Psychological
safety
What is psychological safety?
The concept of psychological safety gained acceptance through Google’s research. It can be described as feeling safe to express one’s thoughts without fear of negative reactions.
It is created when we feel comfortable taking risks, questioning, or speaking up.
Psychological safety is a central part of Mindtemp’s operations, both internally and with our clients.
It fosters sustainable employees and effective teams. Mindtemp’s own studies and literature reviews demonstrate the relationship between psychological safety and effective sustainable teams.
In essence, if we feel good, we can perform well. To feel good and perform well, we must dare to express our opinions.
Why is it so important?
Psychological safety enables us to contribute to an organization’s creativity and productivity, allowing us to use our knowledge and capabilities effectively. Studies show that this is essential for fostering innovation and development. Studier visar att detta är en förutsättning för att skapa innovation och utveckling.
Additionally, psychological safety contributes to improved well-being and performance among all employees, resulting in better quality and increased team maturity.
How to foster psychological safety?
Psychological safety is not solely a leadership issue, although leadership often needs to take the lead. It requires everyone’s participation in creating a safe environment throughout the organization.
Here are some tips on creating psychological safety within a team:
- Foster open communication where everyone feels comfortable expressing their opinions and feelings.
- Respect each other’s opinions and feelings.
- Create an environment where it’s acceptable to fail and learn from mistakes.
- Provide constructive feedback.
In essence, establish a culture where failure is allowed, even recommended, to evaluate and develop new solutions.
Mindtemp uses the latest research to measure and analyze psychological safety. Through the digital coach, Mindtemp fosters increased self-leadership, allowing employees to reflect on how they contribute to psychological safety.
As a line manager, in an HR department, or in another leadership position, you receive help with advanced analysis to not only assess the level of psychological safety but also understand the correlations between psychological safety and other health categories. This enables you to more easily and effectively continue developing the organization.
Mindtemp and psychological safety
Psychological safety has gained attention through the work of Amy Edmondson and, perhaps most notably, Google’s research.
Mindtemp’s work on sustainable and effective teams includes psychological safety.
Psychological safety is one of the 12 health categories we focus on in our work. This allows us to support you with advanced analysis where we can assess not only the current level of psychological safety but also how it relates to other health categories.
Both Amy Edmondson and Google emphasize that psychological safety involves challenging ourselves and each other.
Google’s research indicates that employees can trust that their colleagues will deliver what has been promised. If I can rely on my colleagues to do what they are supposed to do and receive what I need from them, then I feel secure in delivering what I should.
Mindtemp’s model for working with psychological safety enables you to see and work with cause and effect.
In other words, how does psychological safety relate to other health categories, and are there other health categories that strengthen or weaken your work on psychological safety?
This allows for proactive and cost-effective interventions.
Brief history
The concept of psychological safety was coined by the American psychologist Carl Rogers in 1954. Rogers, one of the more well-known psychologists, conducted research that serves as a foundation for contemporary studies. Personally, I appreciate that it was through Rogers’ work that we began measuring the effects of therapy.
Rogers states that psychological safety is based on a three-step process: 1. Accepting the individual’s unconditional worth, 2. Providing an environment without external evaluation, and 3. Working empathetically.
The definition has been further developed and is used to describe our (human) need for security and the ability to experiment without punishment for initiatives or failures.
W. E. Deming also incorporated the concept in his 14 points of leadership, introduced in 1982. Deming’s seventh point is “Drive out fear so that everyone may work effectively for the company.”
For me and Mindtemp, William A. Kahn’s studies are particularly interesting as they use a quantitative method and demonstrate that psychological safety enables employees to “employ or express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally.”
Kahn’s studies emerged at the same time as Toyota’s renowned LEAN production system, in which Deming was involved.
LEAN relies on psychological safety, just like the agile method built on LEAN.
And now we come to Amy Edmondson, who popularized the concept in 1999. We highly recommend her book “The Fearless Organization,” which focuses on psychological safety.
I became interested in psychological safety when studying sustainable and effective teams and reading about Google’s research in 2016.
This led me to explore habits (read Charles Duhigg) and the use of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for goal setting, measurement, and follow-up.
My interest further developed when I got to know Lucas Gren, now a colleague at Mindtemp, who researches and implements “Agile Effective Teams.”
Future
Future studies show that machines are taking over more routine tasks.
Just look at Tesla’s production system, which surpasses all other car manufacturers and relies heavily on robots.
For us humans, emotional capacity and building relationships are becoming increasingly important.
It is up to us to use AI, robots, and machines to create increased efficiency, and we do this by working in interdisciplinary teams, where psychological safety is a prerequisite for improving emotional capacity and creating these effective teams.
Other sectors in society, such as healthcare, education, and caregiving, already require psychological safety today, and we can see that organizations falter, for example, healthcare, when it is lacking.
If you want help creating and establishing continuous work with psychological safety, Mindtemp’s digital health coach is the most cost-effective solution today. But don’t just take my word for it, try it yourself. Drop us a line at hello@mindtemp.com.
