Leaders are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of psychological safety in the workplace.
Unfortunately, it’s easy for this concept to become a buzzword rather than a practical component of your organizational culture.
Psychological safety is the shared belief among team members that interpersonal risk-taking is safe and won’t result in punishment. It’s one of the most important traits of high-performing teams.
As Harvard Business Review (HBR) explains, psychological safety allows one to speak one’s mind, share non-standard ideas, and express disagreements without fearing negative repercussions.
Here’s an overview of how to increase psychological safety in your workplace.
The Importance of Psychological Safety
Cornell University conducted a study of psychological safety in work teams.
Here’s what they learned:
- It positively impacts learning behavior and team performance: A safe and supportive environment encourages experimentation and learning from failure.
- It cultivates innovation through disagreement: A team that agrees on everything can be a symptom of groupthink or unwillingness to contribute ideas for fear of reprisal. Psychological safety rewards others for speaking up, resulting in more thought diversity and innovation.
- It requires a culture shift: Team psychological safety describes a climate in which people are comfortable being themselves. All team members must hold a similar perception of safety. For example, if managers feel psychologically safe but team members don’t, the team won’t receive its benefits.
Psychological safety also improves retention. A study from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that it reduces employees’ desire to quit from 12% down to approximately 3%.
So how can leaders successfully capitalize on these benefits and enhance team psychological safety?
How To Increase Psychological Safety on Your Team
Despite the benefits of psychological safety, McKinsey reports that only 26% of leaders successfully create psychologically safe environments.
How can leaders reverse this trend?
Below are four areas to prioritize when enhancing team psychological safety.
1. Inclusion
A strong sense of belonging is vital for a team to feel psychologically safe.
If your team members trust one another and feel included, they’re much more likely to speak up and admit mistakes than if they don’t feel comfortable with those around them.
The American Psychological Association (APA) found the following practices improve team psychological safety:
- Team members who are involved in decision-making are 21% more likely to feel psychologically safe.
- Team members who have low-pressure inclusive opportunities to connect with one another and socialize are 12% more likely to feel psychologically safe.
- Team members whose leaders foster positive relationships between coworkers are 22% more likely to feel psychologically safe.
When team members have opportunities to connect and improve their feeling of being part of the team, they feel more comfortable contributing.
2. Intelligent Failure
In a psychologically safe environment, there’s a positive attitude towards risk-taking and failure.
While psychological safety doesn’t mean there aren’t performance standards or accountability, it does mean that risk-taking is encouraged and failure isn’t punished.
According to Harvard Business School Professor and Teamraderie Advisor Amy Edmondson, intelligent failure has four components:
- It occurs in a new territory where there isn’t existing information
- It’s goal- and opportunity-driven
- It’s informed by existing knowledge and information
- It’s not any bigger than it needs to be
In a psychologically safe work environment, intelligent failure is encouraged and treated as a learning opportunity. Taking risks within the scope of what’s permissible is also encouraged.
3. Candor
A common misunderstanding of psychological safety is that it requires being nice.
The reality is that there’s a difference between being overly nice and being kind. According to Edmondson, “We have to be tough enough to be kind, which is caring, forward-looking, and truly wanting to help each other.”
This requires open communication and candor. Opportunities to give and receive feedback are critical. APA reports that team members who have opportunities to give and receive feedback are at least 20% more likely to feel psychologically safe.
Employees must be able to express their opinions, disagree with a boss, and speak up for a workplace to be truly psychologically safe.
This can often entail uncomfortable conversations—however, if the workplace is truly psychologically safe, participants will have a prior understanding that these conversations won’t result in punishment and are in pursuit of a common goal.
4. Teaming
A strong willingness to help is vital to cultivating a psychologically safe workspace.
Employees must be willing to ask for and receive help from others. This creates a more collaborative environment and can help break down siloes, which is especially important for work-from-home environments.
According to APA, team members with ample opportunities to contribute and collaborate are 25% more likely to feel psychologically safe
Cultivating opportunities for employees to connect with one another is incredibly important to foster this kind of environment.
Improving Psychological Safety With Teamraderie
Teamraderie’s four-part Psychological Safety team journey is a practical way to enhance psychological safety on your team.
This journey, created in partnership with Amy Edmondson, comprises four Teamraderie experiences—live, virtual, expert-led workshops—intended to improve psychological safety on your team by focusing on each of the above factors.
Click here to learn more about this journey and how it can benefit your team.
