psychological safety.

Organisations can measure psychological safety in a number of ways. One way to start is by conducting employee surveys. This can help you understand how your employees perceive and experience the organisation’s culture.

Questions such as “Do you feel comfortable taking risks in this organisation?” or “Do you feel your voice is heard and respected?” can help uncover areas that need attention and improvement.

By looking at the variance or differences in responses between various departments and by benchmarking them against industry standards, leaders can gain valuable insight into how different teams within the organisation perceive psychological safety. This can help them identify any patterns and insights needed to further improve the overall working culture.

Finally, it is important to create a feedback loop where people leaders can listen to the results of the surveys adjust their strategies accordingly. This will ensure that initiatives are tailored to address any issues raised by employees, and that progress is continually tracked over time.  

A Future Built on Psychological Safety

As we can see, building highly effective teams requires a strong foundation of psychological safety. Without this, teams may struggle to reach their full potential and individual members may feel unfulfilled or disengaged.

The bottom line is that it is the responsibility of HR and leadership to prioritise and actively cultivate a culture of psychological safety within their organisations. By creating safe spaces, being transparent and open to feedback, and implementing effective measures for measuring psychological safety, they can lay the groundwork for a more positive and productive future for their teams.

In the end, it is all about fostering an environment where everyone feels comfortable contributing their ideas, thoughts, and concerns, leading to better collaboration, innovation, and success. And that's something worth investing in for any organisation looking to thrive in the long term.

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